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Revision as of 01:14, 28 September 2009

MOS 6581 and 8580 Commodore 64 SID chips

A chiptune, or chip music, is music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in real time by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of using sample-based synthesis. The "golden age" of chiptunes was the mid-1980s to early 1990s, when such sound chips were the most common method for creating music on computers. Chiptunes are closely related to video game music, which often featured chiptunes out of necessity. The term has also been recently applied to more recent compositions that attempt to recreate the chiptune sound for purely aesthetic reasons, albeit with more complex technology.

Early computer sound chips had only simple tone and noise generators with few channels, imposing limitations on both the complexity of the sounds they could produce and the number of notes that could be played at once. In their desire to create a more complex arrangement than what the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds and scores, employing a diversity of both methods of sound synthesis, such as pulse-width modulation and wavetable synthesis, and compositional techniques, such as a liberal use of arpeggiation. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or squeaky to the unaccustomed listener.

History

Origins

The earliest precursors to chip music can be found in the early history of computer music. In 1951, the computers CSIRAC and Ferranti Mark 1 were used to perform real-time synthesized digital music in public.[1]

In the late 1970s, video game consoles and microcomputers started to have integrated circuits with dedicated sound logic. A notable early example is the TIA chip of the Atari VCS (1977) featuring two voices with separate volume and waveform setting.

As several microcomputers were marketed with their music and sound capabilities, commercial music software became available for many models. An early example is the Atari Music Composer released in 1980 for the Atari 400/800. These programs were typically simple and easy to use, but very restricted in their capabilities. In order to really take advantage of the sound chips, programming skills were required.

SID music culture

Arguably the most influential piece of hardware in the development of chip music has been the MOS Technology SID, the sound chip of the Commodore 64 (1982).

By 1985, several Commodore 64 programmers, such as Rob Hubbard, David Whittaker and Martin Galway, were exploring the musical capabilities of the SID chip in order to produce varying and interesting video game music. In the absence of sufficiently advanced music editor software, machine code monitors were typically used for the purpose.

At the same time, several computer hobbyists were taking efforts in "ripping" this music out of the games. The ripped music was spread among hobbyists as stand-alone executables containing one or more pieces of game music, and it was also used as background music in crack intros and demos.

Later on, several demo groups moved to using their own music instead of ripped game music. In 1986, Jeroen "Red" Kimmel studied Rob Hubbard's player routine and used it for original demo songs[2] before writing a routine of his own in 1987. Hobbyists were also writing their own dedicated music editor software, such as Chris Hülsbeck's Soundmonitor which was released as a type-in listing in a 1986 issue of the German C-64 magazine 64'er[3]. The availability of such software made it possible to a wider range of computer users to compose advanced SID music. The 64'er magazine also hosted the earliest known competition for Commodore 64 music in 1986.

These developments in the Commodore 64 culture were reflected by similar developments on other popular microcomputer platforms of the era.

The practice of SID music composition has continued seamlessly until this day in conjunction with the Commodore 64 demoscene. The High Voltage SID Collection, a comprehensive archive of SID music, contains over 36,000 pieces of SID music.[4]

Tracker chiptunes

Commodore Amiga (1985), with its sample-based sound synthesis, distanced the concept of microcomputer music away from plain chip-synthesized sounds. Amiga tracker music software, beginning from Karsten Obarski's Ultimate Soundtracker (1987), inspired great numbers of computer enthusiasts to create computer music. As an offshoot of the burgeoning tracker music culture, a type of tracker music reminiscent of Commodore 64 SID music was born. This type of music came to be called "chiptunes" or "chip music".

Earliest examples of tracker chiptunes date back to 1989–1990 and are attributed to the demoscene musicians 4-Mat, Turtle and Duz. Tracker chiptunes are based on very short looped waveforms which are modulated by tracker effects such as arpeggio, vibrato and portamento. The small amount of sample data made tracker chiptunes far more space-efficient than most other types of tracker music, which made them appealing to size-limited demoscene demos and crack intros. Tracker chiptunes have also been commonly used in other warez scene executables such as keygens.

Nowadays, the term "chiptune" is also used to cover chip music using actual chip-based synthesis, but some sources, such as the Amiga Music Preservation project, still define a chiptune specifically as a small tracker module.[5]

Steps toward the mainstream music world

Before the 2000s, chip music was rarely performed live, and the songs were nearly exclusively spread as executable programs and other computer file formats. The earliest examples of record label releases of chip music can be found in the late 1990s.[6]

During the 2000s, a new wave of chiptune culture took place, boosted by the release of software such as LSDJ for the Game Boy. This new culture has much more emphasis on live performances and record releases than the demoscene and tracker culture the new artists are often only distantly aware of.[7]

Technology

Historically, the chips used were sound chips such as:

For the MSX several sound upgrades, such as the Konami SCC, the Yamaha YM2413 (MSX-MUSIC) and Yamaha Y8950 (MSX-AUDIO, predecessor of the OPL3) and the OPL4-based Moonsound were released as well, each having its own characteristic chiptune sound.

The Game Boy, like the NES, does not have a separate sound chip but both instead use digital logic integrated on the main CPU.

Paula is known as the sound chip on Amiga, but is not really a sound generating chip by itself. It is only responsible for DMAing samples from RAM to the audio output, similar to the function of modern day sound cards.

Most of (but not all) chip sounds are synthesised by simply dividing a clock square wave to get a square wave of desired frequency, and sometimes using a sawtooth/triangle wave from volume LFO or an (ADSR) envelope to get some kind of ring modulation. LFOs are used to control or influence a sound parameter such as pitch or filters in a repeating cycle.

The technique of chiptunes with samples synthesized at runtime continued to be popular even on machines with full sample playback capability; because the description of an instrument takes much less space than a raw sample, these formats created very small files, and because the parameters of synthesis could be varied over the course of a composition, they could contain deeper musical expression than a purely sample-based format. Also, even with purely sample-based formats, such as the MOD format, chip sounds created by looping very small samples still could take up much less space.

As newer computers stopped using dedicated synthesis chips and began to primarily use sample-based synthesis, more realistic timbres could be recreated, but often at the expense of file size (as with MODs) and potentially without the personality imbued by the limitations of the older sound chips.

The standard MIDI file format, together with the General MIDI instrument set, describes only what notes are played on what instruments. General MIDI is not considered chiptune as a MIDI file contains no information describing the synthesis of the instruments.

Common file formats used to compose and play chiptunes are the SID, YM, SNDH, MOD, XM, several Adlib based file formats and numerous exotic Amiga file formats.

Style

Generally chiptunes consist of basic waveforms, such as sine waves, square waves and sawtooth or triangle waves, and basic percussion, often generated from white noise going through an ADSR envelope–controlled synthesizer.

For the above reasons the classic chiptune 8-bit sound can be recognised from its synthesised square or pulse wave instruments, simple white noise percussion and heavy use of ultra-fast arpeggios to emulate chords of three or four notes on a single channel (due to hardware limitations, several notes must be placed on the same channel).

Demoscene intros came to feature their own particular style of chiptune music. Although chiptune could historically refer to any style of music, the term is mostly used today to refer to the style of music used in these intros, since other styles of music have moved on to more sophisticated technology.

More recent "old school" or "demostyle" MOD music, although sample-based, continues the style of the chiptunes used in these intros; new compositions in this style can still be regularly found at www.chiptune.com (new chiptunes from old computers/formats can be found here as well).

Today

Chiptune-style music sample
A short piece of chiptune-style music written in an NES sound chip emulator.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Modern computers can play a variety of chiptune formats through the use of emulators and platform-specific plugins for media players. Depending on the nature of hardware being emulated, 100% accuracy in software may not be available. The commonly used MOS Technology SID chip, for example, has a multi-mode filter including analog circuits whose characteristics are only mathematically estimated in emulation libraries.

The chip scene is far from dead with "compos" being held, groups releasing music disks and with the cracktro/demo scene. New tracker tools are making chip sounds available to less techy musicians. For example, Little Sound DJ for the Game Boy has an interface designed for use in a live environment and features MIDI synchronization. The NES platform has the MidiNES, a cartridge that turns the system into a full blown hardware MIDI controlled Synthesizer. Recently, for the Commodore 64, the Mssiah has been released, which is very similar to the MidiNES, but with greater parameter controls, sequencing, analog drum emulation, and limited sample playback. On the DOS platform, Fast Tracker is one of the most famous chiptune makers because of the ability to create hand-drawn samples with the mouse. Chiptune artist Pixelh8 has also designed music software such as Music Tech[8] for the Game Boy and the Pro Performer[9] for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS which turn both machines into real time synthesizers.

In the last couple of years, chip music has returned to modern gaming, either in full chip music style or using chip samples in the music. Games that do this in their soundtrack include Mega Man Battle Network, Seiklus, and Tetris DS.

Film

The chiptune scene was recently the subject of a documentary called Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet by 2 Player Productions[4]. This film was an official selection at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.[5] The premier took place on March 8, 2008 at the Dobie Center.

Representative artists and ensembles

Classic chiptune composers

Contemporary chiptune artists/bands

See also

References

  1. ^ BBC News 17 Jun 2008: 'Oldest' computer music unveiled [1]
  2. ^ Kimmel, Jeroen "Red": Red Hubbard (C-64 demo) - [2]
  3. ^ Hülsbeck, Chris: Soundmonitor 1.0 (C-64 program) - [3]
  4. ^ High Voltage SID Collection FAQ
  5. ^ Amiga Music Preservation FAQ
  6. ^ Carlsson, Anders "Goto80": Chip music timeline
  7. ^ Yabsley, Alex. (2007) The Sound of Playing: A Study into the Music and Culture of Chiptunes [Bachelors of Music Technology thesis]. South Brisbane: Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.
  8. ^ Album on NES Cartridge, Synth on GameBoy , Create Digital Music Published July 4, 2007.
  9. ^ Pixelh8 Music Tech Pro Performer Brings Live Performance to Game Boy , Create Digital Music. Published March 24, 2008.
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