Chiptune forum

I think the biggest controversy of my post is that I don't admit the importance of a limited sound hardware.. it's importance to how the music made with it will sound which probably is another strong opinion on what is chiptune.
I think it's still about what words to use and how to use them. I have to regard the fact that limited, primitive sound chips gave rise to chiptunes.. they provided the world in which chiptunes could be born/discovered. and further so, when using such a sound chip, it's such a special thing.. it's somewhat different from making a chiptune only with intention (free platform). as I said, my definition doesn't at all suit the word "chiptune".. only how people use it. don't know if that'd be the right way to put it but it's a bit of a feeling like "this is the real thing" when taking the challange of a real primitive sound chip.
it's like chiptunemaking in two opposing directions. on "chippy hardware" you tread outwards, forward.. on a free sample/synth-based platform you may go inwards, back or downwards in terms of using sounds and tools to their limits.. but then you still push your own made up limits.. maybe you'll punish yourself by being able to disregard them.. but that depends on what you see in the end result.. it's really tricky.. it's hard to analyze a chiptune out of it's general musical and chipmusical achievements.. the results are always a mix of both at different proportions.
when I read up on the specs and limitations of a chippy format that is new to me I get excited over reading what can't be done and fantasising about which techniques I could use to make a cool chiptune.
it may get me excited motivation to make a tune I'd more seldomly care to make in impulse tracker.

perhaps there should be a more coherent set of terms set up.. like a main "blip blop"-genre and within it there are chiptunes which word should stop being used for the whole phenomena and only when technically, the tune is made on a primitive sound chip and you'd say "this blipblop-tune is also a chiptune" about an lsdj-tune and "this blipblop-tune is free form". and you'd need to go in both ways cause you'd need to distinguish blipblop-chiptunes and freestyle-chiptunes (like techno on sid or a rockcover without blippy feel on nsf).

Last edited by nim (2005-09-22 15:08:35)

I'll take some time reading your thinkings...
Interesting, nice mention to alice DJ )) (I remember better off alone, I just loved that track.
I was wondering about that a couple of months ago...
And about early rave music (hardcore rave music like Quadrophonia, Channel X, Praga Khan) I guess there was some kind of fashion (or whtver the word is ) of chip sound there, the music seemed to got a big influence from Tracker sceenes or users went dance musicians. Also was an influence from ebm/industrial. I mean bands like Holy Noise or U96.
I found even a version (circa 1991) of supermarioland with chipsound and beats for the dancefloor, wasn't that chip times? and that other from tetris...

Well, I'll continue reading your comments.

piko piko Love. Ignat

Last edited by Ignat (2005-09-23 06:36:26)

community ... i'm not sure what to say, so i'll ramble: micromusic's qfs is elitest but it's their choice to do things that way, overthruster did a fine compilation protesting that fact and had some email exchanges w/ them on the issue. download the .zip!

DISSED BY THE QFS: a 25 artist compilation featuring chip and other in various styles, more accurately representing a broad section of the musical world at large which we have felt was purposely left out of micromusic's supposedly public uploading system. enjoy!

i like the micromusic community a lot, i meet friendly people there all the time ... even if my style is fucky and they like elektro-trash or whatever it is=)




Dissed by the QFS is one of the two best things happens this millenium.

Micromusic can not be located at one city anymore its International.

But the Headquarter is in my hometown.

What can I say,I just want to say hello once and they kicked me out real hard all based on  bias and dirty talk.tz tz

nim wrote:

I play with the thought that sometime in the future someone might discover a way to analyze the chiptunes anatomy and then more like math or painting, construct.. or calculatingly discover new chiptune elements.
but maybe it's my immaturity in music theory and inexperience with it that makes me think any music genre could be dissected and put on paper like that.
what do you think?

analyzing works is a big part of tracker culture ...  it's easy because the guts are right there in front of you! if you know how a tracker works, you can pick apart how any choon was constructed.

this is easier with .wav based formats like .mod/.xm/.it because you're always getting "the source." with programs like LSDj and goat tracker you can share instruments or songs you are working on ... and it's the same thing.

so i think abstracting those details onto paper doesn't make sense ... unless you're discussing some concept/theory/history that isn't easy to pick up on from looking at the source.

i think you are also talking about if formal music theory has any place in chip ... and i think that it does. lsdj has four monophonic synthesizers ... that is not too far off to a quartet ... making music that sounds full in each of them could use similar techniques ... percussives, bass, chords, melody

... and you're lucky to have gotten through the qfs, it's a brutal gauntlet

I think my intention before I posted was more to discuss the nature and characteristics of chiptune.. and more put it into words in order to understand it as a musician rather than having it categorized.. but I got really sidetracked at covering the exterior discussion of chiptunes and it's scene etc and almost forgot why I posted ;)
I'm really not good at putting thoughts into words, should train on that (not by posting hehe).
my main interest is developing my kind of chipmusic into what it takes countless times of intuitive experimental discoveries and maturement to reach.. I guess I should study music theory extending on theory about developing new kinds of music and how new, unprecedented music is made appart from intuitive experiment.
and I was kind of shooting before I considered if it's likely that I could hold a discussion like that myself. :)

anyway, do composers of explorative musical forms usually discuss what they do to reach discoveries more effectively than by sheer experimentation? I'm a child in this matter.
maybe I should search for books about known composers who discovered very personal musical style.

I engage in the sport of making conventional chiptunes by limitation of a sertain format or frame. but more oftenly I use IT for experimentation using mainly chip-instruments but on a larger scale.. usually 16 chan.
for me making conventional chiptunes.. like in 4chan and only sertain kinds of waves.. the fun in it is like playing a game that mostly never gets boring.. atleast not permanently.. but purely musically, it's not that fun I think. If I make a tune I like really much I enjoy very much listening to it but it wasn't musically very satisfying making it in a sertain format, that was fun more in a technical way.
maybe I as a person just fall on the other side of those who enjoy the challange of limitation and those who try to avoid it..

anyway I think it's very interesting to take a musical sort of style I find in mine and others chiptunes and developing them into a more well decorated.. more saturated soundscape and arrangement.
using 16 channels.. of which maybe 3-6 are echoes/reverbs leaving 10-13 of original voices(?) (stämmor?) is musically quite challanging too.. it's musically easier to use only 4 but technically more difficult.. and the other way around the more channels or rather, voices you apply..
and I think using primitive waveforms and not being able to postproductively mix or master the sound is also really challenging if you try to make it sound soft on the ears.

one of my main objectives lately with every tune has been making it pleasant to listen to even at high volume in headphones.. I think even chiptunes.. or... lowtech music is better mastered so I often try to add some extra channels in order to phase, pan or interfere the voices in a way like my unsavvy idea of mastering the sound.
and even.. I think there can be a lot of difference in a sound with or without echo(delay) and with or without reverb, panning (width very important) etc, to how it's emotionally or dramatically perceived and appreciated.
not like turning on reverb in xmplay.. more within the musicmaking..
it can be used to develope the musically-dramatic expression of the sound I think.

I'll show some examples of what I'm experimenting with.
first off this is an experimental tune which really sucks in terms of soundquality.. mastering if it would be mastered etc.
(edit: for any readers who may be new to modules the best player is >>XmPlay<< with settings: interpolation: off and ramping: sensitive or off (my tunes usually prefer off but usually some ramping is good.. though nes music oftenly relies on no ramping.. mainly the bassy sounds)
SPU.IT
it's just tiresome to listen to.. I guess I didn't understand why since I liked the musical part of it but just not how it sounded in the end.. at that time I was just beginning to use 16 chans for chiplike music and I had no thoughts about reworking the sound.. I just thought.. "ah, no, too many channels.." and since it was kind of based on using alot of channels I just thought that's what multichannel chippy-music ends up like and abandoned it and went back to making 4-8chan chiptunes for the next couple of tunes.

here's an example of when I'd begun to really consider what musical.. melodic influence delay, panning and reverb and dynamics shaping (rather chosing a slightly altered wave derived from a pure form like square.. so the other way around when done while tracking) has on the music.. on the dramatic effect and meaning.
KAUN.IT
the track was never brought beyond sketch stage and in the end I added too much effect-like voices and I just abused the channel count.. good experimentation though.. it's usually easier to decrease channel count after you discover some cool thing by just going crazy.
anyway the idea was sort of like a "zomg here it comes!"-feeling dramatically speaking and here I think without the panning, delay and/or reverb and chosing altered kinds of primitive waves it wouldn't at all have the same feeling. still what I failed on was just too much of the effects and too little real musical value.

here's two excerpts from tunes I'm working on for releases.
CHIP37.IT
MCH21EX.IT
in MCH I'm using alot of reverb effects in the later part (duplicate the channel and fade in every note from silent in the reverb channel.. no note delay (learnt from the IT documentation)) and normal echoes too..

this kind of sounds more like synth music than chiptune but it's kind of experimentation with chippy instruments as a starting point that I stray off towards hitech music directions..

this kind of modules interest me just as much as traditional chiptunes.
like free-form tracked music except the use of only small chippy samples.

it's kind of similar to opl3-based multichannel music in a way.. but still, I don't intend to make it sound FM-like..

here's the latest .."chiptune" or whatever I made and it'll be in the beepdealers chipdisk 2 if we get it released soon.. the tune is not really finished.. judging I use 16 channels it could be less naked at some parts.
MCC08.IT
all this kind of pseudo-mastering or whatever within the tracked tunes started for me quite recently.. I guess chiptune veterans have already used some consideration to improve the sound to some degree by simply choosing the right waveforms and panning them just right and not complicating things so much.
(and not to mention, the more reverb/delay/synthesizing channels you use the more responsibility you have not to just make it sound too chaotic)
I though get excited by dressing the sound and making it sound sort of a little extra.. altered.. synthesized.. or whatever I should say. I think it's a step away from chiptunes but I'm kind of holding on to the chip traits as I'm pulled away and I guess the result gets a little torn.
hirasawa's music is a great influence for me.. his choice and/or use of synths still has alot of the same charm I find in chiptunes and I guess the technical why's aren't hard to analyze maybe.

hope my post was a little more interesting than the last :) did you like mcc08?
about all the talk about using reverb, phasing, advanced panning etc.. maybe mcc08 is the only real example.
check out drums and bell-like sounds..
my way of making panning-width more effectively is to have one original sound in S91 (surround) panning and duplicating it and altering the duplicate very slightly.. if melodic sample usually by a slightly different waveform and then panning it where I want the center and then adjusting the two channels volume proportions to adjust panning width.. if I'm doing it to drum-samples I usually just raise the duplicate chan a semitone or more if the sound is mainly produced at sertain interference-points when looping and pitch is distorting the noise-based sample.

(btw S91 or "fake surround" inverts one of the R/L-channels so if you play in mono they cancel each other out and there's no such effect in FT2 afaik.)

Last edited by nim (2005-10-01 02:48:54)

oh, some more new tunes tunes I'd like to show
C.S3M experimenting with chipsounds in nonchip(?) music

some more traditional chiptunes:
LSG.IT my submission for Chipyxa#3.. my most successful chiptune as of yet I think. very influenced by winglancer boss theme and more specificly hally's nsf-arrangement of it which I listen to alot and I hope it can be heard in LSG.
NIMPSG01.IT tune intended to be converted to SMS/SGG format with the mod2psg2 tracker before I started using channel 4 way too freely and didn't want to change it.
CHUU!.IT 2004. on a coolphat chipdisk.. zelda OOT - zhora's domain inspired.

I'll post some more tunes in different much or little chippy styles I've made. you can disregard if you're already bored.
ALAO.IT an old more traditional kind of chiptune (just a sketch.. don't remember why it fades in ;¨D) with a very cool melodically chippy feel that I partly experimented up and partly learnt from maybe mostly purple motion.
83HT.IT an old attempt at something melodic from 2003.
AF.IT (2003) chippy abstract melody experimentation.. I really liked the sounds the special waveforms and melody made but I lacked skill to develope it.
AOKG.IT a tune from 2003 which didn't rank at some dreamhack visit (swedish gamerparty + demoparty).. usually my more serious tunes are always in the theme of space romance, space ships, shooter games and anything else around space and my fantasies about it.. this is the last boss which a boy who regretfully left earth to be drafted into a galactic fleet meets after he deserted well out on the frontier and in his stolen personal gunnership tried to travel all the way back to his solar system and earth which he'd risk his life to get back to (including his friend he left behind while they were still kids etc.. cliché and deliciously cheezy space romance ... I thought "and rain" would be a poetical title which might be something he says when thinking about what he will breath in, feel and see when he gets past this last boss which he uses his last strength to destroy.... but can he make it!? it seems like there will be a tragic ending!.. yea etc there are other tunes based on this story... will be on beepdealers chipdisk#2.
CPCPP.IT and MDT.IT experimentations with waveforms that I thought sounded like PCEngine music. from 2003.. alot of samples with overtones basically.
CHIP06.IT my 6th numbered chiptune.. from 2001 I sarted in 1998 or 1999 I think.. really got into it in 2001. this one still amazes myself in terms of inventiveness.. I wish I would still be as playfull as this even though I also wish I could be more calculating I started out at making music through MIDI (musictime by passport, later encore) and when I started making chiptunes my melodic skill slowly degraded I feel ;P.. it was more the sound than the melody for me then.. I've slowly recovered from that... anyone else felt the same result from beginning to track freeform electronic music?
CHIP11.IT my first sort of slight success at chiptunes. from 2002.. it was released on bpd website as taste of chipdisk#2 (too long ago -`:9) with a part inspired by Michiru Oshima's tune Heal from ICO (ps2).. I think Heal has alot of chip-related melodic elements.
CHIP19.IT I think it has some melodically chippy characteristics I used to use in 2002.. music inspired by your love is my leash by covox and other music.
CHIP15.IT another bunch of chippy expressions from 2002 (inspired by hearing vangelis' soccer world cup in japan theme for a few secs and thinking I was noting down the melody but it turned out differently)
CHIP22.IT 2002. more slightly chippy melodical elements.. I used envelopes alot back then.. I've totally stopped using envelopes at all a while back. they have their charm. I think it sounds too much midi if you're not good at them though. tune may be boring but maybe an interesting chippy style.
TEMP2.IT my attempt on the idm in chip trend around 2002.. my chiptunes started getting looonger and more booring
TEMP3.IT really experimental tune from 2002.. again quite different from anything else I'd make.
TRISINE.IT oh yeah, and the triangles and sines sort of chiptune style.. from 2002, I think even though my tune isn't such a great representative, it's a fun sort of subgenre (sounds better with linear interpolation since it's meant to be as soft as possible)
CHIP25.IT another kind of chiptune style if I can call it that.. I was obsessed with this kind of sound for a short time in early 2003.. had just played REZ and thought I wanted to make chiptunes that could fit in a semi-8bit REZ-game hehe CHIP26.IT same samplepack here, same kind of chip almost. most of these were intended for our chipdisk#2 but now they're so old I wouldn't use them for the very soon to be released disk. ;¨)
CHIP28.IT 2003, best 4k tune I've made I think (one of the very few also to admit).. using triangles like flutes was one of the coolest things I knew and I found a guitar-like very special waveform in a chip by zabutom (cloud cloud was it?) which I still use as one of my most precious samples .. it's definately low-byte but really doesn't sound chippy.. or does it?
TEMPPU.IT a potpurri of mainly game music mixed with my own fillers. I intended to make a heck of a long megamixtune but I didn't know how to continue after the infected mushroom - dancing with kadafi-part in the end.. maybe someone would like to continue for me! if it were to be finished in time it'd be great to have on beepdealers chipdisk#2 (ps: it sounds maybe better in sinus interpolation than without! special case)

hope you find some of it interesting in terms of styles of chiptunes as far as I've ventured.
I'd love to read/listen to similar posts by others on any chiptune-related platform and also tunes you've not made yourself which are interesting as a chiptune.

interesting quote (a bit hard to understand). is it some lifestyle manifest by a lofi music dj?

sorry to be so long again.. there are yet few frequenters here so don't feel it's up to you to follow my inconciece typed-in-excitement discussions (allthough response is why I post for, to not make you think I just like to type).

I think you're perfectly right in your sentiment about applying reverb so that it drowns the source and soundscape.
reverb should imo. (mostly) never be used as an obvious effect upon a sound you wish to be perceived except when the reverb is used as an indipendent sound.. like in music like Saitone's Gameboy EP (downloadable) I think it's quite successfully used.

However in sort of traditional way of use I think it's more about mastering.
some small sounds will be hidden behind the others and they need reverb to spread out and be seen/heard.
I'd seldomly apply reverb on a central, loud and clear sound like a lead unless I want the whole soundscape to sound like it's within a large hall or something... not good for chipmusic as far as I've tried.
but I oftenly use reverb to widthen the panning (or experienced spatial position&width) of something like a choir.

when working with 4 channels, stereo and reverb may be really unnecessary (allthough I've heard good examples of effectful use).
however as soon as you're using over 8 channels or so depending on the sounds, you start needing to think about how the sounds are shaped in spatial shape, width, size, and directness vs. indirectness (all this is reverb and its panning). I'd say even more so in chiptunes because chiptunes are all sharp and naturally unreverbant sounds, and therefore it's difficult to have more than.. my guess 4-8 voices without the ear getting overworked trying to make out all of them.. and also, the sheer sound of most chiptune waveforms are brutal to the ears when played in headphones.

this discussion applies mostly to tracking in 8-16+ channels.

like in MCH the sort of pitchsliding synthy chorus in the last part before the fading part, the reverb was vital to spread out the sound and make it feel like a dramatic surrounding air of this choirlike part of the soundscape.
if I would have decided not to use any reverb then that entire musical element or ingredient wouldn't have worked. it wouldn't have had it's essencial dramatic meaning. what a sound means to the musics drama is sometimes more important than what the notes/melody are I think.. especially background/accompanying voices.

so anyway reverb is also as much about panning I think.. or perceived reproduction in the perceived room.
if a reverb has the exact same panning (position and width) and waveform as it's source it's not reverb.. it's just the adsr of the notes. reverb is about spreading the sound out into the space in which it's source is positioned and in which direction it spreads out matters too. you use reverb to spread a sound to where it is not, simply (technically) put.

it's a big difference between simple electronic reverb effects in digital studiogear and simple tracked reverb because the tracked reverb doesn't become another sound.. breathier, more noisy if you don't change the waveform.. I got really annoyed of only finding reverb plugins that didn't allow me to controll how much the tone was distorted when I first started playing with digital hifi music.
and I think it should be said that there's a great difference in the loudness and decay length of reverb between naive effect-like use and mastering-like use. when you use it in the way I'm discussing the decay is usually quite short and the loudness is usually quite low but it may depend.

in general it's hard to understand what reverb may be used for if you're just thinking of it as a cool non-transparent effect like delay.. I guess that applies to what you were talking about in drowning the sound.
anyone who knows mastering/sound engineering theory probably knows reverb is more about fooling the ear to perceive the sound as in a sertain direction, original position, width, proximity, and mediation.. so like a spatial effect along with panning.. purely technically.. and then the dramaturgic intention applies purely musically.

chiptunes like mine are often very intense and expressive in their dramatic or melodic progression.
like in my chiptunes (as much my style as my incapability) they shift very quickly and dramatic expressions are conveyed more intensively than in conventionally (well) structured music.

reverb and panning or rather spatial existence of the sounds is vital to how the sound is dramatically successful.
you want a dramatic choir sort of voice to be broad and reproductive (reverb, panning width etc) and the protagonist, the lead, to be clear, human sized and in center of focus (thin panning) within the scene (soundscape) carrying out actions (melody) which are very clear and meaningful (melodic and semantic).
it may be me reading too much into music but I always try to convey some semantical drama in my music.. at the same time I'm mostly seeing something visual being played out in my head.
I'm less good at purely musical music.. I try to make good danceable techno for instance but I mostly fail.
now I'm discussing making voices in a chiptune have the same dramatic characteristics as a choir.. this may be non-chiptunelike.. I don't know, to me it's not that important. I like both kinds.

an example: listen to that starwars tune "duel of fates"(?) or ghost in the shell 1 or 2 theme and imagine it in mono or the whole choir on a width-less position somewhere between L and R and you'll understand how essencial panning width, and how reverb helping the panning is to the dramatic intention of the sound.

this may be quite irrelevant for gameboymusic though.. it's so few voices that they need to be clear in order to convey the message of the melody/sound. maybe it's all uninteresting for those who only make gameboy music or similar :) sorry.. this was a "chiptune" thread so I'm maybe going terribly offtopic.. but that's rather because my chiptunes which I posted here are what is going offtopic from conventional chiptunes..

Last edited by nim (2005-10-02 20:44:10)