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.

You’ve heard the chip hype. But there’s something behind it: vintage digital chips can make wonderful sounds. And I’m thrilled that someone has painstakingly reproduced those sounds in an upcoming package.

Emulating analog circuitry, from amps to classic synths, has been long understood. But we’ve finally reached an age when people begin to appreciate the odd idiosyncrasies of digital technology, too. There hasn’t ever been a comprehensive attempt to emulate each detail of a range of 80s sound chips before – until now. Plogue (makers of the highly underrated Plogue Bidule patching environment) and David Viens have tackled just that as a labor of love, and you’ll be able to use the resulting “chipsounds” library later this spring.

Plogue’s chipsounds recreates the blippy personality of the Commodore 64, the Nintendo NES, the Game Boy, the Atari, the Vic20 – and circuit-bent and abused variations, too. It’s got a powerful artist endorsement from 8 Bit Weapon and Computer Her (pictured here). There are arpeggiators, noise patterns, distortion emulation, custom software, all built on the ARIA synth/sampling engine.

The basic specs:

• 7 chips: TIA, 2A03 PAPU, VIC-I, SN76589AN, AY-3-8910, POKEY, and SID. Haven’t heard of all of those? No worries. But you’ve probably heard the chips. The horribly-named SN76589AN was used in my very first computer, the IBM PCjr, my first game console, the Colecovision (boy did I pick them), and in the TI. The 2A03 is from the original NES. The TIA was in the Atari.
• Tricks, built in: One-shot arpeggiators, rapid waveform changes, envelope resync tricks are all built in – stuff that’s hard to pull off, as the creators note.
• Emulations of psuedo noise patterns, distortion
• Switch on each chip’s limited resolution and pitch values – or switch them off, and create sounds the PCjr couldn’t
• Presets from 8 bit Weapon and ComputeHer

One chip to rule them all: over a quarter century later, the sounds of this chip are reborn in the newest mobile devices. Photo (CC) Dejdżer / Digga.

Take a look at the long view of history, and the Commodore 64 fares nicely. It remains the most popular computer of all time. And this newfangled iPhone thing? Well, it now just catches up to the C64, giving people what they really want – a C64-like music player in their pocket.

How else to explain my inbox packed with tips about the new SID Player for iPod Touch and iPhone? Who needs MP3 when there’s SID. A tiny download yields over 33,000 tracks, and the player application itself is open source. Rounding out this (unplanned) day of game music, this seems the appropriate coda.

Now, it’d be easy enough to let a wave of nostalgia wash over you – or, Scrooge-like naysayers, to dismiss yet another novelty download for iPhone. But consider if you will some of the underlying reasons a SID Player works:

• Composition: The compositions aren’t just nostalgia pieces – even classic game tunes like Commando and Arkanoid. The point is, composers like Rob Hubbard were inventive and ingeniously compact. Strip away the instrumentation, and they still work – something that can’t be said of a lot of modern game music (but can be said of hits like “Still Alive,” as it happens).
• Storing scores, not sound: We continue to be force-fed the idea that recorded music is superior to sequenced racks that are synthesized – but no one can say why. Sure, for simulating an orchestra, that makes some sense, even with increasingly sophisticated samplers. But for electronic compositions, it’s nonsense. You can pack more music and more musical structure into a score. If MIDI scores are underwhelming, it’s because the synths playing them, or the limitations of the file format, or both killed the idea.
• SID forever: The SID remains one of the great synth designs of all time, again, because of its economy and its personality. There’s no reason that success can’t be replicated in 2009 by DIY electronics builders on one hand, or smart synth programmers working on mobile and embedded devices on the other.

I have nothing against nostalgia on the one hand, and nothing against healthy skepticism on the other. But if you look at something like a 2009 SID player on the iPhone, there really is something to it – even when history washes both the SID and the iPhone into a forgotten past.

SID Player Project Page, iTunes link (US$2.99; further evidence that you can have a for-fee open source mobile app, folks)

Via Synthtopia and James Lewin’s Twitter and a few of you, as well.

The only way to top this iPhone app? Why, someone needs to build a SID-based pocket music player that does nothing else. There are a few DIY projects that might get you started.

basic64 is a free (donations accepted) VST plug-in for Windows. You can see the full specs on the developer site, but let’s skip straight to what sets this one apart:

• Oscillator sync
• Ring modulation
• Pitch envelopes
• Tempo-synced arpeggiator
• MIDI learn on everything

Pretty powerful for free. It’s not a full SID emulation, but then, I think an “inspired” version is better anyway. Now, enough blogging, I’m off to go play with this thing. And yes, lots of weird and wonderful plug-ins is one excellent reason to use Windows, even if just a justification for throwing XP Home on Boot Camp on a MacBook.

basic64 on de La Mancha
and lots of other free/donationware plugs from them

Via the good peoples of Sonic State

I’m busy finishing — count them — 5 feature stories at once today (coffee, please?!), so that means it’s time to check in on the rest of the blogosphere.

It’s “I love the 80s” time again on this week’s Best Music Blog. Words cannot describe the geeky goodness of the new Commodore 64 Music Blog. That’s right, it’s C64 music all the time: 24/7. And you thought the Bass Fishing Network on cable TV had a focused audience.

Believe it or not, aside from pointing to lots of cool gear, modern musicians devoted to the C64, and bizarre vintage toys like the C64 Sound Sampler, the blog actually has some useful advice — like using a spare C64 as a MIDI monitor or rack-mounting it as a synth. Start hitting the yard sales, because at about $10 it’s hard to find a better music bargain.

Previous C64 coverage here on CDM:

C64 as a PCI card for your PC/Mac

C64 in VST form

C64 Synthesis, Revisited

Roland Emulated on Commodore Emulated on Mac

See also: W. Brent Latta on oldskool game music as art