ESA’s Small Guide to Chiptunes
Classic video game music. Even if you don’t know what they are, chances are you’ve probably heard them in some old games and such. I’ve mentioned them in some of my previous blogs, but I’ll focus this one mainly on them. I’m sure most of you know what they are. I didn’t know about them for a long time, but for those of you who still don’t know, I’ll give a small background about them. Chiptunes are songs composed with trackers (generally on older computers like amigas, but you can compose them on modern ones too) that use basic wave forms (sine, sawtooth, triangle, square etc.) to create songs with low file sizes. Do not confuse this with MIDI, they are two different things.Here is an example of some chiptunes.You can make your own chiptunes with trackers. There are many out there and they are not that hard to learn to use, since there are many tutorials (even video ones) that show you how to create your own chiptunes in no time. The are around the size of MIDIs but sound very different. Some Resources for Chiptuneshttp://chiptune.com/^Basically a chiptune database!http://www.milkytracker.net/^my favorite tracker. You can find instruments, tutorials, and more on its site too.Tips & Info-Search up milkytracker on youtube and tutorials should come up.-Listen to other chiptunes and play them through milkytracker. It will help you a lot by seeing the different notes and channels.-XM and MOD are the most common formats.Hope this helps. By the way, the screenshot at the top is from milkytracker. If you don't like that tracker, don't worry. There are many other good ones out there.Random Questions1.Did you ever see this http://www.youtube.com/64digits? I didn’t know 64d had a youtube page or played Guild Wars. Whose could this be? :D2. www.youtube.com/youtube I had no idea youtube had it’s own channel. How gay is that? :D3. What do you think of the most memorable things of 2007? I have a feeling there will be some very happy, and some very unhappy people.4. Should I change my username? I started to realize how random it is. I was thinking of changing it to something else. ESA are my initials, but at the same time they are the acronym for European Space Agency. Damn… why couldn’t they choose something else like Space Agency of Europe (SAE)? :D It’s so unfair…Yay! My tenth blog. And I'm close to 1000 hits…And finally, a happy new year to you all. I hope 2008’s a good year for you.
Chiptunes. They're cool. My first experience of them was in Seiklus. Everyone complains about how irritating Seiklus's music is, but I loved that stuff. It was half the reason I played the game.
estrayk is really good. I remember seeing him a while back. What do you think of obarski?
F1ak3r: Same! I like the music though. It really helps the game's atmosphere. I have to admit though, there could be more of a choice of tunes.
Juju: You saw him!? Wow… you're really lucky. Estrayk was the first person I listened to, but he's my fav. Obarski… hmmm… I need to find some more of his music. Do you compose chiptunes by any chance?YAY FOR CHIPTUNES!!!
It's awsome!!!Chiptunes are pretty cool. I compose them on occasion, usually for my games. Also, I sometimes use trackers to create parts for songs that I then play overtop of with live instruments (usually drum loops).
Im looking for an original nintendo gameboy to do some chip tuning.
murf: Yeah! I saw some people composing chiptunes on a ds too