Chipmusic and the Retro tag (Page 1 of 3)

If anything most of the new chip music is new and novel!  It's bleeding edge. If we judged by the instrument, piano and guitar music would be ancient.  Hell the electric guitar is 80-90 years old now

If it's written to be like old game music I'd say yeah, but the stuff a lot of us do doesn't really fit that idea

i think that its the same as the "zomg mario" tag: we hate it because 99% of the publicity chipmusic gets is via some combination of those two tired (and lazy) tropes. And then think, of the elite chiptune artists, what percentage have anything to do with either "retro" or VGM style? none probably?

whats funny is, i really think that the huge upsurge of dj cutman-esque* "ableton electro with vgm sounds" recently, zeldastep, etc is due to the constant mis-reporting of chiptune. "put a chiptune in the DJ" just didnt exist before then.

*no hate to cutman intended, hes been at it for a while and pretty much created that style

while i don't think the compositions are often "retro", i think what people often mean is that the SOUNDS that chip musicians use are dated. retro is just a kind way of saying dated, sometimes.

Everyone talks like the "retro" tag is a bad thing. Shit, when people at shows ask me what kind of music I play, I tell 'em, "Retro. Like fucking Pokemon." Typically, they're like, "FUCK! Gotta mosh to that."

I often describe my music in general as retro modern. Even when not composing chip tunes specifically my music style is still greatly influenced by the game soundtracks of the 8 and 16 bit era. Because of the limited number of channels and memory people back then needed to be good composers and programers to make the most out of it and produce something with very strong melodies. Today, most video game soundtracks sound like an atmospheric movie score to me. With the advent of CD/DvD/Blue Ray games and graphics becoming more and more realistic it is a natural progression when I really stop and think about it. However, anything with a strong melody rather than ambiance is usually something I gravitate towards. In that sense, my music often either has retro video game styled motifs, or some throw back to that era in the sounds themselves. I tell people that I use everything from ZX spectrum trackers to modern synths and/or a DS to make music,and those things just like any other insturment can make music on it's own or can be combined with other things to make music.

Retro is not something I have a problem with because in all honesty there is a distictive difference between the game soundtracks of the late 80's and mid 90's and those of today and I like it when people pick up on it. Because I was born in 1986 and with some of these tunes I go back and find them later because of the internet I find retro to be more accurate at least than "Sounds like mario".As with any other music, I find out who the composer is for a song I like and try to find other things by him or her just like I do with any other music related thing.

If the sounds in the music evoke nostalgia, then I don't have any problem with someone refering to my work as retro sounding at all.
With that said, I think "vintage" would be even cooler sounding. It has the conotation that something is not current but is still timeless. Nobody ever seems to put vintage guitars and cars in a bad light if they are well maintaned and still usable. I think the same could be said of older hardware and the inherent sounds it produces. Anoluage or digital, acoustic or electric. If it can make music and you have to put a real effort into it to make it happen then it's all good in my book. The thing I really don't care for is when people say that chiptunes aren't "real" music. These people are ignorant and should at least look into what really goes into making a chiptune before they dismiss it as a valid form of musical expression.

Neo-vintage? Using or incorperating old things to make new things . Well hey I tried. I don't feel retro future is pretentious depending on how the phase is used, To me, it just congers up in image of what people in ealier times thought the future might be like, and so to me it's just the artist trying his or her intepretation of that musically or their version of what combining retro with ultra modern means to them. You of course take a risk when trying to describe new ideas but that's part of the fun of experimenting and self expression. .

Whatever discriptive words one can think of to help prepare listners for what's comming in their song is up to the artist and his or her vision of what they have created. I can nit pick at what I think a style or genre is, or I can try to keep an open mind and look at what the artist says or thinks and try to get into their mindset and viewpoint with a goal of learning from them no matter thier experince or medium. I try as hard as I can to take this approch, but I am still an imperfect human with bias and preferences just like anyone else .