m0d - Pienataur Returns

This guy uploads so much music, and they've all got "pie" in the name. Well, most of them. This one sounded creepy, and since it's HALLOWEEN today I figured it would fit in nicely!

So, what are you chiptune people dressing up as? Anything? I'm 22 and happy to say I'm not too old to get a costume together.

Not the same clothes as pictured, but this was one of the rare shots with Hank, Dean, and Triana all in the same frame.

I'm gonna be Dean Venture (the red-head). My twin brother's going as Hank (the blonde) and my girlfriend is Triana (the goth chick). If you follow me on Twitter, you know I get down to business when Venture Brothers is on!

We got wristwatch walkie-talkies, we dyed our hair... It's epic.



m0d's website

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The J. Arthur Keenes Band - The Boring World of Niels Bohr

Off of his dandy new release "Pamplemousse" (as in, "Je suis un pamplemousse!", translated: "I am a grapefruit!", something my friends taking French in high school used to say all the time, much to their own amusement), this track is pretty sweet and not at all bohring. Niels Bohr is the man responsible for the classical picture of the atom with a lumpy ol' nucleus and some electrons that are about as big as one of the lumps whippin' around the nucleus in an elliptical orbit. It's not a very accurate image, but it's stuck and that's what a lot of people (myself included) think of when they hear the word Atom!

The song features all the trademarks of The J. Arthur Keenes Band including: Dan McLay's spectacular voice, some chiptunes, and a stringed instrument (usually picked or strummed rather than bowed)!



The J. Arthur Keenes Band's website

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Sycamore Drive - City Sounds

Pretty thick LSDJ track, owing completely to great instrument selection in the bass line. Also featuring some groovy slicing!



Sycamore Drive's website

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FantomenK - Goodbye Summer, Hello Winter

Brrr, it's getting cold out! Almost all the leaves are off of almost all the trees around here, and my feet are not perpetually cold when I'm sitting on the computer. Fall weather won't be here for much longer!

Speaking of winter, there's some cool chiptune stuff happening in December! Most importantly there's Blip '09 on the 16th-20th, the biggest chiptune concert/festival in the nation (maybe the world!). Also in December (the 7th), I'll be playing a show with Octavialsilver and Elsh, two musicians from Michigan, over in Detroit on the campus of Oakland University!



FantomenK's website

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Microchip - Symphony Kids/Yoshimitsu/Empty

Three songs rolled into one by Microchip, an extremely talented chiptune artist whose weapons of choice are the Game Boy and Atari 2600. This was performed live for a radio show. It's a nice long mix, but unfortunately it's two or three entries after yesterday's 8BD, meaning I didn't whittle away much of my backlog of chiptunes to listen to. Oh well! I'll keep listening, maybe I can get a head start on tomorrow's.

And, at 13:46 it beats the recently broken record for longest track on 8BD! So, whatever that honor's worth... Congratulations, Microchip! Haha.



Microchip's website

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Lutin - Zanzibar

Some chiptune house music, great for chilled out listening or for parties or at a club or exercising or any other time it's appropriate to listen to music. House is just some great music, huh.



Lutin's website

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Rockman - NOCDU

Okay so this song isn't technically by Rockman. I mean, it halfway is. This is the product of his affiliated "microband" which I guess is called NasaKid? I just put Rockman since that's the 8bc.org account used. Anyway... I have a feeling this track would be a great deal of fun to see live! Having seen Starscream, Anamanaguchi, and I Fight Dragons in concert, I can attest to the fact that instruments plus chiptunes equals a great show.



Rockman's website

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Sievert - Danger!

Sometimes I feel weird promoting the heavy hitters of chiptunes, the people that can upload anything they want onto 8bc.org and recieve a hundred or more views in a day, just because people will see their name and want to hear it.

Then I remember this entire genre is but a tiny bit of fringe on the gigantic tapestry of public consciousness, and I don't feel that weird about it anymore.



Sievert's website

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ubey - seasons

A really chilled out track made with the DS-10. Maybe it helps that it's a chilly, rainy, windy October morning. Honestly, I've never heard a song called "Seasons" that I didn't like. Check out this song of the same name, it might be my favorite.



ubey's website

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Psilodump - All You Need Is Love

Today I'm featuring a track off of the fantastic "WANNA HLD YR HANDHELD, Vol. 1", a chiptune Beatles cover album by the venerable masters of putting together quality compilations, the 8-Bit Operators. I actually featured a different song a while ago that was added as a bonus track to this compilation after the comp was supposed to be finished, which is pretty cool. You're allowed to listen to this music all you want for free on the bandcamp page, but to get the .mp3s it's $10, so no direct download link today!



Psilodump's website

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SMH - Canopic Jars

I featured SMH a long time ago, when this site was still pretty new. Anyway, taken from the 8bc.org description:

"canopic jars were clay jars in which the ancient egyptians stored the internal organs (stomach, liver, etc) of the dead before they mummified them. they threw away the brain though because they thought it didn't do anything..."

I think it's pretty great a guy named a song after those jars.



SMH's website

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Oven Rake - Diane

The new record-holder for the longest 8BD entry at 8:25, beating the previous best by thirty seconds! Much more ambient and relaxed mood to this one than Mermaid, but it resonated with me today. The name of the game is subjectivity, guys!



Oven Rake's website

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MoxoM - The Orphan Child

From an upcoming "8-bit symphony" which, if it resembles this even a little bit, will be awesome.



MoxoM's website

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Boomlinde - Aether Bats

FM synthesis! YESSSSSSSS. It feeds my hunger... For FM synthesis.

(Apologies for the brevity and idiocy of today's writeup, I just want to get away from the computer for a bit)



Boomlinde's website

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SwipeSomething - 8 Bit Drama

Some straight-up chiptunes up in here. I wouldn't be surprised one bit to put an old NES cartridge in and hear this song playing on the first level, and I'm alright with that.



SwipeSomething's website

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Spamtron - Martian

This song is probably going to be this week's top liked track on 8bc.org, but I don't care, 'cuz I like it. You'll probably like it too, because it is excellent! I don't know exactly what genre to call this, though, besides Chiptune. It's not any particular flavor of electronica. Maybe that's why I like it, there's no real formula he followed to come up with this track. That and it goes all over the place stylistically.



Spamtron's website

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Clouds Vs. Bushes - Tourniquet

This song reminds me at times of Kirby, Philip Glass, The Sky, and Road Trips. I like all of those things, and this song was well crafted. So I made it today's 8-Bit Daily! What else would I do?



Clouds Vs. Bushes's website

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FearofDark - Get A Brain Morans!

Mmmmm, yes. I love music that sounds like this and uses these sorts of instruments. That's just how I roll, you guys know that! Interesting, then, that I've never made any music that sounds anything like this. I think it's the mystery that keeps me coming back.



FearofDark's website

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Little-Scale - Lobster-Tronic

I don't know how much attention you folks pay to the sidebar of this site, but if you look to your right, under the ads (which are always just weird and haven't made me on cent) there are a list of blogs I read. One of them is called Little-Scale, and it's his blog where he posts all sorts of cool stuff that he's working on, because he's equal parts musician, electrician, and magician. Example: The other day he was controlling a Commodore 64 with an iPhone (videos on his site). I don't know how he does a lot of the things he did, and so I thought I'd give all the 8BD fans a taste of his style with this song, which is a single channel track that only plays F#. Of course, he's free to tool around with every conceivable aspect of the note besides which "pitch" it is (and as you'll hear, he's got plenty of leeway there, practically speaking), and so a little song sprouts from what should be inhabitable, barren soil.



One of Little Scale's websites

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8-Bit Sissy - Undead

According to the artist, this song was inspired by the great zombie movie 28 Days Later. I liked that movie alright. Did you guys see Zombieland? That was pretty good too. Zombiiiieeees! 'Kay.



8-Bit Sissy's website

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Switch Off, Goodbye. - Surfer Girl

A nice cover of a Beach Boys song that was made with a DS and a computer. It's nice a sparkly, and watery, and all those nice things that are leaving for a long time as we begin the temperature decline that already has me scraping frost off my car in the morning. Sigh...

In a completely unrelated note, did you guys see the MS Paint Adventures update for today? I'm not saying it's easy, but if you don't currently read this comic, you need to start from the beginning and catch up and follow it, 'cause it's going places.



Switch Off, Goodbye's website

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J. Arthur Keenes - In The Doorway

Recently, a chiptune cover album of The Misfits came out on CalmDownKidder records. I don't know a single song by those guys, but I listened to all the tracks and really liked this song. Then again, I love J.A.K.'s voice so it was kind of unfair.



J. Arthur Keenes' website

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Yerzmyey - ITALO NIGHT

Made with some bizarre technological alchemy that grafts a second sound chip onto the obsolete Sinclair ZX Spectrum to give it musical abilities to compare with other "modern" computers (I'm of course talking about the Commodore Amiga or the Atari STe, so modern really must be in quotes), he then made a song in the relatively obscure Italo Disco genre (similar to Italo House or other all-synth dance genres). Just understand that this music is more 80's than the music you think of when you think of 80's music. It's like a caricature of what you think 80's music is. Anyway. See what you think!



Yerzmyey's website

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Lemonade - The Nimbys

You guys don't know how much self control I exercise every time Ultrasyd or Cerror or Joule or Coda or any of the other resident 8bc.org demoscene people upload a track. I've already featured songs by all of them because I love that style, but I don't want to feature the same artists every time they make something new! Luckily for me, 8bc.org newcomer "Lemonade" just dumped 4 of his demoscene tracks on the site, and so I can feature him no sweat!



Lemonade's website

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Lunar Synthetic - Vex

Some hardcore stuff made with an LSDJ. Loud, thrashy, and fast! This was just what I was looking for this morning!



Lunar Synthetic's website

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Norrin Radd - Spinning

Cover of some metal song that I've never heard before, this is far and away the most intense song I've ever heard transcribed by ear. Just... Let that soak in for a while. I know I'd be lost in the first measure.



Norrin Radd's website

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Steve - Puzzler Funk

Steve's a pretty cool guy! He made some pretty cool music. I like this one the best off of his release, but there's 4 other tracks in there that are definitely worth listening to. I put some links down there so you can go grab it! Yeah!!



Steve's website

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Sserrac - ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBOUR'S DOG

A nice creepy theme, great for October. Plus I felt like the site could use some "pure" chiptunes as opposed to some over-the-top compressed, processed, electro.



sserrac's website

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Whoacoder - Pale Noise

Takes a bit for the theme to come in and get the track going, but when it does it's just great. Not so upbeat it's annoying, but not a downer of a track either. It's a perfectly balanced track.



Whoacoder's website

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Neutro - Hitchhike Across Rainbows

Made with two Game Boys and a Commodore 64. I think it's a pretty sweet tune! Lots of harmonies and "emotion" as he puts it, and it turned out pretty well.



Neutro's website

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Youdo - Destination (Remastered)

Today's 32-bit daily is... Errrr...

This song is emblematic of everything people don't like about using modern software (in this case FL Studio, but sometimes Reason, Logic, Garage Band, etc.) to make chiptunes. Loads of filters, after effects, percussion and background tracks that sound like "normal" electronica, sidechaining to a degree simply not possible with old-school hardware, and a general feel that's polished past the point of sterility. Yes, this is a FL Studio song all right. The only question that remains is this: Do you like it?



Youdo's website

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