Tag: Chiptune

Artists usually place a hidden track or two in their albums. The upcoming three EPs of electronic artist Captain Credible on the other hand will each have a randomly generated track. The Dead Cats EPs are based on an ATtiny85 microcontroller and Captain Credible’s Arduino sketches.

A few years ago we featured a harmonica crammed into a NES cartridge. YouTuber basami sentaku’s harmonica not only has a Famicom cartridge case, it produces 8-bit sound with the help of a sound chip from a NES.

If you’re into retro style beep and bleeps and beats, then here’s a fun way to discover lots of cool chiptune acts – many of whom you’ve never heard of before. A group of chiptune artists and fans has compiled the Chiptastic Chipmusic List, or as I like to call it The Ultimate Chiptune List.

The Pianocade is the embodiment of chiptune music. It’s a synthesizer that looks and works like an arcade controller, down to the analog joystick and token buttons.

Back in 2008 Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne hacked a custom guitar together using parts from a Guitar Hero controller. Pretty impressive, but chiptune artist cTrix had a bolder idea – he used a whole console.

The Nintendo Gameboy. One of the most iconic portable gaming systems in the history of video games. Its brick-sized form has occupied many a nerd for hours on end with it’s monochrome green-grey display and carnival like sounds.

If  you’re heading to the Penny Arcade Expo next week, be sure to swing by and check out the latest addition to their conference schedule, the Chiptune Showcase. A variety of 8-bit musical performers will take the stage for the 2 hour concert, including bands with awesome names like Fighter X and Spamtron.

At first glance, this might just look like one of those organs you used to see in the shopping mall when you were a kid. But under the hood of this bit of musical nostalgia is the ultimate chiptune machine.

I still remember my first Apple computer. It was an Apple ][ with a whopping 16k of RAM and it didn’t even have a floppy drive. So the sounds that come to mind when I think of my old ][ are the squeals of program data loading from cassette tape.

Retro gamers, If you’re looking for some nice background music for your holiday parties, you might want to check this out. Chiptune musician Rush Coil has put together this full-length digital album of classic Christmas tunes, rearranged with the inimitable sounds of classic 8-bit sounds of 1980s video games.

Do you still have your old NES console? Do you love electronic music? Then I know what you’re getting for Christmas. This new cartridge for the old Nintendo Entertainment System features a bunch of new “chiptunes” by electronic recording artist Animalstyle (or is that 4NIM4L57YL3?)

Can’t get enough of the retro beeps and blips of old-school video games? Then today must be your lucky day. There’s a new online radio station that’s just for you. 8-Bit FM is a new Internet radio station that plays everything from classic video game soundtracks to modern day electronic music played on old gaming hardware.

Miss the classic 8-bit sounds of the Commodore 64? Well thanks to this new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, you can listen to all of your favorite retro sounds all over again. Software Engineer Michael Lauer recently released SID Player, which emulates the 6581 SID audio circuit from the C64.

What’s got 8 tentacles and the brains of a Nintendo GameBoy? It’s an 8-bit music maker’s dream, that’s what. Electronic musician Joey Mariano (aka “Animal Style“) took an old GameBoy Color system and built a custom controller for it that uses 8 individual foot pedal controllers to jam out on the device.