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Note that Adventure, like every squarewave-bashing artist to touch hipster media, didn't associate himself with the 'chipmusic scene' (indeed, the comparisons the journalist makes are to Crystal Castles and Dan Deacon/Wham City, not Nullsleep and Goto80). The chipmusic scene we know and love is an impenetrable outsider ghetto totally separate from the alternative mainstream.

I'm not convinced by the argument that the audience for chipmusic consists solely of slightly nerdy console limitation-pushers and nostalgic keyjazzers though. Does anybody remember Bjork bigging up Bodenstandig 2000? gwEm releasing on Shitkatapult? Quarta330 becoming a Hyperdub staple with his 100% LSDJ tracks?

Think like a Pitchfork artist and you will appear on Pitchfork. It doesn't matter if you make jazz (The Bad Plus), experimental noise (Hecker), or chipmusic (Adventure).

My dad has been described as an honourary chipmusic scener by those in the know - I can count the number of gigs of mine he's missed on one hand. I'm grateful to say the least!

I feel a bit like I could respond to every thread in the constructive criticism forum with this answer - reading up on manuals/etc. is great, but the best way to learn is to just keep making tracks. If you're motivated to create music you'll naturally improve by discovering new methods and getting inspired to seek out specific techniques. It might seem crazy but it's the way all the best chipmusic artists (and musicians of all types) learnt their trade!

I've definitely heard worse "first tracks" but they tend to have the same problems. You'll know when you've come up with something ace, trust me!

Pockets have been proven to sound different to DMGs, with what is generally regarded as a thinner sound. Read this article.

I use SNES sounds (using resampled sounds rather than soundfonts) in a lot of my work. Joshua Morse did a nice 'SNES-style' release (that, to my ears sounds like it used some soundfonts). Check that out here.

I'd be interested to know if there are any other people using the SNES out there, I've started threads both here and on 8bc about it but there isn't really much about. In terms of official .spc tracks Syphus did an amazing .mod to .spc conversion track (check that here).

These are words of wisdom - quality control is a real issue for 95% of netlabels. Whether it's because the people running them can't tell awful music from good music or they just have no pride whatsoever I don't know. Also, you will have to put hard work into presentation, actively seeking people to do nice artwork etc. Imagine you are trying to make money out of your releases - you wouldn't risk wasting $1000 on a vinyl release with bad artwork and crappy music, so why should anyone be bothered to download bad quality mp3s?

Take the most obvious example, 8bitpeoples. They have developed a clear aim (keep the ''fakebit'' to a minimum, focus mainly on US 8-bit with some European/Japanese stuff and FM/etc...), their art is fairly consistent (same resolution/often the same artists), the presentation of their website is professional and everything they release today is made with love and care.

However, while this might be a bit intimidating there is something to be said for doing something for the pure DIY rush of it. Also, great netlabels don't happen overnight - call me a heretic, but there is some utter garbage in the early 8bitpeoples catalogue...

Haha my thoughts exactly.