Hi! I'm doing a High-School science project and I'm wanting to use chip music. I thought it would be cool to see what all you bros would say or suggest. If you have an idea or if you've done this before talk about it! It's a science project so it's gotta have independent and dependent variables and shit. Thanks! ~OmOchoa
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i donnt know what subject area you are doing but
you could compare the sound characteristics of different chips: real vs perceived loudness/ frequency spread
you could see if chipmusic makes sunflowers grow faster
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UK, Leicester
sandneil wrote:
you could see if chipmusic makes sunflowers grow faster
you could do something about either how fast it grows using the same song, but played through different compatible hardware (speed when a DMG plays a song, compared to when a gba) or something.
You could also compare against different chip tracks (of the same length) You could use different volumes as variables.
You could see if a sunflower grows faster when listening to chiptune, or _insert genre_
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Douglas, Wyoming
sandneil wrote:
i donnt know what subject area you are doing but
you could compare the sound characteristics of different chips: real vs perceived loudness/ frequency spread
you could see if chipmusic makes sunflowers grow faster
The second one for sure
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matt's mind
i like the plants growing thing, but a steady tone or something and not a song. (incidentally, a while ago i read that classical indian music actually impacted plant growth (positively) compared to other forms of music). those sorts of studies have been done a lot, but i bet they didn't include pure digital tones
you could also use some aspect of the plant to control the tone of the pitch (via a variable clock). maybe the distance from the dirt to the top. maybe a resistive elastic wire, or something. so multiple plants, and see how well (or not) they stay pitched to one another. there are some studies arguing plants are communicating with one another in some manner other than simple reactive movements (like, reorienting a branch because another plant is growing in the space). there was actually a legit study on this, not some quack metaphysical rag, but i really don't recall the specifics. other than they showed sympathetic reactions and they were geographically isolated from one another.
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Youngstown, OH
May not be as in-depth as you need, but the comparison of simple waveforms to those of complex acoustic instruments is something I like to talk about. Flutes and other woodwinds are actually pretty pure sine waves, a bowed string is a sawtooth wave while plucked is a sine with decay, there aren't really any good examples of square waves in nature (that I know of off the top of my head [at least not in sound?]) etc.
If you have access to these things and a wave visualizer of some sort it's a good time.
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
Whatever project you come up with, you might want to look into the 'Atari Punk Console" it's a easy build and demos Square waves and FM. You could also use a PC and soundcard 'O Scope' software to visualize the waveform outputs.
Yogi
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MA
I actually used chip-music for a history project when I was in high school
For a science project, you could try seeing how some songs effect plants or you could go into how the different waves produce sounds? [just some suggestions]
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for a science fair project you could see whether songs/tones affect plant growth in one way or another, idk just an idea
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Dallas, Texas
Very many options you can go with. You can use chip software to explain the nature of 8 bit computing. (HEX numbers, why 255 or FF is the max value, how HEX related to binary [e.g 00001111 = 0F and 11110000 = F0] all of this can utilize the music aspect of chips to create an easily understandable and instantly recognizable demonstration of how the numbers and science influence how the computer/hardware behaves.
You could also just explain sound synthesis. How the different shape waveforms sound, how envelopes work, how waveforms behave when summing two waves together, what ring modulation and hard sync is (via mssiah), how filters work and what they are (via mssiah).
And also you can talk about the limitations and history of computing more specifically the sound/music of history. And how that related to why and how people still use these methods/hardware to create their own music today.
EDIT: So I just re-read your post. I have no idea how you could create independent and dependent variables with the options I stated. Sorry, I was under the impression it was just like a report type science paper/project.
Last edited by TylerBarnes (Sep 4, 2013 8:49 pm)
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Gosford, Australia
are there any specific requirements for the project in terms of the number of sample groups or IVs? if you've already got a dmg collection (i mean what else do chip music people use amirite? 
), you can investigate how different game boy cpu revisions keep time, using cpu load and tempo as blocking variables. do you need to do a statistical analysis?
Last edited by Victory Road (Sep 4, 2013 10:38 pm)
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Seattle, WA
You could blare shitbird through speakers all the time and record how fast you lose normal friends.
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Bronx, NY
Dire Hit wrote:
You could blare shitbird through speakers all the time and record how fast you lose normal friends.
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Outer Space
Wow I didn't expect so many ideas! Thanks a bunch guys! The plant growth thing seems to be what most of you are leaning towards. I always thought the whole music affecting plant growth thing was a myth, but apparently not. I think I'll go with this. It certainly sounds cool. Now the real question, what kind of plant would like to listen to chiptune? Any thoughts? haha.
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Outer Space
Dire Hit wrote:
You could blare shitbird through speakers all the time and record how fast you lose normal friends.
lol...I like having friends actually...although I would really like to see how my teacher reacts to this idea.
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Outer Space
Victory Road wrote:
are there any specific requirements for the project in terms of the number of sample groups or IVs? if you've already got a dmg collection (i mean what else do chip music people use amirite?
Yeah I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to analyze the data one way or another. (and yes I think I have a couple of those dmg things just lying around... 
)