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Minneapolis, MN
Ninten Kwon Do wrote:

e.s.c. has a point. I don't even publish my non dance chip because it isn't what people are into...but maybe that's a mistake?

This is pretty much me, and possibly why I kinda burned out on making new music.

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Melbourne

I'm sitting on a 3-track, 1.5 hour 0F.digital album because people said my 10-minute tracks were too repetitive; in a way I'd love to subject people to the new 30 minute tracks.. but ehhh

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Brunswick, GA USA
pselodux wrote:

love to subject people to the new 30 minute tracks.. but ehhh

If it changes in the gradual, Terry Riley way, the best way to know you did it right is to put it in front of and audience that understands it... I'm not sure where that kind of audience is right now.

Explaining what's happening is the key to working around people who don't understand, but that's the frustrating part. A listener might have played an instrument in school then quit, messed with Mixcraft and quit, or may have absolutely no knowledge about how music works at all.

Last edited by chunter (Aug 30, 2016 11:30 am)

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Nomad's Land

Ok, a couple of words on the "decreasing diversity" thing.

As some of you know, I've been running chiptune events in Berlin for almost a decade now. My aim was always to promote the diversity of the chip scene, and I tried my best to have the most diverse line-ups I could possibly get. And I'm quite sure the majority of people who've attended those parties very much liked that concept. Only problem - there were hardly ever enough visitors at these parties. Because the sad truth is that 99% of potential party goers don't care about diversity, creativity, or whatever. Most people are finished at the end of the week, they just want to empty their head with some nice, simple unce-unce. The people coming to chip parties because they're looking for a unique, out-of-the-ordinary experience are a neglicable minority. So, if you want to run a successful party, you gotta give people what they want. Anything else is likely to be a receipe for an unsustainable business model (and by business model, I mean being able to break even while at least paying people's travel costs).

And that's the problem in a nutshell, basically. The audience for chiptune is already quite small, but the audience for diverse chiptune is virtually non-existent.

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IL, US

that may be true there, but it worked well for Blip Festival with the right balance.. without the more unusual acts, i would likely have never attended.. i went for artists like sil req, stagediver, 10k, jellica, lissajou, little-scale, shitbird, etc... one or two more unusual acts in a night of 8 artists seems totally fine.. and you might find that it could bring in people who would never have come otherwise

edit: additionally seems to work ok for 8static with 1 out of 3 or 4 artists being something a bit different... most cities might not have an audience for a full lineup like the ones i'd want to see, but don't underestimate the appeal of diversity, it can work and has worked in other cities

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Nomad's Land

True that. But more importantly,

e.s.c. wrote:

sil req, stagediver, 10k, jellica, lissajou, little-scale, shitbird,

Duuuude, image a party with that line-up. Every single one of these names is like right at the top of my list of favorite chippers.

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IL, US

yeah.. during the time when everyone was in nyc for blip 11, there was almost a separate show with me, 10k, stagediver & i think abortifacient (and maybe one more act, i wasn't setting it up, just asked if i'd play if it happened), but the whole thing just never came together probably because there were already like 4 other peripheral shows that year (like the hexawe all-stars gig)...

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IL, US

additional thought: probably doesn't help that most people who like the less typical artists tend to be less vocal about it than those who just want the standard dance fare... in the past when i'd get asked why i wasn't playing in whatever city, i'd tell people they'd have to express their interest to the people who book the shows

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france

For me my least favourite thing producing chiptune is : the lack of diversity of what I discover on youtube and here.
I feel, people publish and "maybe" want to listen to only "lsdj" on gameboy, "nanoloop", "famitracker" or only music made with "one instrument".
In years, I heard very few people making album with multiple instrument ( and different lanscape of sound ) in the chip area.
The last I heard is this one, which contain lsdj and ds10 : https://simeonsmith.bandcamp.com/album/ … recurrence
It was published here : http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/15757 … s-setting/
And as you can see, people like this album, but, there is really few people which publish music made with anything else than a "gameboy", so I think people want to listen to this ( which is cool, but I don't want to listen to it more than 5 minute ) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBVoONryE3s


I only make music with two or three instrument and I use often one chip instrument.
Some music sound a little chiptune most not at all.

For me there is a fact ( ok, a personal opinion ) on the capability of each platform :
- "lsdj" alone sound good but limited  ;
- "nanoloop" gb is not better than lsdj ;
- lgpt could do cool stuff, but I'm not an expert on it and definitely it lack on synthesis, "Bleo" is one of the guy who can shine on lgpt and maybe one of the best artist on lgpt IMHO. I listen to his track really often ;
- megadrive cool, but you need some other kind of sound to make it shine ;
- commodore 64 could sound really cool too, but with another instrument too ;

You understand what I mean ?
There is not a lot of artist out there which use two or three chip instrument at time, or a chip instrument with an analogue or VA gears.
And I seek this kind of sound.

And If you tell you "what does this guy publish after all ", here it is :
https://yoyz2k.bandcamp.com/releases
Made with SFX60, electribe, nanoloop, picoloop.

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Brunswick, GA USA
e.s.c. wrote:

most people who like the less typical artists tend to be less vocal about it

If you don't go to shows, don't have shows, don't play at shows, can't go to shows... I don't see diverse releases in my social timelines and on release lists because people aren't talking about them. It doesn't have to read like the Chip = Win tweets, (in fact, I have a tendency to skim over praise with no other explanation) as long as there is a conversation- even technical discussion is useful.

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IL, US
yoyz2k wrote:

For me my least favourite thing producing chiptune is : the lack of diversity of what I discover on youtube and here.
I feel, people publish and "maybe" want to listen to only "lsdj" on gameboy, "nanoloop", "famitracker" or only music made with "one instrument".
In years, I heard very few people making album with multiple instrument ( and different lanscape of sound ) in the chip area.

fwiw, i made lots of releases using multiple instruments at once.. "scorched earth tactics" was the one using the most gear, so much that i never even considered attempting to play any of it live (dsi mopho, yamaha cs-01, midines, circuit bent yamaha rx-17, circuit bent tr-505, tr-626, some guitar pedals & piggy tracker controlling it all).. it was recorded more or less live though, no multi-tracking or overdubs, just all the gear running through mixers at the same time and into an early-2000s creative labs usb soundcard...


chunter wrote:
e.s.c. wrote:

most people who like the less typical artists tend to be less vocal about it

If you don't go to shows, don't have shows, don't play at shows, can't go to shows... I don't see diverse releases in my social timelines and on release lists because people aren't talking about them. It doesn't have to read like the Chip = Win tweets, (in fact, I have a tendency to skim over praise with no other explanation) as long as there is a conversation- even technical discussion is useful.

yeah, sadly little discussion occurs around most of the more unusual releases ....and really not much in-depth conversation about anything, the more popular stuff ends up just getting lots of positive feedback with no real explanation of what they like about it beyond using words like "epic" in situations where the word doesn't really apply (if you go by the literal meaning of the word at least.. sorry, no 3-4 minute song is "epic")

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NC in the US of America

your least favorite thing about producing chiptune

the end result

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Naptown

it takes too much time in LSDJ (only) to make something really really good, and it feels like everything has been done before

but nobody is doing it in my city so by doing it maybe i'll stand out. and i believe in myself that i can really do something awesome. only time will tell if that's true

i'd like to get some serious chops in 1xLSDJ first and then move beyond it when i feel i've reached max potential of what i can do in that format. based on a lot of these posts maybe i am heading in the wrong direction ¯\(°_o)/¯

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England
pselodux wrote:

I'm sitting on a 3-track, 1.5 hour 0F.digital album because people said my 10-minute tracks were too repetitive; in a way I'd love to subject people to the new 30 minute tracks.. but ehhh

id totally listen to this and enjoyed the other stuff so much i posted about it http://www.kittenrock.co.uk/?p=981

oh and for anyone moaning about lack of diversity or unce or whatever, i'm still doing kittenrock http://www.kittenrock.co.uk/ and aggregating interesting (to me - ie no cheesy trance/edm, but i do like techno) chip releases that i find on bandcamp & making podcasts of individual tracks i find

Last edited by Jellica (Aug 30, 2016 4:58 pm)

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IL, US
Jellica wrote:
pselodux wrote:

I'm sitting on a 3-track, 1.5 hour 0F.digital album because people said my 10-minute tracks were too repetitive; in a way I'd love to subject people to the new 30 minute tracks.. but ehhh

id totally listen to this and enjoyed the other stuff so much i posted about it http://www.kittenrock.co.uk/?p=981

oh and for anyone moaning about lack of diversity or unce or whatever, i'm still doing kittenrock http://www.kittenrock.co.uk/ and aggregating interesting chip releases that i find on bandcamp & making podcasts of individual tracks i find

kittenrock is definitely one of the few bright spots.. you've done a great job finding and championing stuff that doesn't fit within the bounds of what most chipmusic is..
and i'm also someone who would probably enjoy the 30-minute long tracks, definitely would give them a listen at least

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Finland

But what would be the case of most chipmusic being dancable these days? I kinda see it as it might be that that is specifically a crowd-pleaser and pulls larger audiences and doesn't really need a really niche audience for an already, proportionately niche show? hmm

Right? Then we have the usual factor of monkey-see-monkey-do. I have to imagine that the reason why more experimental chip stuff has fallen off the radar a little/a lot because as chiptune grew/grows, it's gonna get MORE of what people generally liked about it.

I dunno.... is this how sub-genres happen???? LOL