Jump to content

danimal cannon

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    270

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by danimal cannon

    I did a presentation on Chiptune Music for TEDxBuffalo

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Turned out pretty good. Just a couple minor gaffes, sentences that start awkwardly, "Atari Amiga", but otherwise came out nicely. I really only speak from anecdotal experience so your mileage with chipmusic may vary. Hopefully it might make you think about your craft in a different light.

    My goals were:

    a) fawn over all the amazing things I witness in the chipmusic scene

    B) create an easily digestible primer for the uninitiated

    c) accurately convey how making this sort of music is diametrically opposed to most modern music, and why that can be a great thing.

    Danimal Cannon and Zef - Parallel Processing (CHIPTUNEZ)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    LISTEN AND BUY THE ALBUM HERE

    http://danimalcannon.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-processing

    http://danimalcannon.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-processing

    http://danimalcannon.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-processing

    http://danimalcannon.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-processing

    173.png

    "This project began as something of an experiment. I heard a Gameboy track by Zef soon after the completion of 'Roots', and was immediately blown away by the complexity and sound design work. I said to myself: "I want to be able to make those sounds". I had also purposefully limited myself on 'Roots' to using a single Gameboy. I didn't want to stifle my programming potential and creativity by removing the polyphony limitations of a single gameboy.

    For this record, I wanted to take the Gameboy sound to the extreme. Link two gameboys together, join forces Justice League style with the best programmer I could find, and mix and master with all 8 channels isolated and seperately processed. I didn't want to make a just a chiptune record. It's an electronic music record, it's a prog record, it's... something we're pretty proud of whatever it is. What I do know, is that at the end of this year long creation process, we're better musicians than we were at the start of this project. Getting to work with a contrasting (yet complementary) style has rubbed off on me, and I think it's rubbed off on him.

    For this record, we included the save files as we have with all of our previous albums (Go get them). We want to give you the same ability to grow as a musician and programmer as we've been able to. We're fans too, we just want more great music out there"

    http://ubiktune.com/releases/ubi058-danimal-cannon-and-zef-parallel-processing

    AND FOR YOU CRAZY PEOPLE WITH TOO MUCH MONEY

    http://www.fangamer.net/products/danimal-cannon-combo

    Big ups to Zef, Ubiktune, C-Jeff, Truestar, n0c, Overcoat and many more :D

    When a convention gets too big

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    PAX is pretty ridiculous now, even though I've been fortunate enough to experience it from the VIP side. There's the element of community that's at MAGfest but it's more generalized except for the staff enforcers. I dunno, you definitely run into problems of scale and I tend to prefer the smaller stuff as an attendee.

    Chiptune Compilation Album on Arecibo RIGHT NOW!!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It's on!! GO LISTEN!!

    http://areciboradio.com/

    There's even a few OCR guys on here. Protodome, Xenon Odyssey, Nario, and me (if I missed anyone, I apologize), as well as a LOT of other amazing chiptuners like Danimal Cannon, Chip's Challenge, Kubbi, Inverse Phase, 4Mat, Zef, etc.!! All mastered by DjCUTMAN! Seriously, all kinds of awesome music is going on till 12 EST, so get in there

    If there's already a thread for this, I apologize again

    OMG ZEF'S ON, BYE

    I'm not an OCR guy anymore?? :(

    j/k <3<3

    Share your Kickstarters

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I wonder if OCRemix would ever consider starting a kickstarter... i don't really know what for. But they could probably offer some pretty sweet rewards.

    I love Kickstarter, but everyone and their mother starting frivolous kickstarters that don't need to be done will cause the entire thing to collapse.

    If you are mega passionate and have a dream, and can present it with enough fervor to get funded, more power to you. But with increased saturation, the less chance that any given project is going to get funded regardless of how good it is.

    Not really any direct criticism here, just food for thought. It's kind of the feeling I got from the title of this thread, like EVERYONE should have a kickstarter, instead you know, saving money or something.

    OC ReMix @ PAX East 2012!

    in Announcements

    Posted

    Holy shit where do I start? At PAX I have

    -a chiptune show (http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/boston8bit-day-1) 11am Fri Jamspace,

    -my chiptune panel (http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/chiptunes-from-the-square-wave-to-the-stage ) 5:30 Fri Merman Theater,

    -my show with metroid metal (http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/friday-night-concerts) Main Concert Hall Fri night,

    -a show with Armcannon (http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/jamspace-saturday-concert-block) 4pm Sat Jamspace

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Pure chiptunes have kind of run their course IMO. I think we should really concentrate on submitting 8-bit embellishments. I call it 9-bit, but it's basically adding FX like Reverb/Delay/Distortion to leads and allowing the supporting instruments to be "whatever sounds good", whether it's bitcrushed or not.

    Even the best chiptune purists feel... dated.

    LOL.

    As a veteran guitar player who has played every size stage from basement to arena, producer, or recording engineer who has done everything from movie trailers to rap to butt metal... I can assure you that the upper echelon of chip music is absolutely bleeding edge in terms of modern composition. It's not dated, it's unheard of. Composition techniques that are absolutely ridiculous and awesome, you won't find them in LITERALLY ANY TYPE OF MUSIC. There are a millions sounds that you just can't find with any other instrument (without some ridiculous programming).

    Now, it's easy to gloss over and not realize this. A lot of them are pretty subtle, others are not. Honestly, the gameboy and NES are without a doubt the COOLEST, most ORIGINAL sounding instruments I've heard in modern times. What you guys see as "production limitations" are actually what spawns the most creative sound design and composition ideas I've ever heard.

    I'm not being delusional, but sometimes you need to dig slightly deep to find these subtleties. I find that a lot of fakebit stuff glosses over these techniques and just rocks 50% square waves with big bass drums. To me that's extremely boring.

    Oh well, I'll be giving an entire panel about this stuff at PAX East. Seriously from a sound design perspective, I find the gameboy to be extremely bleeding edge and amazing.

    EX: This is an unfinished track I've been working on with a guy named Zef. The sounds we got on here might be difficult to reproduce with any synth, but even if you did, it would be insane to program the same arps, the same crazy basslines, the pitch shifts, etc. I would write them WAY differently if given a more traditional setup.

    http://www.armcannon.com/danimal/zefboth.mp3

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Absolutely! There isn't one single production standard that can possibly be applied to every genre, and it would be impossible for us to judge with just one. For a heavy metal remix I want the guitars to sound thick, wide and loud, probably providing some excellent rhythmic drive. For an ambient remix I would probably not want to hear loud, overbearing rhythmic elements. So we already make that distinction.

    But is "chiptune" a GENRE or a production style? I know plenty of people who make chiptunes and hate when they are referred to as a genre. You can have jazz chiptunes, funk chiptunes, rock chiptunes, dance chiptunes, etc. Hard to argue that, right? So what you're really asking is for us to have different production standards for different production styles. And that gets a little harder. Where do you draw the line? Like if someone made a crappy dance mix with basic saw & square synths mixed with lame drums, I don't think anyone would want us to give that a pass just because it has an intentionally basic style.

    Or what if someone wanted to sub a mix with all FM/Genesis sounds which can get REALLY harsh REALLY quickly? When do you say "OK, I get that this is an intentional choice, but it's too abrasive for me"? Believe me, guys like you, Sam, Jake, George & Jonathan, etc., all make amazing-sounding music in various chiptune production styles. But the point of the standard is to prevent people from saying their weak/poor production style deserves a pass just because it's intentionally poor.

    Aha! Great question, I wish I had the perfect answer. If chip music is attempting to sound like dance music, maybe it should held to that standard. I think that 2a03 style like Sams mix is a perfectly legit production for the instrument. I try to look at chip moreso as instrumentation than genre but the line is flexible for simplicities sake.

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Alright that's fine Zirc, my apologies for getting over the top on a topic I am passionate about.

    But my main argument remains, chiptunes have been rejected and discouraged in the past bc of production issues. My argument is that chiptunes should have their own intrinsic production standards just like heavy metal, dance, classical guitar, and barbershop.

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    The reason you need to be at the 99.9% range of talent when it comes to chiptunes is because it is physically more difficult for chiptunes to achieve this standard. Piano, for example, is comparatively a breeze to achieve a decent sound with - you hammer the notes, use some pedal, touch it up in a DAW (and even fix some missed notes, if you input it with a sequencer) and presto, you have a decent sounding mix. It's not easy to make something sound decent, sure, but it's technically one hell of a lot easier to do so with that instrument than with chiptunes.

    While your attitude attempts to be consoling and positive, this paragraph shows that you really just don't get it.

    It's funny, this community is all about recognizing that videogame music is not background music and is just as legit as pop music or classical music. What an awful step backward.

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I realize for the time being this is probably too much of a concession to demand, so I don't expect it, but I understand what danimal means about 2nd class citizen. There are some relatively juvenile piano remixes that have been posted, from a technical and compositional [pianistically speaking] perspective. But for a chiptune song to pass, it has to be in the top top top 99.999999% percent of the genre.

    this is the TLDR of my posts.

    Chiptunes ...?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I don't think that's a fair comparison, because in the case of the flute and bongos you'd need to tweak the recording equipment, the EQ, the reverb, etc., until it sounded great. In the case of absolutely pure NSF files you not only don't mess with many of these things, you can't mess with these things and remain a purist. Instead you use polyphony and other cool techniques to achieve these effects, but the point remains that chiptunes are at a disadvantage because of that. It's not just a channel limitation, it's a limitation on the very fabrics of the production, and it's not a trivial one, either.

    While I personally didn't agree with the Espergirl decision made back in 2006 (even if today Shnabubula could blow it out of the water, I still think that held enough kickass to pass, but that's just me), I can sympathize with what their point was. It's not only channel and timbre limitations that they need to deal with - it's the lack of outside effects, limiters, compressors, EQ, etc., that they would be compared against if the chiptune was a pure chiptune. These are all very nice things that could make the music sound clearer and more thick, so the chiptune would really need to compensate for that in it's arrangement tricks and electronic sorcery. Which is entirely possible, by the way.

    Ok, so what about the piano? Now we have digital pianos? You don't have to mess with any recording equipment. Throw a little built in verb and call it a day. There's no recording talent there, just compositional.

    Meanwhile with chiptunes, if I want some verb or delay, I have to MANUALLY program it in using either 2 channels or single channel echo. That's perfectly fine, modern chiptune artists are doing it ALL THE TIME. But I'm sure that gets glossed over. In terms of EQ, you're doing that with duty cycle modulations. 15% for high, 25% for mid, and 50% for bass sounds. Limited, um yeah, but also considering this is for final MP3s, I'm sure a decently mastered track with decent EQ and loudness should suffice.

    From my understanding, though, people haven't submit too many chiptune tracks because it's believed that the site will never ever accept them, when I don't think that's the case. It's just that when competing with music that doesn't limit itself in such a fashion it's tough to get it up to an objectively amazing standard. Even chiptune artists should agree that it's a monumental task to get a chiptune to sound as good in production as, say, a Deadmau5 track or something. I think it's still possible, but damn difficult.

    See, you missed my entire point here. It shouldn't HAVE to be up to that standard. Just like you don't hold xylophone or classical guitar music to that standard. You're allowed to make music with electronic instruments that doesn't sound like deadmau5. Chiptune can hold it's OWN standard, because it is a completely acceptable type of legitimate music. We shouldn't be holding it to the standards of other instruments, just like we don't hold a piano to the same standard as a rock band. With chiptunes, all of the mixing is actually going on within the tracker.

    People need to start realizing that chiptunes are it's own INSTRUMENT, not a filter, or a synth patch. Just like pixel art.

×
×
  • Create New...