Inspired by classic videogame soundtracks and electronic music from the 70s and 80s, 8 Bit Weapon delivers a sound that is as unique as it is original. Clever melodies, nostalgic atmosphere, and energetic beats create a decidedly modern sound while maintaining a fun, lo-tech aesthetic. You’re probably aware of this, because you own a copy of our 8 Bit Weapon loop library.Hey everybody, fire up your Nintendo Game Boys, Atari 2600s and Commodore 64s, because 8 Bit Weapon has a chiptune remix contest for you! Those of you in the know might recognize the offered track from 8 Bit Weapon, our recently released loop library again, a hint. What can you do with it? 8 Bit Weapon wants to know. Along with the usual plethora of goodies provided to the winner, 8 Bit Weapon is providing a Commodore 64 music creation work station for your own chiptune arsenal!
8bw Adds:
If you dont have any software or even any gear to make the remix, NO PROBLEM! Sony has provided a FREE copy of ACID for PC computers on the remix site for you to use. Mac users can download the loop zip file and use the loops to make a remix as well in programs like Garage band, etc. However Mac users wont be able to use the acid project file.
There are NO restrictions on how the remix is made! You can use all chip related devices, modern softsynths, or anything else that tickles your fancy. Also, you do not have to use ACID software to enter! You can make your remix any way you like. :)
The Grand Prize winner will receive: A Commodore 64, 1541 drive, cables, a Prophet 64 Cart, ACID Pro software, Five Standard Collection Libraries, as well as a copy of our “Electric High EP” & an 8bw T-shirt!
I still see no point in making a promotional stunt on a userbase that clearly does not need this Sony sample pack. Why the insistance? It feels like a cheap shot at making a buck out of a community that does not appreciate this sort of package (as some people rather violently expressed online). We know how to use an old computer to pull off these sounds. Why sell us a sample pack?
And this compo prize? Prophet 64 is old and as good as a doorstep since the release of its sequel. Step up the game and offer a competent setup up for grabs. I sure hope the C64 and peripherals are new in box too! :P
Your marketing department needs to make a few adjustments about this, specially after the shitstorm generated in places like 8shitcollective.
If you think most folks, even chippers, know how to use all of these classic machines and find the software to run on them, AND know how to make music on them you are likely incorrect. Even most chip musicians only use one or two real vintage systems for music creation; and many of them use emulators.
Some people, like AKira and I, enjoy the collecting and toiling with old machines…but most do not. I think if people had a choice if toiling to make chip music, or making it with ease…we both know what they would pic. We made the chiptune odyssey loop library for those people who would like to delete toil form the chiptune equasion.
Isnt it ultimately about the music anyway, not how its made?
Sony lets you download the whole collection of Apple II, C64, NES, Game Boy, & Atari 2600 sounds in the comfort of your home/office/studio for one small price. PLUS Sony gives ACID LITE away for free for song creation! :)
This collection of chiptune samples allows anyone to use real chip sounds from 5 classic systems with ease. You can tweek each loop and even re-key each note in each as well! People don’t have to learn an emulator, know how to code, scour ebay for real chip hardware/software/etc. This levels the playing field for anyone who ever wanted to make chip music but was afraid it would be too hard to get the gear and learn the software etc. So the library offers real chip sounds that most folks would not easily have access too.
The actual chip community is small, to assume Sony’s sole or even primary market target is chiptuners doesn’t really make sense. Sony would not invest in something that doesn’t have a level of global marketability. Sure Sony will profit off it, just like Commodore, Nintendo, Atari, EBay, Ableton, Sonar, FL Studio, etc did off of the whole community. I don’t see people complaining about any of those companies. (someone else said this too, but I forgot(sorry)) Since everyone has paid someone for their gear/software, why the upset with Sony? They made it more affordable than EVER to make real un-emulated chipmusic! Otherwise people will have to shop ebay and pay high prices for gear and carts etc, plus shipping!
We think that chipmusic has a lot of growth ahead. We would like to think this chiptune collection will help its growth. Think of all the wonderful new talent that will discover the joy of chipmusic thanx to sony and the exposure they have provided the library. This is just another way for people to discover chiptuning. Instead of preaching to the chior, by marketing only to chippers, they are also going out to introduce chiptunes to the rest of the untapped population.
Also, as for the Sony Remix Contest Prize: The Commodore 64 music work station prize is a great addition for any chip interested musician. Not to mention all the free software from Sony. Again, the target market is the planet as a whole, not just the chiptune communities alone. Imagine you’re new to chiptunes and you could win a real c64 workstation!? I would be STOKED! :)
Anyhow, thank you for reading this!
-Seth ;)
“to assume Sony’s sole or even primary market target is chiptuners doesn’t really make sense.”
This is exactly what I said! ;)
Doing a promotion action aimed towards chip musicians, doesn’t sound like something smart, and as I said, given the nasty comments this has received in an online community of chiptune musicians and enthusiasts, I find it odd that you keep investing your energy in pointing that way. I am not supporting their reaction, just thinking why is it that you insist on “selling it” to “us” … Your comment is further proof that you are pitching the package to this community! ;)
“Isnt it ultimately about the music anyway, not how its made?”
Unfortunately, most people, and I am afraid I have to say, you included, rely on the technicality of how it is made so much as to make it the main (and many times only) gimmick of their entire marketing pitch. Also, most music being produced by ‘chip “”””musicians”””” is of terrible quality, and in many case this is aided by a ridiculous focus on how it is made rather on how it should sound. IF the whole community would make a paradigm switch onto a more creative and productive motivation (like, for example, the -limitations- that 8-bit hardware imposes, rather than the fact that it’s retro, cool and sounds like a fucking videogame), I think I could rest in peace and stop rambling like an old pensioner ;)
I mostly agree with Akira as far as most chip music sounding like pop punk with square waves but I think you’re exactly backwards on the reason typical chip music is so poor. It’s because of the way the chips sound.
That’s not to say the chips cannot sound good of course, but that their basic sound is associated with video games. Of course, there’s some amazing game music, but people have fond memories of games with bad music too, so it’s all too easy to charm that audience by simply using the same or a similar chip. It’s also quite easy to put together some basic boilerplate pop-punk-with-squarewaves. Put the two together and it’s a feel-good nostalgia high. And there’s nothing wrong with that except that it’s boring as hell.
So that becomes the lowest common denominator, and most chip artists put more effort into doing elaborate on-stage dances to their tunes and miming musical performance than into exploring chips (yes, their limitations, bugs, quirks, secrets…), creating interesting music, or finding ways to actually interact with the chips in real time. And that’s why chip sucks in ’09.
Though the medium is very fertile for innovation, it’s curbed by the ubiquitous mediocrity and silly theatrics which scare off the nerds who drive that innovation.
On the hand I think chip nerds can do a lot to stifle innovation and experimentation.. so the more outsiders, surely can lead to fun new things. In a lot of ways. Modern gameboy pop can be called the musical equivlent of an unholy union between air guitar and paint by numbers ;)
Nice discussion.. keep it up!
“That’s not to say the chips cannot sound good of course, but that their basic sound is associated with video games.”
I think the problem relies in people emphasizing that the “cool” aspect of this way of music creation is exactly this, and also, the EXTREMELY –LOW– self-quality assurance filter and acceptance of any old crap. It is TOO COMMON for people to big up any dog turd, and people getting “fame” easily (if you can call a lot of that, fame).
So, as a result, people will stick to the basics, because their peers applaud the basic.
And the technicality of “I made it with a Game Boy” is enough to satisfy these people. I seen many times phrases like “I made it with a Game Boy, is not supposed to sound good!”, much to my discontent.
Peter, I think there are at least a couple types of nerds. I’m talking about the kind of nerds who consider pushing/bending/breaking boundaries a point of pride and machismo. I agree that outsiders are probably healthiest for the scene. But I would like to hear more outsiders involved in real experimentation – noise music, dub, darker and more complex harmonies and rhythms, etc. And anyway, as far as I can tell, said nerds would be considered outsiders in the “scene” at this point, because they are neither pumping out color-by-numbers major chord iPod fodder nor are they surrounding themselves with all manner of superficial bagatelle evoking their exaggerated or imaginary idea of childhood.
“I think the problem relies in people emphasizing that the ‘cool’ aspect of this way of music creation is exactly this, and also, the EXTREMELY –LOW– self-quality assurance filter and acceptance of any old crap. It is TOO COMMON for people to big up any dog turd, and people getting ‘fame’ easily (if you can call a lot of that, fame).”
Akira, that was my point exactly though it may have been lost amidst my wordiness (sorry!) – that the novelty is the main attraction. Because the sound really tugs at the heartstrings generation who played on 8 16 bit consoles after school, it’s an easy lure to snag listeners without much effort.
At any rate, when you can’t tell who created what 95% of the time, I personally don’t see that as a healthy scene. It alienates those outsiders, I know from talking to people completely outside the scene who see the whole thing as a ridiculous pastel teenage spectacle. It’s difficult to convince them that there’s great stuff, and room for a lot more, when that number seems to creep higher every day.
I for one hope those guys get sick of it and go back to guitars, or at least that the delicious weirdos will get some more exposure soon.
i am a delicious weirdo and i am exposing my self at this very moment..ahhh
seriously this thread touches on matters of utmost import regarding the future of chipmusic. the discussion should always come back to creation of real synthesis though.
personally, though i am not really a current user of modern sampling or emulation, but suspect in my heart that emulation may be more purist than sampling, somehow.
if any artist could get away with this type of package it’s 8BW. i agree that pitching it too much to the core scene is like trying to pitch dry-ice to eskimos sometimes. unfortunately it’s an age old story wherein the innovators keep doing what they’ve always done and in the process, appear , to newcomers as kind of bandwagon jumpers, as evidenced by the 8bp flamers and stuff.,of course this could not be farther from the truth. they are just doing what they always did, writing songs that do reference the hardware/video game culture.etc. 8bw has had a decade or so of promoting the ‘do as i do’ and has generated many, many real chip users in the process. he was one of the 1st i ran across in late ’03 when i got started.
this new project of his is aimed at those others who don’t get around to doing the legwork, or just plain work, to get going for real in chip,which is ok, coz that’s most of the musicians on the planet (ie: crystalcrassholes)
point is there are some great writers/artists out there who would never pass this scene’s (or whatever it is) doorstep, wherein now they might. am i saying that we need to seperate the men drag racers from the boys by what size engine they have ( or if they even have an engine at all)? i don’t know cos now i’m rambling.
i still think the MTV generator for ps1 was an underrated tool which in the age of shitar-hero looks infinitely more creative and may have even generated an electronic musician or two. maybe not, but i can see how Seth’s product(s) do attempt to do this with heart and quite a bit of effort put into it.
i guess it’s ok for 8bw to tell them ‘do as i say’ for a couple of projects, but the ultimate goal in respect to a lasting musical legacy, if anyone cares about that, is pure synthesis, chipmusic being only one branch of the many tools to do this. i think there will be those that start out on this sample pack, and end up on a real life synthcart or nanoloop etc.
so i guess i am agreeing with what was said by akira , but can see the energy and positivity in this project by seth.
how’s that for non commital?