Search options (Page 2 of 39)

Martin Galway is widely credited as the father of the chiptune arpeggio effect. His song for Kong Strikes Back is allegedly the first time the effect was used:

As far as similarities with other arpeggios in more traditional music, I think the chip arp stands on its own. The original intention of arpeggios in classical music was more along the lines of not wanting to put a chord with all notes played simultaneously and give more movement to a part but retain a certain simplicity because layering too many "unique" melodies over one another can become chaotic quickly. Whereas the original intention of the chip arp is kind of the opposite, you WANT to have a chord, but you just don't have the means to do it. Of course overtime it became such a staple sound that people when beyond emulating chords and started using them fairly creatively.

There's also a wide variety of chip arps. The "classic" one is three notes played quickly and it's probably the most used because that's what a lot of trackers are limited to with the three digit effect format. But simple two notes octaves are also common, although I tend to think of them more as a sound "texture" rather than an arpeggio since they don't really convey the idea of a chord. With software that allows you to program properly synthesized instruments, you usually have no limits to the number of notes so you can do more complex chords that step outside the min/maj/aug/dim realm. There's also many other creative uses. You can use the first two notes of an arp to play intervals that carry most of a chord's "flavour" and use the third note to add a layer of melody. That means that one a single channel, you not only are cramming a full-ish chord, but also a melody, really maxing out what you can play out of whatever machine you're using.

All in all, I find that chiptune arps are much more complex and unique that just reducing them to "a faster version of traditional arpeggios"

To get here, I had to click login, this thread's title, and then submit reply.

It's really a matter of preference but, my 2 cents:

C64:
+ The fucking SID chip. Top notch chiptune stuff right there.
+ They are fairly cheap to buy.
+ Upgrades are still made for it.
+ Three channels forces you to be creative.
- It's a bit of a pain to use if you haven't used one back in the day.
- MIDI sucks ass. I mean yeah, MSSIAH but... yeah....

Atari ST:
+ MIDI built in
+ Sweet sound chip
+ Modern trackers can really push the more powerful machines (STE and up)
+ Some upgrades available for it...but really nothing super impressive.
- The OS fucking sucks
- They get pretty expensive. Expect to pay a fair bit for a decent setup. Older models aren't worth shit for music. Things get interesting from the STE and up.
- Two different screens required for low/med resolution, and high resolution. Most (cool) software needs the colour screen (low/med) and they're hard to find for a decent price.
- It's VERY early stuff, if you're looking to use like Cubase and shit. Don't expect much.

Amiga:
+Still pretty cheap to get a decent setup.
+TONS of modern hardware is still being made for it.
+AmigaOS is super intuitive to use, easy to configure etc.
+Tons of music software
-MIDI is meh. You can get a midi interface for a decent price, but the software that take advantage of it are pure shit.
-A basic system is cheap, and will get you running a lot of cool software, but if you want to upgrade it to modern standards, it's very expensive.

If you're looking for a MIDI sequencer, then the Atari is the clear winner. If you want to use them for their chiptuning abilities, then I'd say Commodore (64 or Amiga) wins over the Atari, but there's still something quite special and charming about the ST's sound chip. In terms of ease of use in a modern context, Amiga comes up on top by a mile. And if you're looking for a computer made in different shades of brown, nothing beats the C64

They're all great systems, and a ton of fun to use. I'd suggest using emulators for a few months until you figure out which system is better suited to your needs. All these systems will end up costing you a criminal amount of money to get them up and running in a modern setup, so take your time to choose the one that scratches all your itches.

It's a shit ton of fun. It felt a bit limited at first, until I got to understand some of the more in depth features. It really has its own character, which is nice in a world where every tracker does the same. The only two chip trackers that really work for me are Klystrack, and now Comeback. Definitely will be using this a lot

Thank you sir I think I'll be using this tracker for the you-know-what that has a deadline in you-know-when.

There you go!

http://kometbomb.github.io/klystrack/

Focusrite and Presonus have some nice interfaces around that price.

And go for Firewire over USB. People will say that USB3.0 is faster and all that jazz, but I always had better latency with Firewire.