Nerd Arts

Get you Chiptune on over at untergrund.net. Great website full of tons and tons of chiptune goodness!!1! Updated frequently, and a great selection of choice tracks. Love it!

Download chiptune here!

chiptune
8bit

(chomp chomp on some free chiptune)

The net label Da! Heard it Records has just given out a new set of 13 8 bit and techno punk madness available free for download from their website.

Xerak is a penetrating blend of Mutant Trash mixed with a bit of 8 bit techno madness. The new tracks are inspired by American and Japanese comic books, Pixel Art, Pop Art, and science fiction movies of the 1960s.

All 13 tracks are available for download absolutely free from the net labels website.

If you are a fan of ChipTune, or 8bit techno punk then I would highly recommend you try out this free download. Why pay for things when you get them for free?

Yuukichan’s Papa is a pseudonym used by a group of sound designers who worked on the first two Mega Man games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The real names of the composers who worked on Mega Man are Manami Matsumae and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi. The composers who worked on Mega Man 2 were Ogeretsu Kun (a pseudonym, which is a Japanese term of endearment for a rude person), Manami Ietel (another pseudonym, possibly for the previously mentioned Manami Matsumae), and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi.

And Who Is Mega Man?
Mega Man, known as Rockman (ロックマン, Rokkuman?) in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Capcom in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom. It is the first game to ever star Mega Man. Mega Man has been in several series and this is the first game in what is called the Mega Man Classic series. This first game established many of the conventions that would define several Mega Man series. Most notably, Mega Man established the setup of a number of stages, each with a Robot Master at the end that, when defeated, would pass on its unique power to Mega Man.

Later, it would be added to Mega Man: The Wily Wars for Sega Genesis (1994), as well as the Japanese collection game, Rockman Complete Works in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation. In 2004, it was re-released in the anthology game, Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. There is also a remake called Mega Man Powered Up (Rockman Rockman in Japan) for the PlayStation Portable. It features full 3-D graphics and extra stages were added, making the Robot Master count 8 instead of the original 6. It also features a stage level editor. Another interesting feature of the remake is the super deformed style of Mega Man and other characters. (Keiji Inafune claimed in an interview that he originally planned to make Mega Man look this way, but couldn’t, due to the hardware restraints of the NES)

Koji Kondo (近藤 浩治, Kondō Kōji?, b. August 13, 1960) is a Japanese composer and musician best known for his scores for various video games produced by Nintendo.

Kondo was born in Nagoya, Japan. He took to music at an early age, writing simple tunes for fun even when young. At seventeen years of age, he decided to pursue music professionally[citation needed]. He undertook classical training, and he learned to play several instruments[citation needed].

In the 1980s, Kondo learned that a company called Nintendo was seeking musicians to compose music for its new video game system, the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). Kondo had never considered writing video game music before, but he decided to give the company a chance. He was hired in 1983.

Kondo found himself in a totally different environment at Nintendo. Suddenly, he was limited to only four “instruments” (two monophonic pulse channels, a monophonic triangle wave channel which could be used as a bass, and a noise channel used for percussion) due to limitations of the system’s sound chip. Though he and Nintendo’s technicians eventually discovered a way to add a fifth channel (normally reserved for sound effects), his music was still severely limited on the system.

Kondo has stayed with Nintendo through various consoles, including the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo outside Japan), the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube, the Nintendo DS and most recently the Wii. These latter systems have vastly improved Nintendo’s audio capabilities, and Kondo today composes music with CD quality sound.

Koji Kondo attended the world-premiere of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony at the Rosemont Theater in Rosemont, Illinois in May of 2006. His music from the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda series was performed by a full symphony orchestra. This event drew nearly four thousand attendees.

A Musikalisches Würfelspiel (Musical dice game) was a system for using dice to randomly ‘generate’ music (long before computer systems). These games were quite popular throughout Western Europe in the 18th century. Several different games were devised, some that did not require dice, but merely ‘choosing a random number.’ Other famous examples are Johann Philipp Kirnberger’s The Ever Ready Composer of Polonaises and Minuets (1757 1st edition; revised 2nd 1783) and Joseph Haydn’s Philharmonic Joke (1790).

The Musikalisches Würfelspiel has since been modified to fit the computer age, and many modern versions have been made.

Add these fools. Not sure why they only have 87 friends currently. Check them, Add Them, Listen to them. Chip Tune at its finest coming straight outta Wroclaw Poland.

Link

Rob Hubbard (born 1956, Kingston upon Hull, England), is a music composer best known for his composition of computer game theme music, especially for microcomputers of the 1980s such as the Commodore 64. His work showed the real potential of both the Commodore 64’s sound hardware and the ability of good music to improve the gaming experience.

In the late seventies, before scoring games, he was a professional studio musician. He decided to teach himself BASIC and machine code for the Commodore 64.

Writing a few demos and some educational software for learning music, he approached Gremlin Graphics in 1985 with samples of his work, to attempt to market his software. Gremlin were more interested in the tunes than the software and he was asked to create the soundtrack for Thing on a Spring, a platform game. Hubbard created a theme that mixed violins, electric guitars, and amusing basslines.

Hubbard went on to write or convert themes for games such as Monty on the Run, Crazy Comets, Master of Magic and Commando. Some of his most famous tunes include also Thrust, Spellbound, Sanxion, Auf Wiedersehen Monty and Ricochet. The game Knucklebusters includes Hubbard’s longest tune that is 17 minutes long.

After working for several different companies, in 1989 he left Newcastle to work for Electronic Arts in America as a composer. He was the first person devoted to sound and music at EA, and did everything from low-level programming to composing. He became Audio Technical Director, a more administrative job, involving deciding which technologies to use in the games, and which to develop further. After Commodore 64 period he wrote some soundtracks for PC -games and Sega Megadrive/Genesis. His most famous post-C64 work is probably soundtrack for Skate or Die game in which he emulates distorted guitar sound with AdLib soundcard (Amiga conversion with actual guitar samples is probably not made by Hubbard).

Hubbard recently contributed a few re-arrangements of his themes to Chris Abbott’s Back in Time Live C64 tribute. Hubbard has performed several times with the Danish C64 cover-band PRESS PLAY ON TAPE who have covered many of his early tunes using a full rock-band arrangement. Hubbard has also performed his old music on piano with the support of violinist madfiddler.

In 2005, music from International Karate was performed live by a full orchestra at the third Symphonic Game Music Concert. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany. Hubbard arranged and orchestrated the piece.

Hubbard left EA in 2002 and returned to England. He has recently resumed playing in a band, and has even revisited his past game music work in concert. Recent composition jobs have included music for mobile phone games. His original SID music can be found from The High Voltage SID Collection.

Gary Gilbertson was a music composer for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. His music made use of the AMP engine for the Atari POKEY chip which was programmed by Philip Price. Together, the two of them started a development company called Paradise Programming.

Gary saw games as an audio-visual experience and thus thought that music was an important part of a game, so he tried to make the sound as memorable as possible. Gary was lucky to have been given a much better music handler (the AMP engine) than other contemporary musicians at the time, and he made good use of it. When Paradise Programming was demoing The Tail of Beta Lyrae, Atari was so impressed that they asked him to look them up when it was completed, and also asked if they could show his music disk around. Datamost also asked Gary if they could use his music to set off their display.