CHIPTUNE

'Chiptune', or 'chip music', or 'micromusic' is music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime 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. In their desire to create a more complex arrangement that the restrictions posed by the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds. This is due to the early computer sound chips having only simple tone and noise generators imposing limitations on the complexity of the sound. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or squeaky to the unaccustomed listener. Chiptunes are closely related to video game music. The term has also been recently applied to more recent compositions that attempt to recreate the chiptune sound, albeit with more complex technology.

Contents

Technology

Style

Today

Representative artists and ensembles

Classic chiptune composers

Media

See also

Further reading

Technology

Historically, the chips used were sound chips like:

★ Ricoh 2A03 on the Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom

★ the analog-digital hybrid Atari POKEY on the Atari 400/800

★ the MOS Technology SID on the Commodore 64

★ the PAPU in the Nintendo Game Boy

★ AY-3-8910 or 8912 on Amstrad CPC, MSX and ZX Spectrum

★ the Yamaha YM2149 on the Atari ST and ZX Spectrum

★ Yamaha YM2612 on SEGA Genesis

★ Yamaha YM3812 on IBM PC compatibles
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.
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. LFO is usually limited to relatively low frequencies, so that technique is used for bass sounds only.
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, SNDH, MOD, XM, several Adlib based file formats and numerous exotic Amiga file formats.

Style

Generally chip tunes 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 limitation, 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 in places such as www.chiptune.com (new chiptunes from old computers/formats can be found here as well).

Today

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.[1]
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 Nintendo Game Boy has an interface designed for use in a live environment and features MIDI synchronization. On IBM PC platform, Fast Tracker is famous for all chiptune makers because of the ability to create hand-drawn samples with the mouse.
Contemporary interest in chipping has also led to numerous web sites dedicated to the history of music groups, artists, and antique platforms.
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.

Representative artists and ensembles

Classic chiptune composers

★ Ben Daglish

★ Tim Follin

★ Matt Furniss

★ Martin Galway

★ Jean Sebastien Gerard

★ Richard Joseph

★ Gary Gilbertson

★ Jochen Hippel

★ Rob Hubbard

★ Chris Hülsbeck

★ Koji Kondo

★ Yuukichan's Papa

★ Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka

★ Jeroen Tel

★ Nobuo Uematsu

★ David Whittaker

Media

See also

★ Elektron SidStation - Professional synthesizer with a built-in SID chip

★ GoatTracker - crossplatform C64 music editor. Supports HardSID soundcard, CatWeasel MK3 or emulation via reSID

★ HardSID - A PCI card for modern computers that features from 1 to 4 actual SID chips

★ SLAY Radio - Commodore 64 Remixes

★ The High Voltage SID Collection - Commodore 64 music archive

Further reading

★ chiptunes documentation project - chiptune documentation and history