The origin of chip music composing ?
category: general [glöplog]
I fell on this famous 1981 Kraftwerk's song http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=zZt64_XOflk&feature=related, which you might have seen already or forgotten in you discotec. Anyway, my question is the following:
to what band / song can one trace back chip music. I used to think that chip music started with game cracking. But I wonder in fact if chip music composing started with game cracking or commercial songs or both :) ?...
to what band / song can one trace back chip music. I used to think that chip music started with game cracking. But I wonder in fact if chip music composing started with game cracking or commercial songs or both :) ?...
That goes back to the first music producing chip. SOme one must have used it.
Even The Clash had chiptune on Rock The Casbah.
Even The Clash had chiptune on Rock The Casbah.
syphus wrote his masters thesis on this exact subject but he might argue with you on the definition of 'chip music'. :)
No, I'm not going to argue! Music made with sound chips - fair enough. There's a long history there, and Goto80's soon-to-be-published article discusses that history with far more reach than my soon-to-be-published thesis does :)
What *I* was interested in was the origin of the chiptune, which Goto80 and I agree should be pinpointed around the time that 4-Mat and some contemporaries coined the phrase and the style. It's the semantic issue that interested me, since the recent, so-called 'chiptune' scene has appropriated the term and applied it to synthesised compositions, such as Gameboy music.
When the term was coined, probably in '89, it was already a nostalgic style supposed to be reminiscent of ealier SID-style characteristics such as fast arpeggios, certain types of vibrato and various much-loved compositional cliches. So that's another reason why I get baffled and a bit frustrated by all the current excitement about these '8bit' (another laughable and disingenuous piece of terminology) genres supposedly signalling some sort of rennaissance - a rebirth and rediscovery of our childhood sounds and games. Well given that I place the first major rediscovery period at the late 80's, we're probably on the tenth wave or something by now!
But really, it's just a point of interest - I'm not actually frustrated about it :) And even if I were, I'd be sick of arguing by now. Oh, and my thesis was quite big - a lot of it was about tracking compositional techniques, dissemination, nascent netlabels based around module sharing and cooperative creativity in the BBS/floppy-swapping era! Welcome to yawn-city!
ulrick: although Goto80's article isn't publicly available yet, it'll be really interesting when it arrives and there's a lot of other work that discusses the historical aspects of electronic, computer-assisted music that might be of interest to you.
What *I* was interested in was the origin of the chiptune, which Goto80 and I agree should be pinpointed around the time that 4-Mat and some contemporaries coined the phrase and the style. It's the semantic issue that interested me, since the recent, so-called 'chiptune' scene has appropriated the term and applied it to synthesised compositions, such as Gameboy music.
When the term was coined, probably in '89, it was already a nostalgic style supposed to be reminiscent of ealier SID-style characteristics such as fast arpeggios, certain types of vibrato and various much-loved compositional cliches. So that's another reason why I get baffled and a bit frustrated by all the current excitement about these '8bit' (another laughable and disingenuous piece of terminology) genres supposedly signalling some sort of rennaissance - a rebirth and rediscovery of our childhood sounds and games. Well given that I place the first major rediscovery period at the late 80's, we're probably on the tenth wave or something by now!
But really, it's just a point of interest - I'm not actually frustrated about it :) And even if I were, I'd be sick of arguing by now. Oh, and my thesis was quite big - a lot of it was about tracking compositional techniques, dissemination, nascent netlabels based around module sharing and cooperative creativity in the BBS/floppy-swapping era! Welcome to yawn-city!
ulrick: although Goto80's article isn't publicly available yet, it'll be really interesting when it arrives and there's a lot of other work that discusses the historical aspects of electronic, computer-assisted music that might be of interest to you.
damn, thats what i should have written my thesis about. wouldnt have been half as fucking horrible to digest as it turned out for me -_- got an url for the download of that thesis btw?
ps, what did you write about? </thread hijack>
jazz musicians.
parapete: "Hybrid Optimizer for Expeditious Modeling of Virtual Urban Environments", im not really that proud of the end result though.
You wrote a thesis on Optimuz? Cool! My thesis hasn't been published yet (should be a chapter in a book next year, I think) but I'll send you a copy :)
ooooops... wrong thread...
damn you kaneel, you were too fast :P
actually the whole optimus behaviour from the pouet admin prespective could present an interesting social analysis, sadly i lack proper psychology lingo :) then again i lacked proper global optimization heuristic & procedural modelling lingo and that didnt stop me from masochism before. O_O eitherway, thesis are dead! long live thesis. do send me a copy syphus, am quite curious :)
you mean...
who is that handsome black man in the picture ?
It's a synthetizer.
s y n t h e s i z e r
syphus, I'd be happy to read goto80's paper.
waiter !! there's a wave in my table !
I had composed some horrible ziks for the game Explora III in 1990 bot for Amiga and Atari. The tracker on Atari was G.I.S.T. as far as I remeber. You're right syphus, I did not know anyone in that period talking of chip music. Coders of the game Explora on ST told me at that time that the music would not take much space in the format delivered by G.I.S.T., whereas on Aamiga, I basically had to compose no more than 40kb sized music with the ST-00 of Soundtracker.
I'm amazed that one can coin a term and rediscover it in the same year!
unseen that's the guy who invented music.-
i first heard term chiptune in 1995/1996 ...
To me, the first zik of the demoscene with chip tune effects was made by Uncle Tom in "Menta Hangover " of Scoppex in 1990.
havoc: who did coin the term "chip music" then rediscover it? What I meant is that G.I.S.T. was by construction more like a chip tune sound generator than was Paula of the Amiga. But I might be wrong.
havoc: who did coin the term "chip music" then rediscover it? What I meant is that G.I.S.T. was by construction more like a chip tune sound generator than was Paula of the Amiga. But I might be wrong.
The first chiptune I know is Monday by Random Voice, made in april 1991.
I always thought that Random Voice invented mod chip music in it's final form. I mean with several samples for simulating pulse shifting on the melody lead.
I always thought that Random Voice invented mod chip music in it's final form. I mean with several samples for simulating pulse shifting on the melody lead.