Upcoming Hardware - Square (Page 1 of 2)

ive never been to one. i think it would be loud and hurt my ears. and also ever since i was a child i have hated being around other people and interacting with other people, and whenever i spend time with other people, particularly strangers, say going to a night club or maybe some kind of social event, i am always left feeling regretful and inadequate and in recent times i have often felt urges to harm or kill myself after attending such events. so i feel that if i were to attend a live chiptune event it would be a negative experience for me and would make me feel worse rather than better

I enjoy live performances very much. I've attended and performed. I actually try to write all my music to be played live. Then when I go to record all I have to do is try my best to capture the live performance.

I record quite a bit but I typically delete or choose not to release at least 90% of everything I make. When I do release something I typically release if for free and only ever expect to make money with live shows and giving lessons. And when I give lessons I typically don't charge for the first and sometimes second lesson and consolations/advice are also typically free.

I love to jam with other people. Like many of the other people on here I play many different instruments and I consider my artwork and music more as a lifestyle than a hobby. My main instrument is electric guitar and I play live at least once a week.

For chipmusic the things I use most are LSDJ, Nerdrix, Nanoloop, Onputer, and I really like to control 8-bit sounding intstuments and such on a computer with a midi piano, drum pads, and guitar hero guitars. I typically play LSDJ on DMGs but I also enjoy emulating it with BGB or using modified GBcolor systems. I also use a bunch of other stuff but I don't know if you want me to tell you too much information and get your thread all sidetracked.

(And as a sidenote to sandneil and anyone else reading this. I don't want to send you off the deep end or anything but you might never want to tell anyone "i have often felt urges to harm or kill myself" if you ever want engage in a serious romantic relationship or own a firearm. Saying that would also freak out anyone who cares about you. I mean I'm a little concerned and I don't even really know you. I would like to help you but I really don't know what to say. Maybe you should try going to a show and wear earplugs if the noise is too much for you. Try not to have any preconceived agendas or expectations because not all shows are good and not all people are fun to be around but sometimes the stars align under stage lights and you can experience something profound thats incredibly enjoyable. If you don't want to interact with people or dance at the show thats fine. And don't resort to drinking if your not having a good time at the show because from my experience that usually won't make things any more enjoyable. Stay safe, stay alive.)

Last edited by SurfaceDragon (May 31, 2014 2:34 am)

There are two basic aspects to a live performance
1) Amazing songs that feel powerful and present through a sound system.
2) An engaging energetic performer with loads of charisma or obvious talent that shines through their work.

You can skimp on one or overcompensate over the other but the whole of these two usually make or break any live performance. I think any successful product has to:

1. Sound amazing, or capture what sounds amazing about chipsounds
2. Inspires great artists to make great music
3. Has some sort of performance aspect that lends itself for promoting an engaging performance.

Things that look cool when people perform on them:
-Bashing a drum type thing like an ape
-Shredding a stick dynamically like its a huge musical penis at the audience
-fingering a little bowed box with sad tear inducing music

I would suggest you first capture the sounds you want the synth to produce, and then do lots of interface investigations to determine how you want your instrument to be played.

The handful of times I've been able to perform my chipstuff have been incredibly fun and exciting and have changed the way I go about writing music completely.

There's two kinds of playing chipmusic live:

1.  The way you play traditional instruments like a piano or guitar.  Examples would be keyboard overlays for the C64 or PixelH8's gameboy music carts.

2.  Ableton/LSDJ live sequencing where you are triggering pre-written sections of music but not playing every note.

And obviously combinations of the two.

Number 1 I'm not interested in at all.  I spent a long time in marching/concert band and garage bands and I'm done with it.  Number 2 is what I'm still learning (as opposed to press play and jump around like a dork) and is what would get my attention.  You could always accomplish that with outboard midi sequencing but I get the impression that you're looking to produce a stand-alone instrument so onboard sequencing would be a must.

Last edited by egr (May 31, 2014 5:41 pm)

99% of chiptune creation is a fixed architecture, but depending on what you may have in mind it could be desirable. Its probably better to be a master of one trade than try to be a jack of all of them.

By trying to cater to so many things you will drown this project and overwhelm yourself. I am not saying you should make it open source, but it may be a good idea to make this thing expandable so that people can develop their own solutions to their own problems in their workflows.