Chipmusic - hardware or software?

After writing about Linus Åkesson’s work, I have been thinking more about the definition of chipmusic. Again. So, his hardware chiptune project is really hardcore - programming a chip from scratch to generate music. But, it can also be seen as the complete opposite to chipmusic.

If we use a technical definition of chipmusic - any kind of sounds synthesized by a soundchip - Åkesson’s project is not chipmusic. The sounds that his program generates could might aswell have been something completely different, that wouldn’t sound like chipmusic at all. But, when you use a machine with a specific soundchip inside it (which computers and consoles had until the mid 1990s), the chip has a framework that you need to adapt to. A Gameboy or a NES can play four sounds simultaneously, a Commodore 64 can only play three.

However, most music software goes beyond the absolute limitations of the soundchips. With LSDJ for Gameboy, one of the channels can play two 4-bit samples at the same time, by mixing the sounds. On this channel you can also use a software-synthesizer, which produces sounds not inherent to the chip. On the Commodore 64, clever programmers quickly figured out how to play samples on a “fourth” channel of the soundchip already in the early 1980’s.

Back in the days, it was important that music could be used in games or demos. Composers could not make music that used a lot of processor power to generate sounds, since programmers needed the power to make cool games or demos. Today music seems highly prioritized in the development of games and demos, but back then music wasn’t supposed to use much of RAM or CPU. (Collins) Still today, a lot of software used to make chipmusic doesn’t use a lot of CPU-power, although it is usually not made for games or demos. LSDJ is one example of a tracker that uses more software synthesis, although it was actually used in the Gameboy demo Demotronic (2002) by 1.000.000 BOYS. (and although I am biased here, I think it is one of the best demos ever)

I still argue that the birth of chipmusic as we know it today was around 1990. Although computer music had been made for almost 40 years already, the term chipmusic was not used. Also, it seems it was around this time that chipmusic as a genre was formed. Before the home computer revolution in OECD-countries in the 1980’s, computer music was mainly made in the name of science and fine art. It seems it was about technological progress and pioneering, or conceptual art based in cybernetics, sci-fi, and social critique. (Chandler & Neumark 2005) Basically, it was a lot more abstract than what we call chipmusic today.

I have not seen the term chipmusic in use before the Amiga demoscene started mentioning it around 1990. The term referred to music that flirted with the game music of the C64 and was essentially used in intros and cracktros. But, the sounds were not synthesized by a chip - it was sampled waveforms. It is a fact often forgotten in contemporary history writing of chipmusic. In its infancy, chipmusic was not about realtime synthesized sounds but rather a musical genre - and I would argue this is still the case. But personally, I like the technical aspect of the term chipmusic as I can easily label my music without saying what music style I make. It’s like saying I make “guitar music”. Very convenient + confusing.

Apparently I’ve missed out on good stuff, but thanks to the c64music blog I found out about little-scale who makes very nice chip-related things. Right now, I want to mention his automaton ep (2008) which uses the same technique as the early Amiga chipmusic composers: extremely short samples. All the songs on this EP are based on a single 11.6 millisecond sample, and it effectively proves that this technique can result in pretty complex soundscapes. I made something similar in a tune called Jonkvrouwe (download). This tune is some kind of quick n’ dirty bleep reggae, but it illustrates this technique in an interesting way. There is just one sample of a a screaming girl and I change the loop-positions of the samples while playing the song. When the loop is short enough it sounds like chipmusic! I wonder if it is?

Chiplagiarism

The American artist Laromlab has released an album with chipmusic, with the only problem being that it wasn’t his own music. The music was made by YM Rockerz, more exactly Crazy Q, DMA-SC, Dubmood, and Lotek Style. Yesterday (April fool’s day) Laromlab wrote an apology and the record label are currently withdrawing the release. Read more about it at Dubmood’s blog. See what some demosceners have to say about it here (it’s not pretty). Don’t be too hard on the guy..

Update a few hours later: Seeing Dubmood’s comment, I will elaborate a bit more.

I have just written a text about composers in the demoscene forming a sort of cultural ecology. The music distributed in the Amiga demoscene - mod-files - contained all the notes, instruments, and effects. It was open source - the listener had the same possibilities to study and alter the song, as the composer did. Since the demoscene operated essentially in the fringe of society, they had no judical problems with sampling records, movies, tv, radio, etc. This was made to a wide extent - usually without crediting the source. “Re-mediation” was also common - making bleepy covers of commercial hits or sampling and using tricks to make them fit into a few hundred kilobytes. On the other hand, using samples and music from fellow demoscene composers seems to have been considerred a lot more problematic. If you did this, the collective sanctioning of the demoscene would turn you into a lamer, sort of what happened to Timbaland. The point is: the demoscene, with its origins in the crackerscene, didn’t respect copyright outside of its community but had its own internal way of handling property and sanctioning.

The demoscene has its similarities with hiphop and mashups, because we all sample from external sources without being extremely picky with saying where it came from. (Although it is often essential that the listener recognizes the original, as Navas points out) This is made both in mainstream and underground culture, with the difference that most people can’t afford to pay money to do it legally. Money money money. It’s sometimes really refreshing to listen to music which is neither commercial or anti-capitalistic - just music. Chipmusic is a good example of this, or atleast it was. Now it’s not just possible to make money from chipmusic, but it’s also an argument to value how bad a case of extreme sampling (”stealing”) is, for example with Laromlab, Timbaland and Fitts for Fight.

Personally, I’ve had my (Creative Commons licensed) music used without permission/credit in both commercial (MTV) and public service contexts (Swedish radio and TV). I can get money for this, by reporting to copyright organizations such as IFPI, STIM, or SACEM. What I cannot do, without proper time and money to go to court, is making sure that my music won’t be used like this in the future. Although copyright means you cannot play a song for an audience without crediting the original author, the dominant sanctioning system is aimed at the economic part of copyright, not the attributional. Who cares if a song is played on the radio without credit, as long as the owner gets money?

Auhm, anyway. It’s ofcourse extremely silly to take a song and claim that you made it. I really don’t get that, eventhough I like sampling, remixing, mashups, etc. It’s a normal way of creating artifacts for a very long time, but what makes it difficult now is technology, copyright and individualism. There is nothing wrong with demanding people to give you credit for what you do, but it’s worth thinking about why it’s so important for you.

Maybe the way that demoscene handled intellectual property is getting more applicable again, when getting famous with your music is increasingly hard without it being available online, for everybody. Timbaland has been sampling for a long time, but last year the notorious music magazine Rolling Stone asked “Is Timbaland a thief?“. Could this have been caused by a “nerd army” and “the collective pride of a bunch of geeks and their ongoing war with mainstream media”? (xxlmag) I think it’s justified to fight back Timbaland’s arrogance, but since Laromlab is so obviously regretting what he made and probably fucked up future plans about his music making, maybe this is not the place for tabloid-style deamonizing?