Category: Chipmusic

Toons from various consoles.

  • TCTD Awards 2009: Best Artist

    Our final award is somewhat nebulous and warrants a little explaining. It is someone who should be among the foremost names on your list when explaining chip music to outsiders, a person whose skills as a musician and composer are so inspiring that mere words cannot convey their importance to the scene.  The following nominations comprise artists from all the relevant categories. I am happy to present the (last!) award of 2009, Artist of the Year:

    minusbaby – With a stripped down live approach,  quality EPs for 8bitpeoples and rocking pixel work, Minusbaby made numerous TCTD award shortlists. His music becomes more nuanced and engrossing with each release.

    Bud Melvin – An amazing performer with an awesome release confirms my gut feeling that any year Bud is active, he is a nominee for this category.

    4mat – One of the demoscene greats returns to the fold.  Even his WIPs and fragments outstrip many official releases.

    Goto80 – Do you like breakfast?

    Little-Scale – This insanely prolific inventor and composer was the overwhelming choice of the public in this year’s nominations. He is an innovative songwriter, a great live performer and he knows a thing or two about interfacing with his hardware.

  • TCTD Awards 2009: Best Track

    In a year where all the gimmicks seemed to be tired (forced limitations, cover comps, time based show-offs) these nominees showed that at its heart, chip music ain’t a thing without good old-fashioned songwriting. There is no way to do justice to the dozens of deserving artists who have created great music this year, so when weighing nominations I tried to consider the artists’ use of chips and the quality of the production, but in the end it was simply a matter of “do you like the song?” These tracks are all superior accomplishments and I am proud to announce 2009’s Best Track Nominees:

    The J. Arthur Keens Band – Catfish Lagoon

    Youthful wunderkin releases dozens of songs and this is the one that catches fire. Catchy and sing-a-longability along with great sound design make a song that is not only one you can rock in your bedroom, but share with your parents, friends and the fairer sex.

    Bit Shifter – Easy Prey

    From the amazing 8bp100 Blip Fest CD package, the mix and the crowd only accentuate an amazing performance by one the masters of the US chip scene, Josh Davis.

    Mr. Spastic – FXLP

    The soundtrack to running through a brick wall, hyper energy and a solo that takes you over the cliff.  Not to be played before bedtime, church, major surgery…

    Dr. Von Pnok – Brain Swap

    Processed chips with insanely large presence and mental beats. Harsh, club-worthy and ultimately danceable.

    Chibi-Tech – A–nie Rabu Damon. (It’s A–nie Love.)

    Perverse and accomplished, what more can you hope for from ths winner of this years Famicompo Originals. Fans of VRC6 and Jodeci, this is your jam.

  • On the FMA: 2009 Blip Festival PT. 2

    Free Music Archive: 2009 Blip Festival on your FMA PT. 2.

  • Plastik – OPL FM synth for Reaktor appeared

    Plastik is an FM synth or more accurately phase modulation synth inspired by the Yamaha OPL chips found in Ad Lib and Sound Blaster soundcards in the 80’s and 90’s, renowned for its plastic sound. It should be noted, however, that even though Plastik was made to produce the same overall qualities as the OPL chips, and even has some of its unique features the waveforms, the fixed vibrato and tremolo frequencies it makes no claim whatsoever to be a complete or accurate OPL emulator.

    via Gameboy Genius

  • SIDstick Appeared

    The SIDstick is a pocket-sized chiptunes player featuring:
    * Removable Storage supporting microSD cards, 1 card can hold 20,000 songs
    * 20+ hour battery life
    * Super Hi-Quality hardware-based playback at 31kHz sample rate, >16 bit resolution
    * Completely Open, hardware and software are available under the MIT license
    * Upgradable with connections on the board

    Here are the details of SIDcog, the core audio processor;
    * 31kHz sample rate
    * >16bit resolution
    * Full filter support – any combination of Lowpass, Bandpass and Highpass filter
    * Full envelope support with a logarithmic release/decay curve. ( uses the same logarithmic approximation as a real SID)
    * Supports all 4 waveform types
    * 16 steps main volume
    * Waveform reset bit works. (many Rob Hubbard tunes relies on this exact behaviour)
    * Ring modulation
    * Oscillator synchronization

    Get The SIDstick!.

    Too bad its emulated.. but looks fun.

    (thanks burnkit2600!)