Having done a one hour workshop at Blip Festival years ago, and a 30 minute battle demonstration at 8static, I thought I already had this thing in the bag.  This workshop, however, differed in one major way – it was interactive; all participants had a machine and headphones to follow along.  Instead of doing a presentation I was going to be instructing.  Plus, there were two sessions at 3 hours a piece all starting at some time in the morning I’m not at all used to.  :D

So, I figured I’d make some kind of handout.  I put all the famitracker effects commands on there, and info about the different voices and their instrument settings.  I also included a “musical keyboard to computer keyboard” graphic like so -

I have a hard time believing that no one has made one of these online, but I couldn’t find one.  The way that the notes map to the keyboard tends to be a huge learning curve for seasoned musicians.  After a decade of tracking, it becomes second nature.  I can play on it better than a piano.  :D

I started the class with a 20 minute crash course in sound chip history. I talked about Atari’s TIA and Pokey chips, Commodore’s VIC and SID chips, Nintendo’s 2A03, how the Gameboy’s Motorolla CPU builds the sound, and a few examples of FM chips; playing back examples from Battle of the Bits as I went.  I did my best to describe their differences and advances, making special notes about which chips could attain correct pitches and which ones were dedicated solely for audio.  Really, I would have rather had everyone watch the following video -

…but the workshop wasn’t meant to be a history lesson on chip music.  Today is another day!  Let us create in the now!

I went into this whole thing thinking it would be cake.  My other workshops were cake. But this, as I stated previously, was an interactive workshop, not a lecture or demonstration.

So, after this workshop’s history lesson, we jumped into Famitracker.  I broke down the interface, we built instruments for each of the channels, I made a pattern, and then I set them loose, pacing around, ready to answer questions.  And many questions I answered.  Next, we made a second pattern, and I showed them how multiple patterns build together into a song.  Then I set them loose again for 40 minutes or so with more pacing on my part, answering questions as they came.

For the first of the two workshop sessions, I had library staff member, Matt, and one elementary student.  It felt kind of like a practice run.  There was good dialog, trivia swapping, we didn’t get too off track. …or maybe I just didn’t feel that much pressure.

The second group contained Matt, my girlfriend, two friends from the bar, and three younger folk.  During the final hour with this group, I realized my “let ‘em loose” strategy for leading the workshop was naive.  Of the three younger folk; one was paralyzed after playing with and deleting the patterns we made together, one made a bunch of wild noises and then logged into newgrounds, and one was already familiar with Milky Tracker and felt she wasted her time.  Everyone else seemed to have a good time and entertained themselves.

I used the last 30 minutes to show everyone how to convert their song to an .mp3 by exporting to .wav and using a free online conversion service.  Then I talked about various websites they could meet other chiptune artists and/or share their music.  I was pretty exhausted after that.  :D

Milky Tracker girl left the following track on her desktop -
Download audio file (whoareyou.mp3)

When I get to do this again I’ll be a little wiser about it.  Demonstration is key.  I didn’t talk about music theory, I didn’t talk about song structure, about hard and soft changes, about holding a solid groove and layering on top, about playing in the pocket, or anything that really had anything to do with the music itself.  I only demonstrated the software itself as if everyone was already a musician ready to compose for a five piece band.  Slight error or epic fail?  I’ll know for next time.

I’d like to thank Matt Dubay for setting this event up and inviting me.  I’d also like to thank Eli Neiburger for networking Matt and I together, and a thanks to Kip DeGraaf for setting an entire Mac lab to run Famitracker on VMware.

famitracker workshop handout PDF download

Kind of Bloop is an 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis’ most successful album. It was curated by Andy Baio who’s been blogging and posting links forevers at waxy.org, and is a cofounder of kickstarter. Baio did everything he could think of to make this a legitimate and lawful release. With the help of kickstarter, he raised the needed funds to pay the licensing fees for all tracks on said album. It turned out to be an awesome stroke of cross promotion; being covered by Time Magazine among others.

Kind of Bloop was released nearly a year ago. I listened to it a couple times, it’s fun; Shnabubula’s “All Blues” is all over the map. I do wish, however, that all the classic jazz lovers who abhor this conceptual tribute would give it a solid listen. I understand some folks can only tolerate acoustic music, but I wish they could also appreciate the skill, effort, and detail that make these ‘computerized’ renditions so organic, human, and unique. It’s all jazz — even when Hannibal, of the A*Team, is forming a plan.

So here’s the crap — the cover of the album has it’s own copyright holder, photographer Jay Maisel. He never gave consent and claims he never would have if asked. Even though Kind of Bloop’s cover is an 8bit translation, it apparently failed to diverge enough from the original. Maisel, with money and lawyers, managed to pin Baio for a mere $32,500. Maisel is an artisanal juggernaut, people pay him $5k for weekend workshops. Jay Maisel is the man.

Campbell’s Soup never sued Andy Warhol for making their cans look like vomit. I’m kind of worried about Campbell’s masculinity.

I’d like to make an analogy using a Mr. Show skit from the perspective of the legal world. The guy with the bloody ear is a younger generation of artist who flirts with mashups and chipmusic covers. The donut clerk is the court. The seated acquaintance is the elder established artist, the hipster from the 50′s bronze age of jazz.

Fair Use has always sounded like a trap to me. Yeah, you’re in the clear as long as you make no money. But what if you had something that went mad viral, containing copyrighted material, and it launches your artistic career? Can that copyright holder, with enough lawyer power, find a way to garnish your new professional wages? In most lawsuits, the court sides with the established juggernaut mother.

Please read Andy Baio’s account on the situation.

Every once and a while I search ‘knoxburry’ in soulseek to see how accessible I am in that network.  I was pleasantly surprised to see my track from this compilation show up!  It meant that it was finally released!!

The official release page is here.  But I found spam on forums first when googling for the damn thing.  We’ve got some reviews on WATMM and xltronic and overall they are positive.  I’ve known for a long time that IDM/breakcore enthusiasts often don’t enjoy chipmusic even though there are many artists who jump back and forth between these mediums.

My track is ‘alberto balsalm’ and I am not totally satisfied with my effort.  There is a section of the song I just could not get the chords right no matter what I tried.  But that’s ok, I suppose.  I did my best to catch the essence of the song and the rhythm is spot on.  I substituted the wooden chair squeak with the Legend of Zelda’s “the dungeon boss is in the next room” sound.

Download audio file (Baron-Knoxburry-Alberto-Balsalm.mp3)

Here are a couple things said at WATMM —

Yeah, somebody said they didn’t like the Alberto Basalm but that’s one of my favorites because it’s so fucked up and authentic. I hate how most 8-Bit is “simulated” and then what’s the point? You’re not fooling anyone because you’re doing things that exceed the capacities of a SID chip. You have to admit that the percussion breakdown is the tits because it’s so metapharstic. But that huge, blat of a minor chord does not belong at all lol–makes it sound like Castlevania

I disagree. Doesn’t matter if it exceeds the capacity of an SID chip. Its all about the sound that it produces. I have no interest in what hardware/software they’re using. Its all about that squarewave sound :spiteful:

And, so, you can see that these Aphex Twin fans don’t know the difference between the Commodore 64 SID chip and an NES with a VRC6 expansion (what I used). Of course you can’t expect people who are :spiteful: against simple square waves to know the difference. Comments on chiptune forums like chipmusic.org and 8bitcollective.com don’t even touch what systems or methods were used.  What I don’t get is why Aphex Twin lovers won’t allow themselves to enjoy such a tribute with his early history of frankenstein hardware.  How is programming antique hardware that different?

Much respect to Emar for organizing and hosting this compilation!

Download 126mb .ZIP here

DJ and I looked on…  This is the underground working on love of a culture and not money.  Ultimately, we decided we wanted to, and could try, to build something similar back home in Ann Arbor, MI.  There are four main components necessary : the artists, a name or title, a venue, and a regular monthly slot.

8static is a chiptune event.  Ann Arbor and it’s vicinity has less chip artists than a luddite convention.  We obviously can’t do a monthly chiptune event.  So what do we want?  What are we?

Both of us perform as one-man-bands!  DJ’s project, Scared to Death, consists of himself, guitar, bass, circuit bent keyboard, and a drumset.  He uses loop pedals in an alchemical method to create an atmosphere and pulse that he then plays drums over.  I, myself, take the stage with chiptune and laptop compositions layered with my custom VIC20 chip instrument, ukulele and voice.

Essentially, we realized we didn’t want traditional bands which is still a pretty open invitation.  To try and quantify what’s acceptable I came up with a genre list : chiptune dubstep trip-hop synth-pop idm breakcore circuit-bent noise one-man-band ambient experimental.  LoBlast is a steady, public outlet for bedroom musicians.  …or something like that.

A couple weeks after our trip, and without much brainstorming, I came up with the event title “LOBLAST”.  LO is an abbreviation for LO-FI (opposite of HI-FI or “high fidelity”) and also for being “low” on the musical industry food chain.  BLAST is another good fit in all it’s connotations “I had a blast!” or “That boombox blasted me!”  So, one slow night at work I drafted some simple logo designs.

A few months roll by and I finally brave the adobe illustrator.  I still feel like a blind mule every time I try to use it, but practice makes perfect.  Huzzar!  Teh pen tool!  :P

…then you export something and import that thing-a-ma-jig into photoshop… and style the shit out of it! :D

I’m not happy with the ‘LO’ part, but that’s what I get for not following my own mockup examples!  I am happy with, however, the legibility of the logo.  I thought maybe the broken ‘A’ and the connected letters would throw people.  I’ve been assured it’s an easy read.  I suppose if people can read the 80′s NASA logo they can read LOBLAST.

For a venue, we’re lucky to have access to the 8ball Saloon hallway.  We both work for the Blind Pig, a local club, which is typically closed on Sundays.  The 8ball is in the basement, completing the complex with a cover-free bar, bathrooms and an alley entrance.

Last summer, a party got busted and the bands still wanted to play and the peeps still wanted to party.  With the owners permission, the party moved to the 8ball hallway.  This incident began an outlet for the Blind Pig staff, many being musicians, to host free shows and help sell $1 PBR’s.

Sometimes a touring act will get a show upstairs at the Blind Pig on a Sunday making the hallway that connects the two bars unavailable.  On very rare occasions these shows can drop on the calender a few weeks before.  So that’s a slight strike against us.  But, overall, we have a solid venue for ages 19+ on Sunday nights.

We decided to requisition the last Sunday of every month.  Our second loblast event  is already upon us!!  D:  Time is flying!!

DJ suggested a Missile Command theme for the flier.  I had a lot of fun making it …and… I think it works!  So come on down and enjoy cheap beer!  :D