Hey so I notice a lot of Chip musicians like making entire tracks using only one device at a time, but I've always preferred the sound of recording several layers of sound in a DAW. Personally, the challenge of composing withing the limitations of a single chip is frustrating and the music made this way tends to sound very thin to me.
Does anyone else use traditional DAWs and overdubbing in making chip music?
49 Apr 16, 2016 5:04 am
Topic: Overdubbing? (23 replies, posted in General Discussion)
50 Apr 13, 2016 8:49 pm
Topic: What is Your Favorite Genre of Chip Music? (46 replies, posted in General Discussion)
I'm wondering what styles of music people think sounds best with chip instrumentation. I've been doing some Vaporwave-ish stuff and House music with my GBA and Nanoloop2 lately, and I absolutely love the trance and Techno that I've seen played on LSDJ. What does everyone think?
51 Apr 13, 2016 8:40 pm
Re: What Instruments Inspire You the Most? (16 replies, posted in General Discussion)
Nursey wrote:
I got a Minibrute a few months ago, definitely fun with guitar pedals.
My microbrute is in the shop right now getting fixed. I cry every night it's not in my studio.
52 Apr 13, 2016 8:40 pm
Re: What Instruments Inspire You the Most? (16 replies, posted in General Discussion)
Nursey wrote:
I got a Minibrute a few months ago, definitely fun with guitar pedals.
My microbrute is in the shop right now getting fixed. I cry every night it's not in my studio.
53 Apr 13, 2016 8:33 pm
Re: What would you like in a chiptune hardware synth (63 replies, posted in Other Hardware)
My favorite chip sounds are the ones that closely mimic non-chip instruments, sorta like the Mssiah cart's analog synth. If someone could make a standalone keyboard that sounds like that, I'd buy it in heartbeat.
54 Mar 30, 2016 4:48 am
Topic: What Instruments Inspire You the Most? (16 replies, posted in General Discussion)
So Ive notice that since I got my Electribe Sampler in the mail Ive Been so much more productive than I was before, and I'm wondering what instruments everybody else has been using lately. Has anyone else noticed an uptick in productivity after getting into a new piece of gear?
55 Mar 7, 2016 9:25 pm
Re: My first chiptune track (12 replies, posted in Constructive Criticism)
Its really cool how full the track sounds even with the limitations you put on yourself. The kick is also really nice, I usually have problems with harmonically rich kicks like what you're using clashing with the bass, but you don't seem to have this problem.
My only complaint is that it's a bit repetitive, but it doesn't overstay it's welcome too much
56 Mar 7, 2016 9:17 pm
Topic: Atari ST Music Software Reccomendations (5 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)
I'm considering buying an ST for music production and I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for software I can use. Are there any sampler programs available for the machine? What is the easiest tracker to use? Also will I have any trouble with an NTSC machine?
I'd really appreciate any help.
57 Mar 7, 2016 8:56 pm
Topic: Music on the V-tech Nitro Notebook (0 replies, posted in Other Hardware)
I was at the thrift shop today and stumbled upon one of these things for $1 complete with the accompanying mouse. It works fine with the exception of a few sometimes unresponsive keys. My aim in buying it is to do some light circuit bending (prolly just a pitch knob and an audio out) and use it to make music. One of the built in programs is a musical keyboard that allows you to play two octaves of the C major scale on the bottom two rows of the keyboard using the crappiest PCM instruments you've ever heard. It has the potential to sound really cool through some guitar pedals.
If anyone has any helpfull information on these computers or any ideas I'd greatly appreciate it
58 Mar 5, 2016 6:40 am
Re: Pitched Samples on the Gameboy (5 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Oh I didn't know that! I'll look up how to do that
59 Mar 5, 2016 6:31 am
Topic: Pitched Samples on the Gameboy (5 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Does anyone know of any trackers for the DMG featuring melodic sample support? I know there are a few games for the NES with sampled basslines that sound pretty nice (absolutely filthy, but nice) and I'd love to get that kind of sound .
60 Feb 25, 2016 10:34 pm
Re: Fresh New GBA Pattern Sequencer (80 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
rot wrote:
That's really weird, i used visual boy and no$gba to test it while developing it, and on my crappy 1 gHz 'eee pc', and it ran fine, so i'd think its something unique to your setup or maybe its a different version of VBA to the one I had? It's also totally possible there's some horrendous bug in my code as well - as for the PSP emulator I remember testing it on some iPhone emulator and it didn't work at all...
Anyway let me know if you figure it out though. It *should* run fine on the flashcart!
Right now I'm not really able to work on this, but sometime in the future I'll sort out the syncing modes and save issues cause I really want to use this tool in some live setups! It seems the options for adding custom samples are either coding some gnarly rom patching tool, re-writing a new audio engine in ARM assembly (not going to happen anytime soon) or downloading the source & toolchain from git and re-compiling the rom with the new samples (which is a pain but i guess is already totally possible)
I'll make sure to check in once my flash cart comes in the mail. Honestly, I know dick about emulators so I usually just flip switches at random in the settings menus until the games play smoothly, so the problem might be that my visual boy is set up weird.
61 Feb 25, 2016 10:28 pm
Re: opinions on using using more modern devices for chip music. (41 replies, posted in General Discussion)
JaffaCakeMexica wrote:
One does not wish to be unduly harsh at this critcal moment however, if I may interject, I would like to put forward the following query:
The subject of this thread was "opinions on using more modern devices for chip music", was it not?
I understand that numerous participants in this communication are more interested in the follow up question "what is authentic chipmusic?", nonetheless, in my humble opinion it would be delightful to discover at this juncture peoples thoughts on which devices in particular seem to hold esteem in the community regarding usefulness in the future of this seemingly cherished and adored "chipmusic".
tbh, I didn't like the title when I first posted, I just stuck with it because I didn't feel like spending hours coming up with a better one. Basically I wanted to know if people considered music from the sample based trackers and sequencers on the DS and PSP as authentic chip music, and I'm pleasantly surprised by the discussion going on. I didn't know very much about the Amiga music scene until reading these responses.
And I would have continued using my DS and PSP in my music because I grew up with those devices and I like their sound.
62 Feb 23, 2016 4:26 am
Topic: Dolby-Z: From the Comfort of Your Own Home (1 replies, posted in Releases)
https://dolby-z.bandcamp.com/album/from … r-own-home
Here's a short EP I put out last year. It's a plunderphonics style record made entirely wit samples from video game consoles. You'll hear a lot of SFX from Sega Genesis sound test menus as well as some clips from Courage the Cowardly Dog sampled from a GBA video cart. The whole thing was made within the span of about four days, but it is still my favorite work thus far.
I'd post these tracks in the MUSIC section, but the upload button doesn't seem to work on my laptop for some reason.
63 Feb 23, 2016 3:49 am
Re: Fresh New GBA Pattern Sequencer (80 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Bit wish wrote:
Dolby-Z wrote:Im having a problem running it this on Visual Boy. The pattern playback is so slow its not usable, like there is a solid 30 seconds in between steps on the sequencer with the tempo set at 240 bpm. Is there a setting in the emulator that can solve this?
I dont remember what specific setting it is, but you can adjust the speed of the game and there may be a hot key configuration you hit that changed it to that.
Or it could be a bug.
According to the emulator, it was running at 100% speed normally, and when i set the "turbo mode" to its highest setting (around 1500% normal speed according to the emulator) the sequencer still only made it up to about 40bpm and the sample playback was really screwed up at this setting. I have the same problem on my PSP's GBA emulator. I'll have to try it on my actual GBA once the flashcart I order finally gets here.
64 Feb 23, 2016 3:41 am
Re: opinions on using using more modern devices for chip music. (41 replies, posted in General Discussion)
I suppose I should have specified that 'Music on: Drums' is an entirely sample based drum machine app sorta like a really lo-fi version of something you'd find on the iPhone appstore. It has some really nice and crunchy 808 samples and cheesy 90's bass synth samples, but nothing about it really resembles what I'd consider the 'chiptune aesthetic.'
I'm not trying to make the argument that chiptune style music made with emulators or DAWs and plugins is any less worthwhile, I'm more just interested in what people think of programs like 'Music on,' DS-10, and PSP Rhythm that still run on video game consoles, but they don't have the sounds and limitations you'd find when working with vintage hardware