8-Bit Music = Retro music? (Page 2 of 5)

OMG, Zef, i listen to your music
your one of the reasons, why i want to start making 8-bit stuff.

The trend is validation: have you noticed a lot of thread titles say "Does anybody else...." and can easily be answered "yes" without further elaboration?

I don't mean to make fun of or indict anyone by saying that, I hope you'll all feel comfortable that what you're doing is normal, acceptable, good enough, and otherwise a part of what we do.

I assume you have an idea of why you join the discussion yourself. Hold that thought and consider that there are a lot of members on this forum that are as likely as you to have their own more or less subjective ideas of what 8-bit music/chiptune/chip music is.

There are a lot of different opinions on what constitutes an 8-bit music, not all pertaining to the general architecture of the machine it was produced on, hence terms like "4-bit music" being used to label music that is produced on something most people will agree is an 8-bit (Game Boy) or even 16- or 32-bit (Atari ST) machine, or "1-bit music", typically produced on what most would agree are 8-bit machines (ZX, etc.) or 16- or 32-bit machines (IBM PC compatibles).

I personally avoid saying "8-bit music" at all because the words themselves gives a false hope of technical unambiguity in its definition that isn't consistent with the bodies of work that actually brought the term into use.

What if the sampler in question is an 8-bit machine?

What if you couldn't tell the other machine from an 8-bit machine? How could you say that the difference is significant in musical classification?

This makes at least two of us.

For me, I don't care about "#-bit" this and "#-bit" that. I throw away the "bit" labels and just call it chipmusic. Except for 1bit the only truebit all hail!

Edit: also, I've had the same kind of idea as you about what "8-bit" music is. Mostly it was based on the NES and Gameboy sound model. "okay so I want to make an 8-bit song okay I can only have 3 monophonic instruments and some noise drums, maybe a sample cuz I remember that from Super Mario Bros 3... yeah the rule of 3 cuz sprites only had three colors right? but what about megaman? And there was an electric guitar in Contra I'm pretty sure argh this is so confusing" and all that kind of stuff.

Once you stop thinking "8bit" and start thinking "chipmusic" it opens up so many more palettes of sounds that you have at your disposal.

wow such a big edit

Last edited by SketchMan3 (Dec 27, 2013 7:54 am)

... to which you reply in a condescending tone to point out how I failed to address what seems like a tiny detail of your argument, without explaining how it's even significant to it, all while completely ignoring the rest of my post.

I'm getting mixed messages from you, too. Saying "who cares" implies that you don't, while posting messages to continue the discussion implies that you do care. Your chillness and gratitude isn't exactly shining through in your attempt to run this discussion into the ground because you think that you are right and can't make a point to prove it.

8bit has to do with graphics, chip music has to do with music that is made from old video game systems.
Or things that simulate the sounds you would get from those systems, which that is called fake-bit.

THE ANSWER:

No, it would be considered "fake-bit".

Please call "8bit" chip tune, or chip music please.

*bit is what we say when we are trying to explain what chip music is to our parents.
Stay classy

WHAT IS CHIPMUSIC?

Chip music is music made using old vintage video game systems, like for instance; if a person makes music using the 1989 gameboy that would be considered chip music.

Whereas, if a person were to make music using sounds that sound like, or imitate sounds you would here from an game boy, Atari (you get the point) but using Ableton or Renoise, that would be considered fake bit.

But there are some exceptions in between and far tho.

Last edited by Bit wish (Dec 27, 2013 7:29 pm)