Chiptunes

Chip Music

Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 4 Released

July 21, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 4 Released Share this Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 4 Released

If you’re a fan of the Chiptunes = WIN nation and albums, then you’ll be happy to learn that their fourth album has officially been released!

Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 4 continues the tradition started three years ago by Brandon “President Hoodie” Hood to create a community of chiptune artists and enthusiasts that are able to gather, create and critique the art of making chip music.

“Volume 4?? VOLUME 4!! 3+ years after the first comp and we’re still having a blast! Thus onward & upward it goes! ^_^ \m|♥♥♥♥|m/ “ -President Hoodie

The current incarnation features a whopping 51 tracks featuring a plethora of new and old chiptune artists, including CarboHydroM, Auxcide, Phonetic Hero and a ton more. The whole album was mastered by DJ Cutman, with all proceeds staying internal and going towards the production of future albums. This fourth full edition is the 12th album in the Chiptunes = WIN library, all of which serve as compilations from the chip community and beyond.

Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 4 is at a name-your-price purchase level, with a special limited bundle pack available at $25 for the diehard enthusiast. You can learn more about Chiptunes = WIN and join in the chip madness on the community’s blog.

Chiptunes = WIN – Website| Facebook | Vol. 4
Chip Music, Demoscene, Experimental

5 Games, 9 Albums and Bananas in latest Groupees Bundle

July 7, 2015 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on 5 Games, 9 Albums and Bananas in latest Groupees Bundle Share this

We’re all familiar with the likes of Humble Bundle and the Game Music Bundle but there are a handful of other bundling sites out there. Groupees is especially noteworthy as it regularly bundles games, music, graphic novels and digital art collections. Sometimes it’s a game and its soundtrack, other times the collections are curated by a game’s creator or even left to you to pick and choose individual items.

Debuting this week is the Badass Banana Bundle curated by eccentric electronic musician, Remute. The bundle includes nine games, five albums and access to a livestream on July 13th where Remute will mix a bunch of his favorite 16-bit game music. Giving the bundle its name is You Are Not a Banana, a humorous, pixelart audiovisual experiment that includes its own chiptune soundtrack. Other highlights include Remute’s 2009 album Grand Slam, a collection of Frederic “Elmobo” Motte’s demoscene tracks from the late 80’s/early 90’s and his entire soundtrack to the Amiga game, Fury of the Furries.

You can get all of that for a minimum donation of only $2.00 but you can give as much as you’d like. The bundle is scheduled to end on July 15th.
Chip Music, Game Music

R.I.P. Arecibo Radio

July 3, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | 1 Comment Share this R.I.P. Arecibo Radio

It seems our friends over at Arecibo Radio will be closing down their active status by the end of the week, according to a recent tweet and confirmed to me by the station’s management.

Yes, Arecibo Radio will shut down on July 4th. Hosts who still wish to keep doing their respective shows will move to 8BitX. I can’t think of a better place for Arecibo hosts to go, many of us are friends and have worked and partied together at MAGFest and other music related events. With 8BitX absorbing Arecibo, our listeners will have one single and robust internet radio station they know they can go to and enjoy.

Kristina Kaufman – Noise Channel

You can check out the history of Arecibo Radio, courtesy of their Facebook page.

Arecibo Radio has been a staple in streaming video game music, chiptunes and hosting listening parties for the past 6 years. Be sure to tune in for its last days in operations and give it a fitting send off and some much-deserved love, and also change over your bookmarks to 8bitX to continue listening to several staple Arecibo hosts as they make the trek to their new home.

8bitX Radio Network – Website | Twitter
Chip Music, Software

This Week in Random – High Dinos and Chrome

May 7, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on This Week in Random – High Dinos and Chrome Share this

For This Week in Random, it’s all about chiptunes and browser extensions!

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High Strangeness OSV by Cheap Dinosaurs

Chiptune savants Cheap Dinosaurs have released their newest album since last year’s “Triangle Trash” mini-album; a soundtrack for the indie game High Strangeness that’s described as a “a hybrid of 8 and 16-bit games… A 12-bit adventure”.

The inspiration of the game comes from many Action-Adventure and RPG games of yesteryear. The game’s core ability is to switch between 8 and 16-bit worlds and the player uses their generational differences to solve puzzles and explore the universe.

High Strangeness was released on this past Tuesday for the WiiU and Steam. The 17-track album released this past Monday at $6.00 (or $1 for individual tracks), making it the largest album to date from the band and should prove to be good listening for retro game music fans.

High Strangeness OSV – Bandcamp | CheapDinos.com

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Game Music Appreciation – Google Chrome

http://gamemusic.multimedia.cx/

This site allows you to listen to music for classic video games. You can listen to a vast amount of video game music (in the form of chiptunes) directly in your Google Chrome web browser and it will sound precisely the same as it did on the original console.

Pretty much everything it says on the box – a streaming program that allows you to stream an extremely extensive variety of game music soundtracks straight over Google Chrome, all for free. You can search for specific game albums, search by composer, search by console or just throw caution to the wind and play from random albums at-will; all without the need for separate programs to be open. A neat option for all of us!
Chip Music, Featured

Composer Keiji Yamagishi Launches A New Solo Music Project

January 23, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Composer Keiji Yamagishi Launches A New Solo Music Project Share this

Famed Famicom/NES composer Keiji Yamagishi has a new music project that will be released this year. The Retro-Active Experience is a set of albums which will be coming out in three parts over the course of this year and feature brand new compositions by the composer. Inspired by his earlier work on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, these albums will have an emphasis on chiptune and electronic genres, with a healthy blending of modern instruments.

The first part of this multi-album project is titled Retro-Active Pt. 1. A handful of the tracks on this first album feature collaborations with other composers and musicians like Stemage, of Metroid Metal, and Manami Matsumae, composer of the original Mega Man soundtrack. There will also be a few remix tracks from Takahiro Izutani, Riki Arai, and Smoke Thief included on Part 1.

Retro-Active Pt. 1 is currently available for pre-order on the Brave Wave music site. Pre-ordering the album will get you early access to 4 tracks for download (Tracks 1, 2, 7, and 9). The full album will receive its official release on February 5th. So if some new tunes by one of the great Famicom/NES composers sounds like something up your alley, check out the first entry of this new music project.
Chip Music, Events

Know Your MAG – Marshall Art

January 14, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Know Your MAG – Marshall Art Share this Know Your MAG – Marshall Art

Time to switch gears for Know Your MAG and start giving the chiptune performers a bit of love. At MAGFest, rock music great and chiptunes are great, and when you mash them together you go a step beyond. Much like the stylings of fellow performer Danimal Cannon, the duo of Marshall Art take this concept and sprint like hell with it.

Hailing from opposite ends of the globe, the duo of Canadian Jeffrey “jmr” Roberts (host of Open Circuit on Arecibo radio) commanding the soundchips & VRC6 and Russian native Mikhail “streifig” Ivanov (current manager of the Dwelling of Duels) jaming on guitar actually started performing at MAGFest last year during MAG 12. Attendees might remember the pair set up in the hallway corner of the Gaylord Convention Center on the Chipspace stage and throwing out some amazing music for the crowd that gathered around.

Marshall Art have appeared on several compilations in the past few years, including Danse Macabre 2, and will be debuting their self-titled album at MAGFest 13 before they hit the big stage for a full-fledged concert rock-out this year on the big stage, Saturday at 3PM! Check them and all the rest of the MAG bands performing times on the MAGFest Schedule!

Marshall Art – Bandcamp | Facebook

Disclaimer: The members of Marshall Art and the author have a casual friendship outside of the MAGFest professional arena.
Featured, Game Music

OSVOSTOTY 2014 – Brenna’s Picks

January 2, 2015 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on OSVOSTOTY 2014 – Brenna’s Picks Share this OSVOSTOTY 2014 – Brenna’s Picks

Rolling along with our 2014 recap of our favorite picks, now it’s my turn to go through and highlight what stood out to me this past year in terms of game music and everything related. It’s quite the mish-mash of musical praise and highlights, but I feel I covered a lot of the things I really felt deserved a big fat thumbs up this past year.

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