ACE-Step 1.5 + Chiptune Remix Setup

Target system: Windows 11, RTX 2080 Ti (11GB, Turing)

Part 1 — Prerequisites

1. Update your NVIDIA driver. Use the current Game Ready or Studio driver from NVIDIA's site. Don't rely on whatever Windows Update installed.
2. Install Python 3.11 or 3.12. Get it from python.org, not the Microsoft Store. Tick "Add python.exe to PATH" during install.
   • Avoid 3.13 — there's a known torchaudio backend problem on Windows, plus general dependency friction across the AI stack.
3. Install Git for Windows. https://git-scm.com/download/win — defaults are fine.
4. Install uv (optional but recommended, it makes the ACE-Step install much cleaner):

   pip install uv
   

5. Free up ~50GB of disk. Model weights plus dependencies add up fast.

Part 2 — Install ACE-Step 1.5

1. Open PowerShell and pick a working folder:

   cd C:\
   mkdir AI
   cd AI
   

2. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/ACE-Step/ACE-Step-1.5.git
   cd ACE-Step-1.5
   

3. Install PyTorch with CUDA first. Go to https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/, select Stable / Windows / Pip / Python / CUDA, and run the command it gives you. Getting this from the selector rather than a copied command matters — a mismatched CUDA build silently falls back to CPU.
4. Install the rest:

   uv sync
   

   Or, without uv:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

5. Verify CUDA is actually live before going further:

   python -c "import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available(), torch.cuda.get_device_name(0))"
   

   You want True NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. If it says False, step 3 didn't take.
6. Launch the web UI:

   python app.py --port 7860
   

   Then open http://127.0.0.1:7860 in your browser. First launch downloads the model weights — expect a long wait.

Turing-specific settings

• Use FP16 weights, not BF16. The RTX 20-series lacks native bfloat16 support and emulates it, which is slower. Where a model variant offers both, pick FP16 and set the precision flag explicitly rather than leaving it on auto.
• Skip the XL variant. It wants 12GB minimum and 20GB recommended; you have 11GB. Standard 1.5 has every editing mode XL has.
• Don't use --half or CPU offload. Those are for cards under ~6GB. You have headroom — running full speed is the point.

Part 3 — Source material tools

Getting the Gen 1 tracks

• foobar2000 + the foo_gep component (Game Emu Player). This plays .gbs files and — the important part — lets you mute individual channels and export each one separately. That gives you clean stems (pulse 1, pulse 2, wave, noise) with no AI separation needed.
• VGMusic.com — the long-running archive of MIDI transcriptions. Gen 1 is thoroughly covered. MIDI is the better starting point if you want to change tempo, key, or groove.

DAW (for re-instrumenting the MIDI)

Pick one:

• REAPER — best fit for this kind of work. Fully functional unlimited evaluation, $60 personal license if you keep using it.
• Waveform Free — genuinely free, no feature crippling, good MIDI editing.
• LMMS — free and open source, lighter weight, a bit rougher around the edges.

Supporting tools

• Audacity — trimming, normalizing, and format conversion between steps.
• A general MIDI soundfont (e.g. FluidR3_GM) — gives you usable instruments immediately so you can hear the arrangement before committing to real VSTs.

Part 4 — The actual remix workflow

1. Pick a track and get both formats — the GBS rip and the MIDI transcription.
2. Decide your route:
   • Melody-faithful: start from the MIDI. Open it in your DAW, swap instruments, adjust tempo and swing. You control exactly how recognizable the tune stays.
   • Texture-faithful: start from the GBS audio. Export the muted channel stems from foobar2000.
3. Rough out the arrangement in the DAW. Even a crude version — right instruments, right tempo, right feel — gives ACE-Step something coherent to work from.
4. Bounce to WAV and load it into ACE-Step's editing modes:
   • Cover — re-synthesizes new timbres over the existing melodic skeleton. The main tool for "same song, different genre."
   • Layering — adds complementary instruments to what you feed it. Good for fleshing out a sparse chiptune arrangement.
   • Completion — builds a full arrangement from a single motif. Use when you want it to take real liberties.
   • Repaint — regenerates one time-window. Use to fix a section that came out wrong without re-rolling the whole track.
5. Iterate on the prompt. Describe instrumentation, tempo, and production style, not the song. The model doesn't know Pokémon music — the melody has to come from your audio input every time.
6. Final mix back in the DAW. ACE-Step output has a faint metallic shimmer on sustained notes and cymbals. It hides well under lo-fi, breakbeat, or distortion; for clean jazz you may want a de-esser or gentle high-shelf cut.

Troubleshooting

Note on releasing

Nintendo owns these compositions and is more active than most publishers about fan music. Making remixes is uncontroversial; publishing them is where takedowns happen, and a takedown is usually the extent of it. Worth knowing before you build a channel around it.