More classical chipmusic

Linus Åkesson has done it again, in May.

“It struck me that, at least in theory, organ pipes should generate quite primitive sound waves. If so, how come a church organ doesn’t sound like a chip tune, which is also built up from simple waveforms? Well, actually it will, if you remove the church. And if you connect a Commodore 64 home computer to a loudspeaker in a large hall, it will sound like an organ.”

Reverberations is an 8-bit approach to J. S. Bach. Obviously based on 8-bit hardware and code, this does however sound very little like chipmusic. Just as chipflip wrote before, with Åkesson’s skills in both classical music and C64-assembler, he can point the finger to the quantization we know from 99% of other chipmusic (and most digitally sequenced music?). “The goal is not to play the right notes in the right order; that’s the starting point” to use his own words. With the reverbs added, this really sounds like there is both an organ and an organist present. Halleluja!

Usually, chipmusic seems mostly concerned with pop, games, dancing, happiness, clubs and so on. By placing a C64 in a church (virtually) and having it play Bach with the feel, touch, and limitations of an organ players’ hands, it seems to me that Åkesson has made a pretty hardcore recontextualisation of chipmusic. When I listen to Reverberations I think about christianity, note sheets, motoric skills, and the 18th century. On one hand, that’s pretty crazy results from a C64 and reverb. On the other hand, it’s not really that surprising that a modern machine can simulate (emulate?) these simple waveforms. But anyway – this is a rather perfect example of 8-bit music that is not in the form of chipmusic. Reverberations has almost nothing to do with with the culture, composing style, software, and context of chipmusic. Only the technology is shared. Medium does not necessarily cause form, as I said before.

When I found this, I felt like releasing a song I did a while ago: religious chip rock. It was also made with a C64 and reverb, but I have some angel-like (hehehe) singing aswell. It is also not that quantized, since I am playing drums and guitar live on the C64-keyboard with a vodka-induced mind. I just uploaded it to labelable and internet2008 only for You.

Apple II, forgive me

I had no idea that Apple II is alive and kicking! I found 8-bit Sound & Fury with both purist Apple II music and also compositions made with external hardware and overdubs. Yes! The Apple II was developed by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, and with its graphics, color, and sound it won the battle over Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80 back in 1977. Also, the inner workings of the hardware was made public, unlike competing computers. (source: Gamasutra) Also, it was probably here the cracking of games started getting organized with modem-linked networks of mainly Americans, dating back to 1979 according to Linus Walleij. This is a quite legendary machine, growing out of the homebrew hippie hacker action that seems to have been dominating computer progresses in the 1970s. Parallel to this was ofcourse the copyright-mongering Microsoft (although I do remember seeing a documentary called Psychedelic Science where Gates’ partner Paul Allen said that BASIC wouldn’t have existed without LSD). Anyway, time for some contemporary Apple II music!

Framebreaker – Serial Dub (2007) is an EP with four dub-smelling Apple II tracks, the first that caught my attention among the other more pure squarey tracks. I am not sure how much overdubbing and effects is on this, but it sounds like a sharp dub-rock printer soundtrack!

Geometry for Lovers by J.Warden & S.Williams is “Mathematically-derived instrumental compositions performed on the Apple II computer.” and might be called industrial (anti)chaos pop, or something. Worth checking out.

Michael J Mahon – In My Life (2005?) – nice and cheesy Beatles-cover, made with his custom hardware/software 8xApple//e – AppleCrate Eight Voice Music Synthesizer. This is 8 channels of samples, and doesn’t sound like Apple II to me at all. Check out his other Apple II projects he’s been doing since 1981 here.

Telnet Heart (2005), Robot Revolution and Nightdriver are amazing speech synthesis hard-rock songs in low-res. I’ve always had a soft spot for both 8-bit rock and speech synthesizers, and this is definitely among my favourites.

Also worth checking:
* Apple II music podcast: 1mhz
* Apple II hardware production company: reactive micro.
* Apple II ethernet card here
* The mother of all Apple II webrings!! : )

Also, even more interestingly, pouet has Apple II demoscene releases from 1981 to 1997 here. That crackintro from 1981 is probably the oldest one I have seen…

Chiptune Tits

According to the graph I generated over at blogpulse, seems I should stop saying chipmusic and start talking about chiptune if I wanna hang with the majority. Or should that be chiptuneS..? Micromusic is not popular in the blogosphere anyway. The peak in May was caused by the Crystal Castles buzz, which I never wrote about here (well, it’s mentioned in the plagiarism-page). Anyway. I will try to stick to saying chiptune about a particular chip..eh..tune..song, which is a part of the genre chipmusic. But my perspective is doomed, I tell ya! Doomed to the death of deaths!

np: micromusic episode 01 by Starpause (dj set, chipcutupmicronoisepopelectroyeah)

Dancepads and Axes

Yesh yesh, some hardware/software combinations that might be of interest to you.

Via c64.sk a while back, I found Musicpad64. It is a BASIC software for C64 by nicovideonico. By controlling it with a Playstation Dance Pad, he’s made this videoclip. It’s a nice song – melancholic and dirty, just the way we like it! We should let our feet do the composing more often.

And via getlofi I discoverred electrokraft who is in the process of making several cartridges for NES to play music with its 2A03. Watch a video clip demonstration of the software in action with his custom built Sonic DrumAxe here. The sounds are not really that interesting, and I am not sure what the software “Super Synth Drums” is capable of. I am guessing that MidiNes is a lot better, but on the other hand you are not programming that straight on the NES.

Gijs Gieskes Hard Soft Synth, surfacing on the web a few months ago, might not be 8-bit (for those of yous that care) but it sounds sort of like it, and it looks great!

Ebay Teletext Porn

HELLO. If you’re looking for some new teletext-porn, you might want to check The Sound of Ebay from the digital schizo-activists Ubermorgen. It builds on their previous works on hacking the corporate world – for example Google Will Eat Itself, and Etoy (together with Carl, one of founders of micromusic.net). From the website: “We love it! The Sound of eBay is our affirmative low-tech contribution to the ATOMIC soundtrack of the peer-to-peer hyper-catastrophic shock-capitalism.” The teletext graphics were made by lizvlx who’s made other nice pixel art such as 9-11.

Previous teletext ramblings at chipflip can be found here.