chiptune!

Chiptune is the name given to all the retro video game music from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Anything from the atari 2600, to the commodore 64, to yes, the iconic nintendo entertainment system! Though some people also classify the 16 bit era of gaming (super nintendo and sega genesis) to be chiptune as well. A song doesn't have to be from a video game or from this era to be classified as chiptune, it just needs to SOUND like it, or have elements that sound like it, such as the basic square waves or triangle waves. There are a lot of chiptune artists out there, like Bleeds and YMCK, but I've recently become somewhat obsessed with Tim Follin's work. Follin was a video game music composer from the 80s who's worked on numerous video games across various systems, however the thing that makes his music special is just how insane it was! He was very ambitious! He pushed the soundchips of whatever system he was working on to the very limit! Here's just a few of his songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_gObHt1uZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJwh3erQlyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNpSPt30uSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypG-i5aij9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peuTnilEv9g

I think the reason chiptune is anywhere near as popular as it is because of demoscene and cracktros. Can't bring up cracktros without mentioning Maktone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgfdNwPMdEA

>>6306 fuarrrk yes! Demoscene, amiga mod trackers, and keygen music, they all rule! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0u3fLzQLP0

Just started using milkytracker last few weeks. Whats the best way to mix this stuff to create distinctive sonic elements instead of a wall of sound.

>>6308 I've never fiddled with music trackers, though their layout and retro aesthetics have always fascinated me. Implying that you haven't watched some sort of "getting started" video on youtube, I'd suggest you watch something like that.

>>6308 >instead of a wall of sound tracker new user. learn to use the off commands. load some modules by other musicians, learn from them. just like everyone did back in the day ;) download modarchive, monotonik label archive and it should be enough to get you started. >>6309 >youtube video fuarrrk off, this isn't the way to learn tracking, it might be the easy way but you will just learn the basic features at best, you won't learn how to structure the song in the way the musicians you like would do or the tricks they used. Seriously don't listen to any fuarrrking advice saying watch youtube. Sure, youtube is ok for some things, but if you're relying on it you're retarded. If you can find some info go on a forum, e-mail a musician you like about it etc. People are less terrifying than you'd like to think they are. -_-

>>6308 also obviously learn all the bassic commands, vibrato, retrigger, glide ETC. i won't spoonfeed you but its REALLY simple and you'll get the jist of it after putting in a few mods, muting the channels etc.

>>6305 i fuarrrking hate gameboys and soykafty gameboy "artists", its an overdone meme at this point, in 2001 it was cool when someone did a full liveset with a gameboy but its overdone by now, i just all sounds very similar and you can just exactly tell when someone used a fuarrrking gameboy for it.

>>6314 Is there a way we can share .xm files on here? There are some fantastic breakbeat and jungle tunes made with trackers.

>>6317 i think its not possible. Tried to post a .IT from eerik inpuj sound, good netlabel http://lolicore.org/Eerik%20Inpuj%20Sound/_MODULES/ here is their entire module archive though, specifically check out inpuj019, tried to post it. Some of the early ones are very noise-y and experimental but their later releases were more melodic and pretty. It is like kicking dead whales down the beach you can't post modules on lainch, it feels like a website which SHOULD support them but somehow doesn't, really annoying. I hope if the thread gets more traction maybe mods get nagged into letting us post them. I'd very much enjoy a tracker support and sharethread, i personally know quite a few oldschool tracker musicians and i really feel like sharing the tradition somehow should be kept alive.

I've been looking to make my own digital synth for chiptune but I've found that most old chips are out of production, or limited to shady chinese sellers, are there any modern ICs for this purpose? I'd like to make it as something separate from my PC. If possible I would also like to avoid using an expensive micro-processor. Right now I'm eyeballing some ARM mcus and even the dsPIC line for this, however, I don't know if they would be useful as synths.

>>6305 I have some thoughts I'd like to share on Tim Follin. Originally, his music seemed impressive because he was trying to make the music he wanted to create, was hindered by the technology available to him at the time but still made a valiant effort and this effort was good and produced good results. But then I notice Tim Follin's pieces in the later ages of consoles where the sound technology was there for him to create the sound he always wanted to weren't as renown as his earlier pieces. What this suggests to me is that Tim Follin's music isn't really appreciated because of the music's own merit, because of what it was supposed to be despite the restrictions of the chip but rather, because nobody was going as far as he was going with chips. His fame is simply due to the novelty of the height he soared to with those technological restrictions. The music that made him famous is in a sense, a tech demo. Am I correct?