Chiptunes

According to Wikipedia chiptunes are music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of using sample-based synthesis. Everyone needs to go check out the Wikipedia entry as well as checking out the following Youtube videos:

Blipfest 2007Happened this past December at Eyebeam in Chelsea (NYC). I had the privilege of attending.
VIEW VIDEO


The artist who was talking about his influences coming from the punk movement goes by the stage name Nullsleep. You can check his stuff out HERE.

The Sidtunes Jukebox is an online music player that plays Comodore 64 tracks. Many chiptune artists download these onto floppy disks and compile set lists to be mixed in a similar manner to the way a DJ mixes and scratches records.

COLOR_CAVES is a chiptune project that has been written and programmed for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The audio was done by Alex Mauer along with a Norwegian composer named Phlogiston. The programming was handled by No Carrier. According to Mauer this is the second ever album released solely on a Nintendo Cartridge. The first was also done by him. Here’s a demo of the NES Cart:



8.bit.weapon is a kid that makes chiptunes. Here is an interesting (kinda at least) video from G4TV on exactly what he does:



Goto80 is another artist worth checking out for sure. This Youtube video is in Spanish but you can listen to the chiptunes regardless…




The next post will be concerning making music on the gameboy platform. The #1 software choiceamongst gameboy Djs is LSDJ, “AKA: Little Sound DJ”. More chiptune stuff can be found at VORC.ORG. Obviously this is just a quick overview of the chiptune scene. If any of you have questions, comments, etc. please post them in the comments section here.


Get your own copy of the LSDJ .ROM Free, Here.

You can run it on a gameboy emulator, such as KiGB, which you can get Here

You can learn how to fool around with the LSDJ .ROM: Here