Is chipmusic its own specific genre of music, or is it a means of presenting music? For example, is Beethoven's 9th played on a gameboy a chiptune, or is it classical?
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Asheville, NC
I would consider beethoven's 9th played on a gameboy as a classical piece rendered as a chiptune. call it a classical chiptune, it's still classical. can't we get over this shit and just make music?
Last edited by JuicePouch (Nov 17, 2012 3:51 am)
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buffalo, NY
Heavy metal must have guitars, chipmusic must have a rudimentary sound chip
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Stern Fucking Zeit wrote:
You must be new here...
Yes, I joined a few days ago. As had you at one point.
JuicePouch wrote:
can't we get over this shit and just make music?
I hadn't known that discussion was so inhibiting to the process of composing music. I can understand how an 8bit cover of a song could still adhere to the original's genre, but I've observed that there's a particular bluntness and audacity born from the hardware limitations of the systems chiptunes are written for (this is especially prevalent on gameboys). This forced minimalism is respected even in fakebit tracks, where no such technical limitations exist. I think that constitutes a style; a motif found throughout the genre.
Last edited by Faerlight (Nov 17, 2012 4:09 am)
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Madison, Alabama
Faerlight, people might post irritated replies because in this community, this is an old debate that comes up often.
That being said, I think it is a medium, but a medium with such severe stylistic ticks and limitations that it confuses people. If you can pick up a game boy and make a funk tune, a dance track, a bossa nova piece, and something with a European folk dance flavor, then that's a medium.
What confuses people is that due to hardware limitations, composer often resort to stylistic tricks like arps or bass and drum on the same channel. These things, coupled with the distinct sound of raw waveforms and noise percussion, lead people to apply the genre tag.
My theory, anyway.
My game boy music is not in the same genre as Danimal Cannon or Monodeer, etc. Medium, I say!
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mainz, grmny.
roboctopus wrote:
Faerlight, people might post irritated replies because in this community, this is an old debate that comes up often.
That being said, I think it is a medium, but a medium with such severe stylistic ticks and limitations that it confuses people. If you can pick up a game boy and make a funk tune, a dance track, a bossa nova piece, and something with a European folk dance flavor, then that's a medium.
What confuses people is that due to hardware limitations, composer often resort to stylistic tricks like arps or bass and drum on the same channel. These things, coupled with the distinct sound of raw waveforms and noise percussion, lead people to apply the genre tag.
My theory, anyway.
My game boy music is not in the same genre as Danimal Cannon or Monodeer, etc. Medium, I say!
I was just waiting for someone to provide a well formulated definition... again..., so I wouldn't have to + could just write "this" below it.
I'm a lazy person.
So:
"This."
Oh, + props Roboctopus.
Last edited by Stern Fucking Zeit (Nov 17, 2012 4:21 am)
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Fargo
It's more of a medium. You can play the funk genre on sweet old fashioned synths and guitars, or you can play it with an old school gaming chip. The thing that makes something chip music is the instrumentation.
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NC in the US of America
Does chipmusic = chiptune?
Chipmusic is music made with chips. This is the closest I could find to real chip music.
I hadn't known that discussion was so inhibiting to the process of composing music.
Have you ever spent hours on a forum beating a dead horse instead of writing music? And when you're done, you're often too exhausted and mentally fatigued to even think about thinking about music. #spellinitout4u
What confuses people is that due to hardware limitations, composer often resort to stylistic tricks like arps or bass and drum on the same channel. These things, coupled with the distinct sound of raw waveforms and noise percussion, lead people to apply the genre tag.
This is a good point.
Last edited by SketchMan3 (Nov 17, 2012 4:25 am)
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So if in fact chipmusic is solely a medium, would it be seemly for music distribution sites to list jazz songs composed of sampled Atari 2600 bleeps in the same section as jazz songs played with a saxophone?
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NC in the US of America
Faerlight wrote:
So if in fact chipmusic is solely a medium, would it be seemly for music distribution sites to list jazz songs composed of sampled Atari 2600 bleeps in the same section as jazz songs played with a saxophone?
In a perfect world I think it would be just fine edit: as long as they have jazz songs played with piano, guitar, vibraphone, etc, in the same section.
But jazz songs composed in a tracker isn't really jazz, because it's fully composed. Unless it was composed using live keyboard input playing recorded to the tracker.
Last edited by SketchMan3 (Nov 17, 2012 4:56 am)
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babylon
super sharp shooter by zinc was made with octamed, its one of the most recognized early jungle tracks, no one ever called it a "chiptune".
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Tokyo, Japan
This is literally the first question in the "new to chipmusic please read this FAQ" sticky at the top of the general discussion forum where this is posted.
http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/3988/ … read-this/
However, conversation seems fairly sensible at the moment, lets see if any new insight can be gained, but keep it on topic and play nice please!
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Technically, if you're going by the textbook definition of genre, it's a genre.
Genre = a set of shared traditions that can include style, instrumentation, and forms.
The confusion comes in because most people use "styles" and "genre" interchangeably. A style (jazz, blues, funk, punk) can be played on anything. But for something to be considered a "genre" it only needs a set of rules or traditions governing the music presentation. Since chiptune/music is governed by the rule which requires that it be played by chip hardware, or software that emulates that hardware, it would be considered a genre.
A medium is anything that communicates information from point A to point B, so chipmusic is only a medium insofar as everything else is.
Last edited by NationalBroadcastNetwork (Nov 17, 2012 7:47 am)