chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
egr wrote:

I expect that an act that is no longer really chipmusic but that came up through that scene initially is going to have a hard time letting go of the "8bit" label if they still enjoy that type of music.  Maybe we can give some of these guys the benefit of the doubt and treat their not-really-accurate self labeling as an homage or tribute or a way to show their roots.

And in the cases where that's obviously not what's going on... well then just remember that someone that is genuinely curious about chiptunesmusic will follow the trail of bread crumbs back to the good stuff.  Right?

I agree with this, because this is what happens to country singers who go pop, blues players who decide to use more than 3 chords, etc.

People who only want the "new" stuff won't follow the trail back to the old, but they aren't interested in it or they'd listen to it already.

Last edited by chunter (May 19, 2013 5:58 pm)

sleepytimejesse
Offline
Youngstown, OH
gyms wrote:

real question: how can we expect the medium to move forward and not be taken as some silly niche thing when people still focus on junk like this?

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America

I know this is a discussion for "artists", and I guess I still fall in the category of hobbyist since I haven't really "released" much of anything and most of the unreleased stuff is incomplete never to be revisited, but I just love music in general. I can't define myself or my "art" in just one category. I am just "SketchMan3". I don't change my name just because I'm doing a different type of music. Whether I do Gameboy rock or ukulele ska or gospel guitar, I am still my one individual self. I know there are some artists who like to use different names depending on the "project" they are working on. I don't really get that.

As for not-chip-anymore artists playing at chip shows, I thought it was because they were invited there by the people in charge of the chip shows.

Sometimes it seems like chiptune is such an all-or-nothing scene from some of the comments here. I know it's NOT an all-or-nothing scene, but sometimes it seems like if you like chiptune then you can't like anything else, or don't want to. It's like Chiptune vs. The World or something.

Last edited by SketchMan3 (May 19, 2013 8:24 pm)

b4by f4c3
Offline
ohgodno, Indiana

Robert Paulson

O2star
Offline
Planet Zaxxon
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:

But something that I've found very interesting is that quite a few who were previously involved with the scene and "proper chiptune"* that have now "quit chiptune" or simply transitioned into other genres (mostly some form or another of EDM) still label themselves as "chiptune", do chip shows, etc.,

I WANT NAMES.

BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON
O2star wrote:
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:

But something that I've found very interesting is that quite a few who were previously involved with the scene and "proper chiptune"* that have now "quit chiptune" or simply transitioned into other genres (mostly some form or another of EDM) still label themselves as "chiptune", do chip shows, etc.,

I WANT NAMES.

CARL PECZYNSKI

ForaBrokenEarth
Offline
Nottingham, UK

Meh, Bob Dylan bought an electric guitar.

I see my musical interests as largely integrated and overlapping.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
O2star wrote:

I WANT NAMES.

I don't think we want to seem to throw anybody under the proverbial desert bus (or throw ourselves under the bus by making enemies of long time friends.) Besides, I'm pretty sure any guilty lurker knows...

herr_prof
Offline
Unsubscribe

This thread is the worst.

gyms
Offline

For the sake of the intended discussion...

BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:

Chiptune is a dabblers genre to be sure, so many artists come and go of course. But something that I've found very interesting is that quite a few who were previously involved with the scene and "proper chiptune"* that have now "quit chiptune" or simply transitioned into other genres (mostly some form or another of EDM) still label themselves as "chiptune", do chip shows, etc., and generally carry on in a chiptune fashion despite supposedly being beyond all that.

Now I'm not passing judgement, nor is this aimed at anyone in particular (in fact I think its a good thing in certain regards and at the very least leads to a diversity of sound), but it is curious to me and I'm interested in other peoples thoughts on the matter.

What I think it all boils down to:

People don't stick with "proper chiptune" most likely because their musical decision making process revolves around the feedback they receive from the tools they use, rather than relying on the ability to compose something that properly comes from the noggin or cultivating a reliable and faster paced interaction with a 'real' instrument. Playing around with user friendly DAW audio, midi and groove effects make producing music a lot easier when you don't actually have many musical ideas. You need to have more properly solid ideas when you approach a tracker or you'll end up wasting a lot of time tracking in junk and relying on the feedback to feed your musical process.

People "still label themselves as "chiptune", do chip shows, etc., and generally carry on in a chiptune fashion despite supposedly being beyond all that" most likely because they enjoy the niche aesthetic of what 'chiptunes' represent. They want to be a part of the established live performing community but are probably either too lazy or too scared(from personally coming to this realization in previous paragraph) to continue relying on trackers for their musical output.

"Why spend all the time developing techniques to bring thickness and life to limited channels when you can just sample shit and layer as much as you what with a DAW?" /rhetoric

Another real question: Why are the concert goers at the venues tolerating this shit as if it actually didn't matter?

and a juxtaposed one: Why can't the general public tell the difference between an objectively good live classical performance and a bad one?

ForaBrokenEarth
Offline
Nottingham, UK
gyms wrote:

For the sake of the intended discussion...

Another real question: Why are the concert goers at the venues tolerating this shit as if it actually didn't matter?

and a juxtaposed one: Why can't the general public tell the difference between an objectively good live classical performance and a bad one?

Overly serious wall of text answer:


The reason that the general public can't tell a good classical performance from a bad one is that taste develops from exposure. If you haven't been exposed to classical music, you won't be able to make judgements about it in ways that are relevant to classical music.
"I can't dance to this."
"Where are the lyrics?"
"wheres the beat?"
These are all questions from the perspective of someone who's only framework for understanding music is pop or rock, and they are largely irrelevant in terms of value when asked about classical music. You get the exact same thing with jazz.


What I would propose is that en masse, the anonymous silent blob of "chiptune" fans are actually pop/rock music fans. These aren't the type to sit on here or ucollective and chat about gear or fancy ways of using PWM to create interesting inflections of sound. These people's exposure is mostly to popular music, maybe EDM, with "chiptune" largely meaning "squarewaves/videogamereferences". The concert goers "tolerate" it (if you must phrase it that way) because the lens they see music through is poppy-dancey-rock and so they like it to sound, and be produced like that. The average listener doesn't have the exposure to know otherwise, and they most likely don't care.


I make music that integrates Chip hardware, DAW's and traditional instruments. I mostly write tracker music as practice for my other music because it gives me another perspective and interesting material to incorporate elsewhere that I couldn't make otherwise. I'm quite happy to point out that the majority of the music I make is Alternative Rock with chip music elements, and it's meant to be view through the lens of alt rock, rather than purist chipmusic. I'd hope that wouldn't exclude me from too many shows, because I mostly avoid the "OMG CHIP GAMEBOYS AND HEARTS 8BIT FOR LIFE" thing altogether,

Last edited by ForaBrokenEarth (May 20, 2013 11:45 pm)

gyms
Offline

Well I'm hoping that others can come to similar conclusions; your first two paragraphs summarize my points and both ideas are related.


And to those thinking something similar to, "I love how this topic can never be discussed for the sake of discussion. There's always some guy who comes in and declares the whole thing pointless and the discussion goes to hell.":

These topics usually end up that way because people have already come up with suggestions and answers to this; there's not much to discuss because the motives and drives behind certain behaviors can be pretty obvious.


The sooner the music makers at large move past the retro nostalgia trip, move past the gnarly-sounds-and-skinny-jeans trend and start using chip sounds for their raw emotional qualities instead of maintaining a niche-retro-gaming-meets-Xstep-trend-slash-this-sounds-like-old-game-music culture, the sooner, again, this medium can move forward and cease to be such a condescending fuckings-to-the-public movement and cease to be such a retarded looping parody of its roots.


edit: aka, the sooner conversations like this will never be brought up and the sooner you won't have to treat the public like idiots because 'chipmusic' will have become something relevant and legitimately interesting.


"I've explored this musical landscape of mine exploiting the emotional vulnerability of these select waveforms."

-vs-

"Hey I'm using a gameboy, I'm using a NES, I'm using a megadrive(InTheUSItWasCalledAGenesis!). Don't you remember pokemon, don't you remember battletoads, don't you remember sonic? Well here's my twist on THAT!" *proceeds to blast you with hyper VGM/proceeds to blast you with watered down trending EDM.

Last edited by gyms (May 21, 2013 12:57 am)

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America

The ukulele world had only begun to recover from the "Tiny Tim" era around the time youtube started to blow up. The banjo suffered a huge blow to it's credibility from the popularity of "Hee Haw!" It's still recovering. The mandolin is next with those "Happier than a X with a Y" commercials.

It's funny... it seems like the majority of people who are all nichey like that are newcomers who only know chiptune from youtube covers. Then again, there are the really great artists who begrudgingly let the audience in on the "joke" so that the general public can make a connection to what he's doing up there with an arduinoboy and a midi controller. "*buhding** yay... -_- you hear that guys, that's the sound of a gameboy booting up -_-", even though it's obvious that they feel they are cheapening their art by doing so.

As opposed to the guy who just walks up and presses Start with no introduction.

Last edited by SketchMan3 (May 21, 2013 12:55 am)

herr_prof
Offline
Unsubscribe

Its not just pointless, the basic thesis of this thread is fucking stupid. Who cares if someone says they make chipmusic but it sounds like deadmau5 or insane clown posse, or Enya, or whatever terrible bands they happen to be into, they have the right to identify their music however they like just as much as I have the right to ignore it.

Its even more infuriating to see people passively doubting the integrity of other artists who get popular and decide to branch out into other production techniques while still identifying with chipmusic. No one has ever picked a gameboy over an abelton crack if their desire was to be mr EDM DUDE. Its not like the world is breathlessly awaiting the NEXT HOT CHIPTUNE DJ.

I don't really want to be part of a community that values process over results, but if you guys want to sound like every shitty post 80's hardcore punk fan and start waxing at length about chip integrity and authenticity, then i guess I just have to leave you guys to yet another endless myopic circle jerk. People have been making sophisticated genre defying music that has crossed over into mainstream acceptance long before you guys heard about lsdj, they are doing it right now, and they still will be doing it in the next few years when you guys are still pumping bullshit all over the internet.

gyms
Offline
SketchMan3 wrote:

The ukulele world had only begun to recover from the "Tiny Tim" era around the time youtube started to blow up. The banjo suffered a huge blow to it's credibility from the popularity of "Hee Haw!" It's still recovering. The mandolin is next with those "Happier than a X with a Y" commercials.

Hey that's a good point. Appears that we're all on a sinking ship, yea?

These sounds are so interwoven with this phenomenally over-embraced dorkdom culture and proud manchildren of the western world, who the fuck could really take any of this music seriously outside of the niche circles on the internet and Hipsterton, Big City?

And we do have some people in more prestigious locations, striving withing the university, pursuing a professional music career via the contemporary classical fields and presenting chip music to their juries. Zackery Wilson, sorry it's time to call you out.

And the presentation still hands it's dorky ass over to be scrutinized with pieces titled "Insert Coin Here" and "GameOVERture". What an opportunity to change minds in a serious way! Thwarted by such a collective lack of self confidence in the potential relevance of the sound.

The contemporary classical circles would totally dig a presentation that revolved around, again, "I've explored this musical landscape of mine exploiting the emotional vulnerability of these select waveforms."

edit: hey i agree with herr_prof

but i do think there is a relevancy to the exploration of emotional character within 8-bit processors and how they behave with sound chips. this might seem a bit contradictory toward agreeing that these topics are a bit stupid, but my point's punctuation is: leave the condescending ego shit behind and understand what's what with sound, how people react to it and why.

Last edited by gyms (May 21, 2013 1:32 am)

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America
chunter wrote:
O2star wrote:

I WANT NAMES.

I don't think we want to seem to throw anybody under the proverbial desert bus (or throw ourselves under the bus by making enemies of long time friends.) Besides, I'm pretty sure any guilty lurker knows...

herr_prof wrote:

Its even more infuriating to see people passively doubting the integrity of other artists who get popular and decide to branch out into other production techniques while still identifying with chipmusic.

I'm not getting the "torches and pitchforks" vibe from this thread. It doesn't seem like people are saying post-chiptunism is a bad thing. Seems they're just trying to figure out what it's all about. But I'm probably missing the underlying passive-aggressive currents as always. As for doubting integrity, I mean... these feelings are here, sometimes you just have to get them out in the open and deal with it; find some resolution so you can just move on. If nobody mentions it, then it's just going to festering just beneath the surface. Somethings can only be communicated through an exchange of fists to face.

Honestly, though, I could care less what other people identify themselves with. In the end it doesn't really matter. But this is just history repeating itself. This whole... "thing" is nothing new, and the "chipmusic scene" certainly didn't invent it. It's happened N to the nth number of times before, and it will keep happening x infinity.

I feel like the only way things can move forward is with all-out warfare and a huge line drawn in the sand with hurt feelings and broken hearts and friendships torn apart forever... no I'm just joking.

Edit: herr_prof, do you really think the scene as a majority values process over result? Maybe it's just a vocal minority.

Last edited by SketchMan3 (May 21, 2013 1:44 am)