Chiptune
Chiptune is a style of electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles.[9] The term is commonly used to refer to tracker format music using extremely basic and small samples that an old computer or console could produce (this is the original meaning of the term), as well as music that combines PSG sounds with modern musical styles.[10][11][12] It has been described as "an interpretation of many genres" since any existing song can be arranged in a chiptune style defined more by choice of instrument and timbre than specific style elements.[13]
For the altering of car electronics, see chip tuning.Chiptune
Late 1970s – early 1980s, Japan
Technology[edit]
A waveform generator is a fundamental module in a sound synthesis system. A waveform generator usually produces a basic geometrical waveform with a fixed or variable timbre and variable pitch. Common waveform generator configurations usually included two or three simple waveforms and often a single pseudo-random-noise generator (PRNG). Available waveforms often included pulse wave (whose timbre can be varied by modifying the duty cycle), square wave (a symmetrical pulse wave producing only odd overtones), triangle wave (which has a fixed timbre containing only odd harmonics but is softer than a square wave), and sawtooth wave (which has a bright raspy timbre and contains odd and even harmonics). Two notable examples of systems employing this technology were the Nintendo Game Boy portable game console and the Commodore 64 personal computer. The Game Boy uses two pulse channels (switchable between 12.5%, 25%, 50% and 75% wave duty cycle), a channel for 4-bit pulse-code modulation (PCM) playback, and a pseudo-random-noise generator. The Commodore 64 however used the MOS Technology SID chip which offered 3 channels, each switchable between pulse, saw-tooth, triangle, and noise. Unlike the Game Boy, the pulse channels on the Commodore 64 allowed full control over wave duty cycles. The SID was a very technically advanced chip, offering many other features including ring modulation and adjustable resonance filters.[14]
Due to the limited number of voices in early sound chips, one of the main challenges is to produce rich polyphonic music with them. The usual method to emulate it is via quick arpeggios, which is one of the most relevant features of chiptune music (along with its electronic timbres).[15]
Some older systems featured a simple beeper as their only sound output, as the original ZX Spectrum and IBM PC; despite this, many skilled programmers were able to produce unexpectedly rich music with this bare hardware, where the sound is fully generated by the system's CPU by direct control of the beeper.
Mainstream popularity[edit]
The heyday of chiptune music was the 1980s.[49] The earliest commercial chiptune records produced entirely from sampling arcade game sounds have existed since the mid-1980s, an early example being Haruomi Hosono's Video Game Music in 1984.[28] Though entirely chiptune records were uncommon at the time, many mainstream musicians in the pop rock,[50] hip hop[51] and electronic music[52]
genres were sampling arcade game sounds and bleeps during the golden age of video arcade games (late 1970s to mid-1980s), as early as Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Computer Game" in 1978.[23] Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" and the album of the same name were major hits in 1982.[50] Arcade game sounds were one of the foundational elements of the electro music genre, which in turn inspired many other electronic dance music genres such as techno and house music, which were sometimes referred to as "bleep music".[23] Space Invaders inspired Player One's "Space Invaders" (1979), which in turn provided the bassline for Jesse Saunders' "On and On" (1984),[53][54]
the first Chicago house track.[55] Warp's record "Testone" (1990) by Sweet Exorcist sampled video game sounds from Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Computer Game" and defined Sheffield's bleep techno scene in the early 1990s.[56]
After the 1980s, however, chiptune music began declining in popularity.[49] Since then, up until the 2000s, chip music was rarely performed live and the songs were nearly exclusively spread as executable programs and other computer file formats. Some of the earliest examples of record label releases of pure chip music can be found in the late 1990s.[57]
Chiptune music began gaining popularity again towards the end of the 1990s. The first electroclash record, I-F's "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass" (1997), has been described as "burbling electro in a vocodered homage to Atari-era hi-jinks".[58]
By the mid-2000s, 8-bit chip music began making a comeback in mainstream pop music, when it was used by acts such as Beck (for example, the 2005 song "Girl"), The Killers (for example, the 2004 song "On Top"), No Doubt with the song "Running", and particularly The Postal Service in many of their songs. The low-quality digital PCM styling of early game music composers such as Hiroshi Kawaguchi also began gaining popularity.[59]
In 2003, the J-pop girl group Perfume,[60][61]
along with producer Yasutaka Nakata, began producing music combining chiptunes with synthpop and electro house;[61] their breakthrough came in 2007 with Game, which led to other Japanese female artists using a similar electronic style, including Aira Mitsuki, immi, Mizca, SAWA, Saori@destiny, and Sweet Vacation.[62]
Electro house producer Deadmau5 started his career in the late 1990s, with a chiptune and demoscene movements-influenced sound. Three self-released compilations, Project 56, deadmau5 Circa 1998–2002 and A Little Oblique, were finished in 2006.[63]
In 2007, the entirely chiptune album 8-Bit Operators: The Music of Kraftwerk was released on major mainstream label Astralwerks/EMI Records, which included several prominent and noted chipmusicians, including Nanoloop[64]
creator Oliver Wittchow, and LittleSoundDJ[65]
creator Johan Kotlinski who appears as the artist Role Model. Kraftwerk founding member Ralf Hütter personally selected the tracks.[66]
A vinyl 12-inch single version was released on February 24, 2007 as a precursor to the full-length CD, and reached as high as number 17[67]
on the Billboard magazine Hot Dance Singles Sales Chart. In March 2007, the CD release reached as high as number 1 on the CMJ RPM (North American college Electronic) charts.[68][69]
Edinburgh-born electronic musician Unicorn Kid has helped further popularize chiptune, especially with the song "True Love Fantasy" and other songs from the EP "Tidal Rave" being played on late night radio, including on BBC Radio 1, where he played live on the Festive Festival 2011. In Canada, Eightcubed and Crystal Castles helped the popularity further via the Toronto underground club scene and created a lasting impression with the music video "Heart Invaders" debuting on MuchMusic in 2008[70]
and the single "Alice Practice" hitting 29th on NME "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[71]
During the late 2000s, a new wave of chiptune culture took place, boosted by the release of software such as LittleSoundDJ for the Game Boy. This new culture has much more emphasis on live performances and record releases than the demoscene and tracker culture, of which the new artists are often only distantly aware.[72]
In recent years, 8-bit chiptune sounds, or "video game beats", have been used by a number of mainstream pop artists. Examples include artists such as Kesha[73]
(most notably in "Tik Tok",[74] the best-selling single of 2010[75]),
50 Cent with the hit single "Ayo Technology", Robyn, Snoop Dogg,[74]
Eminem (for example, "Hellbound"), Nelly Furtado, and Timbaland (see Timbaland plagiarism controversy). The influence of video game sounds can also be heard in contemporary British electronica music by artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kieran Hebden,[76]
as well as in heavy metal bands such as DragonForce. Grime music in particular samples sawtooth wave sounds from video games which were popular in East London.[77]
Some dubstep producers have also been influenced by video game chiptunes, particularly the work of Yuzo Koshiro.[78][79][80]
In 2010, a BBC article stated that the "sights and sounds of old-school games" (naming Frogger and Donkey Kong as examples) are "now becoming a part of mainstream music and culture."[49]
Complextro pioneer Porter Robinson has also cited video game sounds, or chiptunes, as an influence on his style of music along with 1980s analog synth music.[81]