Call it the 8-bit preservation society. Chipsounds is now available. It’s a new programmable soft synth, filled with custom oscillators and samples of famous and obscure vintage chips, accompanied by an EP of free chip tracks. Far from a threat to fans of hardware, I think this release is a major achievement for fans of digital sounds.

Oh yeah, and if you’ve been feeling burnt out on chip music in general, firing up some of the sound of some of these more obscure chips could well change your mind. If you like sound, there’s something here for you.

Chip music, championed by a supportive network of artists and fans, has unquestionably made the big time. But for those who value the unique sounds of a variety of vintage 8-bit chips, there is still cause for concern. Even though they’re digital circuits, the unique design of various chips won’t last forever. Some chips are simply disappearing, while others cease to work. At the same time, while the sound of the Nintendo game system has become ubiquitous, lots of other unusual chips don’t get heard. Software emulation and sample packs so far have been pretty shallow. Emulators tend not to model all the nuances of different chips, and samples are really only expressive if they’re presented in the context of something that’s fully programmable and playable.

Enter Chipsounds. Creator David Viens told us about the Chipsounds project back in January:
Authentic Chipmusic Soft Synth Emulation: Plogue Chipsounds Scoop from NAMM

It’s available today, with an introductory price of US$75 ($95 thereafter).

chipsounds @ Plogue [Product Page]

Something like Chipsounds could have been just an attempt to cash in on “what the kids are playing.” But David’s work is more like an epic love poem to the sounds of chips themselves, not only as a reminder of game music but as a unique sound source. And the passionate chip music community got in on the act, as well, with notable artists contributing to the product’s development and in fine form on the EP.

But forget about that for a second. What matters is that chipsounds is an exhaustive, exhaustively programmable set of sounds that almost no eBay budget could ever amass. It takes some unique sounds and allows you to warp them into arrangements and performance configurations not possible with hardware. And it might well make you explore hardware in a new way all over again.

For your listening pleasure, here is the full, free EP with downloadable tracks to set the mood. It’s all been made with Chipsounds by some terrific artists, including David Viens himself, and covers a range of genres and techniques.

VJing and jamming with Pitfall, controlled from MIDI drums? Heck, yes!

Max/MSP/Jitter is a multimedia environment that also happens to be a development tool, the upshot being that you can do bizarre things like emulate the chips of Atari, Sega, Nintendo, and Coleco game systems (covered previously).

Now imagine you could turn those emulations into a playable video/music instrument. Imagine you could map the pixels of the graphics to any object, stretch and warp it to other objects, or even use it to control a giant lighting array. The source could be the game itself, or visualizations of the RAM and ROM memory accesses. You could use any instrument to control gameplay (like a MIDI violin, or a laser beam, or whatever you wanted). That’s exactly what the mmonoplayer gang have done with a free Jitter external:

jit.2600

You’ll need Jitter (try the demo), and you’ll need some ROM files to play the games. I love that the creators describe it as virtual circuit bending — and bending is literally the word, as you warp and stretch video matrices. More features are on the way, too: audio support (yes, please!) and other game systems.

If you do anything interesting with this, do let us know. Via Will Carter at the USC Interactive Media Division and Wallace Winfrey on the great, new Cycling ‘74 forums.

A late submission to our 1-second music roundup deserves its own mention:

Brad Fuller writes us: “Attached is 1 sec from Level 2 of Marble Madness arcade game from Atari. I did the music and sounds along with Hal Canon at Atari Games.”

Marble Madness Level 2 [1-second MP3 excerpt]

Talk about iconic music: while I haven’t played the game since shortly after it came out, I immediately remember this one!

But if that one-second didn’t satisfy you, here’s more on Brad: he’s a founding partner of game sound maker Sonaural Audio Studios. If you’re going to the Game Developers Conference 2006, you can catch his lecture on the audio track entitled “Beyond Polyphony: Maximizing Audio on Mobile Platforms.” Lastly, check out his bio and some terrific articles on Linux audio and other topics on O’Reilly. Particularly interesting there: he reviews Fervent Studio-to-Go, the bootable Linux music solution (see CDM’s previous stories and interview), and talks about his Atari days.

Thanks, Brad, for the great music — in 1984, and since!

Now what to do with all these late submissions to our original call for 1-second music? I’m happy with the completed song I assembled, but I’ll keep adding them to a playable library, and if we get enough (or call for them again later this year), I’ll do another song.

In the meantime, I’m suddenly itching for a game of Marble Madness . . . (photos courtesy Brad)

A fun discovery today from one of our favorite sites, EM411: a new set of ‘chip’ emulators is available from mmonoplayer. Available in a few flavors including Max/MSP externals, PD externals, and a few Pluggo-powered VST’s, the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, ColecoVision, Sega Master System, GameBoy, NES and IntelliVoice are available. mmonoplayer claims that additional VST’s are on their way. Sadly, as my studio is still sans-PC, I have been unable to enjoy these fine offerings.

Anyone interested in detailed reviews of these plug-ins, please send a reasonably powered PC my direction…Alternatively, download the patches and try them out yourself!

Ed: Hey, I’ve got a PC, but for Max or Pd users, the externals are cross-platform Mac and Windows. You can bet with Max/MSP and Pd sample patches on the site I’ll give these a try right away! How else will I rekindle my fond memories of the ColecoVision? (Yeah, I was the kid with that instead of the NES.) -PK

There’s nothing that fatigues the CDM staff more than pointless platform wars. I have absolutely no sympathy for PC OR Mac snobs. Sure, you think you have superior music applications. The best OS. The ultimate UI. You’re all wrong. The Atari ST reigns supreme.

In the spirit of bringing this issue to a close forever, CDM proudly brings you ST Thursday – a roundup of links for those of you making music with the Atari ST.

Think I’m joking? Only half- . . . with all the discussion over the cost of entry of computers, the way they’ve divided the world into haves and have-nots, you might notice an entire ST setup, complete with display and accessories, goes for around US$10. The Atari ST had (sorry, has) some incredible features for music-making, not the least of which is built-in MIDI I/O. (Try to find a computer with that now!) The machine was also the birthplace of two rival sequencers: Steinberg Cubase and C-lab Notator — the latter is now Apple Logic.

Tim’s Atari MIDI World is an incredible resource, with a comprehensive guide to software, plenty of articles, pics, and screenshots, and even some MP3 examples of classic MIDI tunes in action, a mailing list, and a forum.

Little Green Desktop: Not music-specific, but an enormously huge Atari computing wet dream, from reviews to downloads to box art.

MyAtari.net: Free monthly magazine for Atari users online. (Damn. I have to pay for Macworld.)

Suicide Commando makes a kind of electronica death-metal with 8-bit Atari sounds. Set the mood with your boyfriend or girlfriend at your next romantic dinner with the tender ballad, “Love Breeds Suicide.” (sound samples at link) Not anti-social enough for you? Atari Teenage Riot got themselves banned in Germany.

I’m sure there’s more: Atari ST users, give me a holler. Send your favorite links, your favorite music, your favorite photos, your favorite memories (er, hot tips for how you’re using your ST now). And remember CDM’s sage advice to those who feel left behind in their music-making by the onward press of technological advances: the only way to avoid obsolence is to use something obsolete.