The discussion is open, of course. I am not exactly sure what my "point" is. I just feel like the chipscene is somehow trembling to find new grounds (or is it just me?) and I think the überfocus on hardware that glued the scene together before is becoming less relevant. Both among us, and for the spectators.
Every platform certainly has characteristics that makes it (not) nice to work with. Unpredictable and noisey, sweet and fun, fast and compact, etc. But that goes for *all* platforms. It's not something unique for lo-fi machines, even if we (me) feel like it. Even if some computers and instruments try to be invisible and universal, they are not. I think that's important to remember.
Some people say that anything made with a C64 is chipmusic. Maybe so. But is anything made with a SID also chipmusic? If you connect it to a massive super computer that can access the SID fifteen billion times per second, and blast out the most hi-fi sound ever, would that be chipmusic? For me, no. The definition needs to be more complicated than that, atleast for the scientific part of me.
A clicky waveform can be emulated easily. It could also be made more clicky, which would then make it even more fun, if that's what you like. If you'd identify the "unique" characteristics of e.g the SID and then intensify them in an emulator, would that make it more unique? More chip? Is it more authentic than using external effects? More purist than bending the machine?
That seems more interesting, compared to building all these additional hardware to be able to transgress the original hardware platform. If you want to make a hawt C64 coder pr0n demo today, I'm not even sure it's possible to use the original platform anymore. You have to use emulators and special tools. And then play it on a C64. Yeai/wow/etc.
Hm. I think I'll stop there.
