Described by Galactron itself as a band from outer space, this first track of theirs has a very strong FM synth quality to it. Excellent fake-guitar instruments, some nice airy pads below everything, and really shiny, popping drums make this sound like the future we all hope to some day inhabit. Apparently a proper album is in the works, slated to come out this winter or possibly spring. I'll be anticipating it!
You can buy the game for a name-your-own-price deal using the fourth link there, and you can have that money go to the developers or charity or a combination of the two. I bought and played all of the included games, it's really worth your time (and at LEAST a few bucks!)
I was contacted the other day, as I sometimes am, by a chiptune artist who had recently finished a project. I love getting emails like this, and I love it even more when the music included is as crazy good as what he attached. Pronounced "glitch", (č is actually the phonetic symbol for "the chuh sound", as I found out), the music is decidedly spastic and at times completely non-sequitur, in a great way. The best part about music like this, for me, is when you're being tugged along through all manner of chaotic noises and rhythms and suddenly there's a great, solid beat.
I'm a sucker for simple rhythms; math-rock and crazy progressive metal are interesting and display heaps of talent, but they're not my preferred genres of music. I have to admit, when I began listening to this track, I was pretty put off by how crazy it was, but made it to the minute mark where there's this awesome straight-up beat that I loved. Then it goes crazy again for a while, then there's another awesome beat... And so on, throughout the whole album! Yes, there are in fact 11 more tracks to follow this one on his album "Schwartzenegger Please!", which you can buy over at his bandcamp site. I've bought a copy so I can listen to this in my car and drive really, really fast to it, and I suggest you try that out too!*
When I first heard this, I thought for sure it had to be a cover of some tech metal band or something. In fact, it's an original composition on I think Famitracker? He never really said. Regardless of the software used, it's a brilliant chiptune. It would be an interesting departure from the norm to hear a cover of this made with real guitar and drums!
Today I'm doing whatever I want; this isn't 8-bit music at all, it's HARDCORE METAL COVERS OF ZELDA SONGS. YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!! Well they're guitar covers of Zelda songs anyway; some of more down-tempo tracks remain down-tempo and pretty. Wow if only he were making these when I was in middle school, I would have had better music than MIDI covers of Zelda songs to listen to.
GERUDO VALLEY:
SONG OF STORMS:
GREAT FAIRY'S FOUNTAIN:
BALLAD OF THE WIND FISH:
There's tons more on his channel. Go! And listen to them all!!!
So Inverse Phase got a hold of me the other day as people sometimes do to let me know about a project he's just finished, and I've got to tell you guys: It's really good! It's a chiptune cover album using I think just the NES to make all the tracks, not sure if there's more systems involved on other songs or not... Regardless, this entire album is worth your listening to (for free) on the bandcamp website or (for $5 and a blank CD) in your car. There's a cover of Weezer, a couple songs by The Cars, that one "Woo hoo" song by Blur, and most interestingly, a cover of a cover of an NES song. Just think about that one.
At first I was like "ow those drums are super fuzzy" but you get used to it, and it actually makes for a really awesome, full sound. Something you come up against basically first thing when you start writing chiptunes is the fact that the very simple waveforms that are the bread and butter of the genre have very little presence. Whereas many people can and have made excellent sounding music using only a guitar and their voice, the equivalent in chiptunes of using just a couple of waveforms can be very difficult to make sound "whole". It's a very ambiguous quality which is why I'm having such a hard time describing it, but what you need to know is that this track is full, whole, whatever. Listen to it with headphones! There's little, subtle, barely-noticeable things happening all over the place in this one. It's great!
On the last day of 2011 I received the greatest thing in the mail, ever.
From the deepest depths of concrete Tokyo, my good friend (and awesome
vocalist) C...
One of my favorite restauraunt chains in the world, Outback Steakhouse, has
finally jumped the band wagon and attempted to create a viral video on
Youtube....
8BD is a collection of 8-bit/chip tunes hand picked instead of user uploaded. This prevents users from being faced with an overabundance of songs that haven't even been taken seriously by their creators. What you'll find here is solid music from all different genres, picked once a day.
I search far and wide for my chiptunes, scanning user-upload sites and chiptune labels/netlabels on a daily basis. And of course, you're welcome to send in your own work (which I treat the same as any other song released under a CC BY-NC-SA License) or suggestions: norock@gmail.com
