Chiptune, or chip music 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 only widely available means for creating music on computers.

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.

Chiptunes were widely used in early video game consoles to synthesize music and sound effects. This style of electronic music has been an infatuation of mine for quite some time.

Today for the first time, I downloaded a piece of software which can actually create music of this sort. Such software is termed a Tracker, which is basically a musical sequencer that allows the arrangement of sound samples across a number of channels. These samples are stored in the module file format that chiptunes are often saved as, and then referenced by the sequencing data. The module file format is similar to a MIDI file, in that it contains sequencing data and produces the sound based on that data. However, unlike in midi files, where the sound is synthesized on by the computer’s sound card, modules files contain the (low bitrate) sound samples that it uses to produce the sounds natively inside the file. This means that unlike midis, they will sound the same no matter what computer they are played on. Module files are still very small however, averaging anywhere from 50KiB to 2MiB for a full song.

There is a rather large and active group of music being made currently that is inspired by the archaic digital stylings of chiptunes. A notable collection of artists and releases, most of whom have released their music under the Creative Commons license, can be found at the 8bitPeoples Discography.

The aforementioned piece of software, MadTracker, is able to function as a ReWire device, so it will be able to interface with the Digital Audio Workstation that I will be working with in the production of my soundtrack. Renoise is another alternative that functions as a VST plugin. So does the Skale Tracker and the Buzz Tracker. This will enable at least some sort of a chiptune-slant’ to a portion of my soundtrack, probably the middle-to-latter section, which will grow increasingly digital and mechanical and rhythmically crazy, following the evolution of the subject-matter.

Right now which software this DAW will be is up in the air between the Sony Acid pro 5, Adobe Audition 2.0, Cubase SX 3.0, or a combination of those. I’m leaning towards Audition because of how well it integrates with Premiere Pro and After Effects, the softwares on which I will be conducting the majority of the video editing. The other software I will be interfacing with the DAW through both ReWire and VST plugins will be Native Instruments Reaktor 5, Propellerhead’s Reason 3.0, Ableton Live (probably used for sequencing and/or arrangement), and the aforementioned Tracker. This is certainly a non-definitive list which will evolve as I continue this process of madness.

I am actually slightly concerned at the amount of time the soundtrack is probably going to take. I don’t think I allowed myself as much time in my Schedule as I realistically should have. Hopefully I will be able to pull something acceptable together, or I shall be forced to resort to using some of the excellent Creative Commons licensed electronic music out there. That will be a last resort though, as I definitely want to create something myself for this project.

I have also been exploring Pure Data as an alternative to Max/MSP/Jitter. It seems that it has most of the functionality of the latter, even while being open-source. I am debating about whether or not the increased complexity resulting from clunky design is worth the savings of $60 in cost. I am unsure as of yet.

Unlike a narrative hollywood film, in my project, the stylistic format comes first and foremost, and is exceedingly “hardened” (to use Linux terminology). Regarding the corrollary of this idea, that the subject matter is still fluid, I have been reconsidering and cognating on revising and augmenting the conceptual themes that my subject matter and hoped mode of “dynamic spectatorship” might possibly suggest. Beyond just matters of the corporeal, I am considering adding an element of conflict: the mechanical. It seems like this will give a needed element of struggle, rather than complacency and apathy (which would make for a boring video), and will fit in nicely with the progression from representation to abstraction with a simultaneous evolution from biological to mechanical. I am still considering this idea in all of its magnanimous possibility. More thoughts and a broader and far more brutal expounding will follow.