DrumUltimA

Dude, there will be a marimba remix from me, don't you worry. Maybe not xylophone, though. That's an irritating sound. Once, I did a remix that was only live instruments: marimba, vibraphone, piano, drumset, and... me singing. It's that last instrument that keeps it from going anywhere than my youtube page. http://youtu.be/RdC4I7HhNrU

I'm finishing grad school right now, which will be my second degree in music. Both of my parents are full time musicians, and on my dad's side, both of his parents were full time musicians. How do I survive now? By being a student. I'm employed by the university as a teaching assistant, with two different appointments (so technically, I'm "two" teaching assistants). This work pays not only for school, but provides for me a living stipend. In addition to this, I teach lessons outside of school, take freelance gigs whenever they come up (which isn't often), work for a small sampling company you people should know about if you don't already, and work for 4.5 hours a week in the school computer lab. Right now, all of these things together is just about enough to get by. Going into music can be a really rewarding experience, but I'll tell you guys the same thing my teachers have told me, and what I tell all of my students: going into music professionally (especially in my field) is an extremely irrational decision. If you want to be a professional musician, you have to be so bat-shit crazy that there's no way you could do anything else. If you could be just as happy in another job, do that. Chances are it will be less work and you'll make more money. Once I graduate, I don't know what I'm going to do! To find work, I need to know what it is that I want people to know me as, and then capitalize on that. I'll also need to surround myself with my existing network as best I can. Making friends as a musician is important--given you are sufficiently competent, friends will hire you. Friends like working with their friends. That all being said, I'm not above "moonlighting" (working another job not related to music simultaneously). Most musicians aren't. Waiting tables or working retail or anything like that part time is often a necessary step in the process of building your professional career. Man I can't wait until I graduate

Hey folks, "composer-wank" paved the path for what we do today. I've been learning a lot about the virtuoso pianists of the romantic era... it reminds me a lot what we're talking about here.

I actually agree with all of this. I've wondered about the implications of spitting out tons of improvised remixes and just submitting them all. Maybe this can be a part of our submission guidelines case study!

okay okay okay okay I know they're not banned--my wording may have implied that (I was typing real fast), but I typed that wall o' text up with exactly what you just said in mind. Most of my comparison of chiptunes to a solo instrument is reflective of the notion of treating chiptunes as a special instrumental form, just like we do (on ocr and everywhere else) with piano and other instruments. Also, I know the debate has included (much earlier on) the notion of accepting chiptunes as being within the current production standards. I'm more interested in questioning the definition of production standards. Also, I wasn't arguing any point, I was asking questions! If anything, my argument is that our argument is reflective of a much broader question--how is technology effecting the way we perceive instrumental genres in the first place? Dammit Gario, how are you boutta tell me off like that! See if I ever sleep with you again.

Ugh, guys, I really don't have time to get into this debate! But, it's been on my mind all day. I'm going to sacrifice my homework and write down some of the things I've been thinking about. I've noticed a number of comparisons of chip music to solo piano, or string quartet, or other fixed forms, even so far as to imply that if those "restrictive" mediums are allowed, than chiptunes should be allowed. From there, the argument over the nature of production value has also blossomed. There are a few things that I want to point out, and then ask. To argue that chiptune music can't be allowed because of a "limited sound palette" would actually imply that a solo piano remix would be unacceptable criteria. You can do a lot to change the sound via pedaling, articulation, and extended technique, but it's still based on the sound of a piano string being struck. As far as chiptunes go, they have taken this notion far beyond what the piano is capable of. To suggest a chiptune needs a more complex soundscape is to imply that you couldn't submit a solo piano remix without arranging it with other instruments as well. Therefore, this criteria cannot stand alone. One of the reasons I think we are tolerant of this "limitation," however, is due to the allure of the performance aspect. This really applies to any solo instrument. Although there do exist sequenced piano remixes on this site, the aesthetic still remains--and it's an aesthetic that's had hundreds of years to develop. The chiptune is an extremely young medium, which only began 40 or so years ago, and has only begun to blossom as it's own art in the last 10 years or so. But in those few years, it has developed into an instrument that you can perform on. Danimal alluded to this when he talked about the tracks he made on his gameboy, and I've seen folks perform on gameboys many times. Combined with the complexity that artists have discovered through manipulation to bypass the limitations, the chiptune has really taken on a virtuosity of it's own. When Sam talks about this medium needing 70 years or so, I interpret that as the amount of time he believes it takes before the chiptune is acknowledged as a solo "instrument," much like how only in the last 20 years has the marimba (my major area of study right now) begun to be perceived as something other than a novelty sound effect. I think the core of our debate really comes down to the basic sound: solo instruments, whether synthesized, sampled or performed live, are derived from real, acoustic phenomena recorded as sound waves passing through the air. A plucked string, struck drum, or blown reed naturally have a greater complexity of sound than a simple sine or triangle wave. A lot of what we derive as "good production value" stems from trying to make sounds more realistic--adding reverb, controlling velocity...the fact that "round robins" are an important aspect of sound design is a prime example of this. Even in the techno/trance/dubstep(lol) genres that we see on ocr do this--synths still commonly produce more complicated sounds than simple sine and triangle waves, and often percussion emulates real instruments in some way or another. What I gathered the issue was originally is that pure chiptune sounds do NOT derive themselves from acoustic phenomena at all. Rather, they are translations of electrical signals within a console. Some complexity of sound can be produced by combining and manipulating the voices, but it was the limitation to the maximum complexity achievable that I perceived as the criteria behind this site's stance. So now, let's get into the philosophy: is the GameBoy an instrument? Or NES, or whatever--these consoles have been manipulated to have midi and audio output, which modern day synthesizers have. You can "play" a gameboy live. However, the modern synthesizer attempts to emulate and create complex sounds that either emulate what already exists acoustically, or what cannot exist acoustically. The gameboy doesn't attempt to do this because of the limitations of it's hardware. Sure, we could create something that could do this. But then, it's not a gameboy (or nes or whatever). Which leads to another question: Does this rule out Theramin remixes? The Theramin is even more limited than the gameboy because by itself, it's only capable of one voice. It is widely considered an isntrument--even a "classical instrument" (though an awfully elusive one). It's sound, too, is derived from internal electronic signals, just like the gameboy. Perhaps you could have an ensemble of theramins. That being said, you could also have an ensemble of gameboys. Would this change anything? The gameboy (and nes and other chiptune creating instruments) is still limited based on tradition. It has a nostalgic, individual character to it that people recognize and cling to. It was never intended to be an instrument--it was just the best that the original creators could come up with at the time to provide music for games. We have modified it so that it can be a performable instrument, but have not expanded the initial limitations at all. The steel drum has a very similar origin story, starting out as trash cans that people would bang on until they figured out they could make pitches. They modified their trash cans to have finite pitch, and another instrumental tradition was born. And going back to my original point, if we were to rule out chip tunes because it is technologically possible to do more than what it's capable of, why do we tolerate any instrumental genre based on a tradition? You know, this is a great discussion for the site and all, but I think we may have stumbled into a much deeper, further reaching conversation. Technology is evolving rapidly, and the rest of the world hasn't really caught up. In debating the acceptance policy of chiptunes, we've opened up an awesome can of worms: what constitutes an instrumental genre?

Could chiptunes be considered an "ensemble?" Like, the way multiple genres can exist within a standard set of instruments?

This is how I feel about OCR as well, even though perhaps we don't see eye to eye about the submission policy.

Yes! So here's what's up with this: I always have, and probably always will, viewed OCR as a website that favors production values more than arrangement values. Some (including zircon and dave) might disagree with that statement, but I really do. My all-percussion mix was placed under an arrangement limitation (in part derived from the source): one type of instrument. However, from a production standpoint, it wasn't too bad. The instruments were all live, which already provides a greater complexity of sound. As for my arrangement: I have to say, I really don't think it was brilliant. I tried to be smart about the source--stating it verbatim in the beginning and end (but with addition accompaniment), and then mixing and matching fragments of it to provide the foundation for a "solo section" in the middle. No brilliant transformation or transcendence happened from my treatment of the source material. As a composition, nothing groundbreaking. I think a good example of a website that places arrangement over production quality would be (despite not being video game related,) youngcomposers.com. Most of the time, you're submitting midi realizations of Finale and Sibelius scores, and are being evaluated purely on their compositional structure and content. I certainly wouldn't want to play any of those at a party (unless it was a nerdy composer party or something). So for that reason, it doesn't really surprise me that brilliant chiptunes get rejected from this site, for the same reason that brilliant midi realizations off Finale or brilliant recordings of live concerts using your iPhone camera wouldn't get accepted. An absolutely brilliant arrangement might help a low-quality product get accepted, but a high production level will almost guarantee a mediocre arrangement get passed given it adheres to the submission standards. I think that's fine--that's just what the site is about. I mean, it's much harder to be picky about super-subjective musical criteria pertaining to the quality/depth/construction of somebody's arrangement anyway--and quite frankly, I don't know if I would trust the judges to make those types of judgement calls. It's extremely subjective. So getting back to my remix, the reason those limitations worked were because while they placed limitations on the parameters of my arrangement, they did not limit the parameters of my production quality. While a chiptune, when written authentically, does limit the arrangement parameters, it consequently limits the production values drastically--thus severely limiting any chance of it being passed. ps zircon if you disagree with me please don't fire me

Spinoff website time: OverClocked Chiptune

Hmm... I see my name in your list, but I haven't found any of my stuff on their website... hopefully they wont add it after reading your email

Hey Pete, for now on, I'm gonna talk about our lesson material through OCR threads that we're both subscribed to. Great idea, right?

I normally either use youtube, or the game itself. I learn the source by ear! And then I find a midi and put a drum beat behind it and submit it

omg I had SOO much fun doing this

phonetic hero's brother? I did that too. No worries, he's cool

omg magfest

hey, any legit guitarists going to be around the thursday after mag?

Just purchased. Really neat concept--I might have to try it out sometime

mELODY NO I WANTED TO PLAY YOUR CHRONO TRIGGER REMIX WITH YOU WHAT THE HECK WHAT HAPPENED WE WERE GONNA PLAY IT IT WAS GONNA BE AWESOME COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't like this enough.

what?! EGORAPTOR?! mmnNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I see mewtwo, so I'm good!

yup, I agree--I like the revised versions of BOTH shirts better than the originals. Nice one, mokram.

yay! :333333

Yeah, if I had to pick one, I'd pick the university shirt. I think the logo fits better. The instruments one is a nice idea, but the design seems a bit too blocky for my taste... and I'm not really sure what body type it would look best on!