That’s why Benn Venn’s ElCheapo cartridge appealed to me: it just takes an SD card with the ROM on it, no need for extra hardware or software. It seems Benn Venn has preorder options for new versions of his cartridge in his shop, so I think I will just keep an eye on that and preorder one when it’s available again.
I’m really digging this nice little overlap of chipmusic and modular synthesis. This is the whole reason I got into modular in the first place (though I decided upon and acquired the SID Guts rather late, due to the original 8bit voice I had in mind being forever on backorder):
I’m currently using the included SwinSID chip (board), but I’m keen to upgrade to the recently developed FPGASID. Also, soon enough some 16bit era FM should enter the mix.
Speaking of Famicom, some folks on here might be interested to try Famistudio. I’m not overly fond of piano rolls, myself, but I know plenty of people find trackers a bit daunting; so I suppose this could prove a smooth entry into chipmusic for many:
Still need to post a bunch of my favorite chiptune stuff, but this is a new release by Plogue that looks like it would fit very well in the lines community:
Okay, so, here are some really great examples of chip, whether it be true chip, Famitracker work, SNES soundfonts or more! I’ll list what each one was made using, just for funsies.
On the more “ambient” side, this album is to replicate time passing in a fictional seaside town. Compilation of great tracker based chip artists:
Tree of Knowledge,by Coda and Surrashu, is an homage to the Japanese Eroge/dating games from the era of PC-88 computers. These computers used a specific 4 voice (eventually 6 or 8 voice) FM engine. This album is made using samples of these engines, but the vibe is wonderful. The idea is that this album are songs from a long lost eroge game. Good stuff.
Speaking of Surasshu, that might be a familiar name to some. That’s because another collaboration he has taken part of has now made official music for the Stephen Universe show/film! He paired together with a fantastically talented piano play, Aivi. They produced a wonderfully charming album that is an on going duet between tracker based chiptune and traditional piano playing called The Black Box. Pretty melodies and a charming (if inferior) cover of a fantastic track from the Katamari Damacy OST:
FearofDark’s Motorway is a fantastic, jazzy album showing what happens when someone takes the idea of true notated composition in conjunction with something like a Famitracker. This british chap has acheived an album, with a tracker that feels as organic as almost anything else I’ve heard in the world of chip:
Zackery Wilson’s SNESQUE is a fascinating album produced as the artist’s doctorate thesis for a music master’s degree. The idea was to take sound files of incredibly low quality and combine it with modern digital music production techniques and effects to elevate the sound. Each song is made using the soundfonts of a single game. The instrumentalization is top notch and the effects create something quite interesting:
These are sort of “chip adjascat” today, and I’ve run out of time to be posting. Haha. These are all over the board in terms of types. They also all happen to be from a online label, called Ubiktune. Was short on time but wanted to finally start posting some faves. This was a good place to start.
I picked up Chipsynth MD because I just feel like Plogue deserves all the support… I love the obsessive research into the gear they emulate and the results are worth all their effort. 4 of the 10 VST instruments I installed on my new computer are by Plogue
I feel like PortaFM is a little more immediate because of the super simple architecture, but MD is a gem too.
Oh man… I want MD so bad… I don’t know if I can justify it, but I do want it. There’s so many examples that if one can truly tame the Genesis FM system, they are given the keys to the kingdom.
Lack of VGM capture/export is unfortunately my dealbreaker when it comes to VSTs and other emulation-based approaches. What I desperately need is a convergence between the capabilities of Deflemask and those of the growing plethora of VSTs available (i.e., full MIDI support with any sort of VGM capture, whether under the hood or derived from a tracker sequence upon which MIDI commands might be committed in malleable form), although a hardware/VST combo would be even better.
I would certainly be more open and eager if I didn’t already have hardware, or if there were a standard fare of MIDI commands shared between different VSTs and MIDI controlled hardware. Currently, my interest in these is more academic, I suppose.