CHIPTUNES: Lo-Fi Cyberjams of Yesteryear [Blip Festival Nov 29!]

Agentflit

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ALERT!!! ALERT!!! EPIC WIN!!!
//highly dangerous chiptune assault unit v2.0//
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WHAT IS GOING ON?

HEY MAN CHECK OUT THIS COMPO AND FRESH ALBUM (THEY ARE CLICKABLE)



WHAT THE FUCK ARE CHIPTUNES?

Glad you asked, chiptunes are pulserays to your skull featuring old machines, e.g.:

Atari VCS / Atari 5200 / Atari 7800 / Atari Lynx / Coleco Vision / GameBoy / GameBoy Advance / Genesis/MegaDrive / Intellivision /
Nintendo 64 / NES / NeoGeo Pocket / PC Engine / P/ECE / Playstation / MasterSystem/GameGear / SuperNES / Saturn / Vectrex / Wonder Swan
Amiga / Apple / Atari XL/XE / Atari ST / AmstradCPC / Commodore64 / FM-7 / FM-TOWNS / MSX / IBM-PC(adlib) / IBM-PC(mod) / PC-6001 /
PC-8801 / PC-9801 / TI99 / TRS-80 / VIC-20 / X1 / X68000 / ZX Spectrum


WHAT ARE THESE CRAZY FILE EXTENSIONS?? GBS, NSF, GBS, SPC, SID...??

They're chiptune files (NSF=NES, SID=Commodore 64, SPC=SNES, GYM=Genesis, etc), which need special players. Here's my favorite ones:


Zophar's huge list of players
NSFPlug (winamp plugin for NSFs)
NEZPlug (winamp plugin for GBSs)
SIDPlay2 (player for SID files)
SNESAmp (winamp plugin for SPC files)
YMAMP (winamp plugin for GYM files)


WHO MAKES CHIPTUNES??

MODERN LOBIT TACTICAL SPECIALISTS:

|| Nullsleep || Rushjet1 || Bit Shifter || Anamanaguchi || SLiVeR ||Strobe || Chibi-Tech ||
|| Goto80 || Hally || Anonymouse || Starpause || YMCK || Virt || she || Vim || USK || Alex Mauer ||
|| David Sugar || x|k || Divag || Mesu Kasumai || Lo-Bat || Psilodump || Paza || Minusbaby || 4mat ||
...PLUS BILLIONS MORE HOLY CRAP


NO REALLY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE CHIPTUNES?

The chiptune scene branches from the older demosceme. It's basically a bunch of CS and engineering nerds who never ever socialize and compensate by fiddling with hardware from the 80s. The results, magical. Older chiptunes coded into games "in the day" are also chiptunes, of course, but they are usually much simpler due to the fact that most were coded in RAW ASSEMBLY (FROM HELL)! Modern chiptunes benefit from advanced software from the world of tomorrow.

Chiptunes might be referred to as a genre, but since they often imitate other genres, they're really something else...although a good majority of chiptunes are peppy/rock/techno.

Since old music hardware is mostly embarrassingly analog, chiptunes require paitience and can be frustrating to make. For example, the NES can only push out 5 sounds (channels) at once: two "square" (beeep), one "triangle" (doooooh), one "noise" (percussion-ish), and one "sample/DPCM" (really low quality samples). The greatest chiptune artists are masters of minimalism, and getting the biggest sound out of the severe limitations. Fusions of the chiptune sound with real instruments are common too.

Some like chiptunes for nostalgia, others for it's limitations and purity, and still others for the community. I like em for all three plus they're fun to make.

(HERE COMES PERSONAL WHORAGE): Dunno Mildew
(BUT SERIOUSLY, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CRAP, GO LISTEN TO VIRT)

I REQUIRE CHIPTUNES!!!

www.8bitpeoples.com
www.2a03.org
www.vorc.org
www.chiptune.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiptunes
www.battleofthebits.org
www.c64.sk/
www.nullsleep.com
www.micromusic.net/
http://sid.oth4.com/ (MP3s of lots of old C64 games played with the actual SID chip.)


GIVE ME ADVANCED SOFTWARE/HARDWARE FROM THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (for composing chiptunes)

Famitracker (easier to learn tarcker)
MML/MCK (more tech-y, harder to learn)
MidiNES (control your NES with MIDI!)
LSDJ (make tunes on the go)
Build a NES cartridge that plays your NSFs!
GoatTracker (c64 tracker...I hear it's popular but I know nothing about it)
Magical 8bit plug (easiest way to make NES tunes, but not quite as accurate)
PLUS MORE THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER RIGHT NOW

CHIPTUNES SUCK AND YOU SUCK TOO! THIS OP IS TOO BIG!

Deusfaux

provide me with something I can click that is immediate and engages my senses

Echo

Deusfaux wrote:

provide me with something I can click that is immediate and engages my senses

Monty on the Run

Agentflit

ENGAGE WARP DRIVE

and

FIRE LASERS

DIRECT AURAL HIT!

Echo

Add http://sid.oth4.com/ to ze link list! MP3s of lots of old C64 games played with the actual SID chip.

Echo

Also: I give Official Mod Sanctionâ„¢ for linking chip tunes.

UncleSporky

Deusfaux wrote:

provide me with something I can click that is immediate and engages my senses

That's hard, because you need a plugin or program that will play these kind of files. But once you get an NSF player:

Dirty Cartrige - SLiVeR (SLiVeR is awesome)
Fat Man Small Car - SLiVeR
N-tune 001 - naruto (the happiest damned tune you will hear all day)

The full 2a03 archives

Two covers I made, of the SimCity SNES town and the Warioware Wii dance music

Echo

I still the Commando theme.

Hazz

Lots 'o links!

'Chipcore'
Tetrominon, bitches.
Magical 8bit Plug (what the above are made with)

Chiptunes!

Echo

Cauldron II (Pumpkin Man) - I love this one. I'll dig up a link to the MP3 later. It's not an actual chiptune, but an awesome remix of a chiptune from an awesome game. Watch it!

They can do Monkey Island too.

PPOT released a DVD with that concert; I'm going to buy it some time.

Squirminator2k

A chap on the Dream17 Forum called "bucky o'hare" (he is not, so far as I have been able to determine, a green space rabbit) knocked out the most superb Chiptunes remix featuring songs from Superfrog on the Amiga. The link for it is dead but I'm re-uploading it to my own webspace and I'll stuff a link up here when it's done.

RichardTauber

I FEEL LIKE I COULD ... COULD ... TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

www.myspace.com/ktttwab

Agentflit

If you're into IRC there's #8bitpeoples @ irc.efnet.net and #botb @ irc.esper.net (which often hosts one-hour compos for varrying formats...lots of fun even if you suck like me).


Oh, and how did I forget 8BP050? It's pretty much the best chiptune release ever:

http://8bp050.8bitpeoples.com/

...which accompanied pretty much the biggest chiptune event ever:

http://www.blipfestival.org/

Squirminator2k

Do you like SUperfrog? Then you'll love this.

Orikaeshigitae

Chiptunes are awesome.

Press Play On Tape is super-awesome.

UncleSporky

YMCK reminds me of Katamari Damacy which reminds me of this chiptune remix of Lonely Rolling Star.

Speakeasy

Listen to some original work from Rugar.

My Girl, the Princess

Echo

Here's Trauma's Cauldron II remix -- The one Press Play On Tape performs in my youtube link above. (Trauma is the singer in PPOT, I think.)

dmauro

UncleSporky wrote:

YMCK reminds me of Katamari Damacy which reminds me of this chiptune remix of Lonely Rolling Star.

Check out Slash's entry in the BotB Winter Chip II compo called "Never End." It is absolutely fantastic. (for some reason his name doesn't show up, so he's the one listed with no artist name)

Nice OP, AgentFlit!

Also, if you want to see Anamanaguchi and Tugboat (two of the finest chiptune acts around) live, here are the details:

Event Info

Name: OMG OMG Anamanaguchi @ Knitting Factory LOL
Tagline: STAB THE MATADOR + TUGBOAT
Host: ANAMANAGUCHI/STAB THE MATADOR
Type: Music/Arts - Concert

Time and Place

Date: Sunday, February 18, 2007
Time: 7:10pm - 11:30pm
Location: Knitting Factory Old Office
Street: 74 Leonard Street (map)
City: New York, NY

mntorankusu

UncleSporky wrote:

YMCK reminds me of Katamari Damacy which reminds me of this chiptune remix of Lonely Rolling Star.

:O

That's awesome. I love Lonely Rolling Star.

Zxerol

You know why Darwinia is the greatest game ever?

Because it plays this in the intro.

TalonSE

Zxerol wrote:

You know why Darwinia is the greatest game ever?

Because it plays this in the intro.

The entire Darwinia soundtrack is awesome though. Also, this thread would not be complete without at least one link to the Neuromancer opening theme. That's the Amiga version, playable on DeliPlayer 2 and probably other Amiga players as well although I use that one. There's also a C64 version of the theme but I don't have a link to it.

Recoil42

Oblig. mention of Timbaland ripping off a scener's amiga/c64 chiptune for the new Nelly Furtado single he produced:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2274635
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy

Srsly. Check it out:

"AcidJazz" Amiga Chiptune:
http://www.genietervan.com/hoerr/tempest_acidjazz.mp3

Another scener's C64 port of the same song:
http://www.genietervan.com/hoerr/glenn_acidjazz.mp3



...aaaaannd:


Nelly Furtado - Do It (Produced by Timbaland):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_gYxYruM18k
(wait around 10 seconds in...)

GSM

Chiptune music was awesome. I've got two (fairly old) CDs that captured a moment in time of the middle of that era. Hooray for massive soundfile collection CDs.

There was a program on the Amiga called "Algorythims" or "Algo Music" or something that generated techno-y chiptune music from rythm patterns, chord progression theory, etc. It was awesome because some of the random music was really good, and some was awful. And it randomly generated song titles that had nothing to do with the song.

Best part was that you could add your own samples for it to randomly shout out during breaks, in the style of sample-based music of the time.

Masume

For a minute I thought the thread title said 'Cybertronians' and figured this was some kind of Transformers thread....

Gihgehls

I love chiptunes, I used to fool around with MML/MCK a few years ago but I couldn't figure out how to do flippin legato notes, so I gave up. I actually just bought LSDJ like YESTERDAY and I am loving it. I also use QuadraSID in my studio almost all the time.

link for quadraSID: http://www.refx.net/?page=quadraSID

BTW, I have to disagree with that bit about old chiptunes written in assembly being less complex. I offer Megaman 2 and 3 as evidence.

ArcticXC

Oh man, this is the best OP I've seen in a long time. Awesome, just awesome.

(even though Doskpop > Chiptune)

I was just listening to the virt EP last night and thinking about doing this exact same thing, but people on IRC were bitching about how chiptunes were lame and whatnot. Possibly because I was linking YMCK Videos when everyone else was talking about Pendulum and whatnot.

Anyway, Virt's Writeup about Blipfest was pretty cool, kinda makes me wish that I was there.

Also, a few years ago beek put out a nice little collection of chiptunes mostly from one hour compos, and it's pretty sweet. http://inercia.dcc.online.pt/scene.org/music/artists/beek/gingerbread/gingerbread.zip [ Mirrors ]

Agentflit

Desperate revival of ancient topic or valid rejuvination? You decide! Anyway, Rushjet1 delivered an

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EXPLOSIVE album
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this morn, and it is surely the best music in the world.





Herein I reply to posts that I meant to a long time ago:

Gihgehls wrote: »

BTW, I have to disagree with that bit about old chiptunes written in assembly being less complex. I offer Megaman 2 and 3 as evidence.

Well, I did say most. Capcom & Konami certainly pushed the limit.

ArcticXC wrote: »

Oh man, this is the best OP I've seen in a long time. Awesome, just awesome.

Thanks.

also lol i haf been making music too in the one-hour-competitions at battleofthebots.org here is one of them i got second place but it kind of sucks oh well

maximumzero

http://www.channel4.com/media/userpages/accepted/1783_FamicomCon.mp3

http://www.channel4.com/media/userpages/accepted/1784_DotMatrixH.mp3

Darmak

Oh my god, I love this thread so much. I now have tons of things to download and listen to. Jesus Christ, this shit is exactly what I've been wanting to listen to for awhile now. Thank you!!

Agentflit

Time for the bimonthly bump.


VEGAVOX RELEASED!!! (video)
Alex Mauer just released an album available exclusively on NES carts, to play in your NES. Mega cool! More of these are in the works, too.




Also...the famicompo classical (nothing to do with classical music), a big ol' NSF competition, will be wrapping up voting this Sunday. Listen and vote if you like, there's several stand-out entries (especially mine ;-))!

Nullsleep and Divag recently released some bumpin' albums, as well. Viva la chiptune!

Darmak

Agentflit wrote: »

Time for the bimonthly bump.


VEGAVOX RELEASED!!! (video)
Alex Mauer just released an album available exclusively on NES carts, to play in your NES. Mega cool! More of these are in the works, too.




Also...the famicompo classical (nothing to do with classical music), a big ol' NSF competition, will be wrapping up voting this Sunday. Listen and vote if you like, there's several stand-out entries (especially mine ;-))!

Nullsleep and Divag recently released some bumpin' albums, as well. Viva la chiptune!

Holy shit, I might actually get that. Just to say I bought an album on an NES cartridge if nothing else.

totally

Chiptunes is the only genre that makes my cold heart feel any warmth. Thanks for some new links.

Agentflit

2A03 DAD EP!

Dads with geeky sons get a little extra love today. (Mom did earlier, too.)

Gihgehls

Would it be ok if I pimped some of my own chiptunes?

Sushisource

Wooo for occasional Chiptunes thread revival! Chiptunes forever!

ArcticXC

Famicompo just ended, and reduz being the uber badass that he is kicked some asses. http://midr2.under.jp/compo/c1/index.html

RichardTauber

Let's revive this thread with a shameless plug! Here's our page!

In other news, what's a good keyboard/synth-combo for a tight budget? I've heard good things about the MicroKorg so opinions on it would be appreciated.

TheSonicRetard

ModArchive - where I go to get my chiptunes

I love chiptunes. But then again, I love all these little indie underground techno 80's scenes. The c64 demo scene, the mario, ecco, and sonic hacking scenes, the chiptune scenes... they're all so fucking awesome.

Agentflit

If anyone lives near New York City, the Blip Festival 2007 is coming up. It will be legendary, with chiptune musicians from around the globe! I live in Alaska and I'm still going to this thing.

From last year:



itt: chiptune nerd desperately revives his ostentatious OP

PikaPuff

I like chiptunes, but not in pure player form. I'd rather have mp3s.