WEBVTT - What are chiptunes? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.680 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.480 welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pellette and 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.800 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.639 Sitting across from me is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. The 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.360 rhythm is going to get you, you know when you 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.880 say it like that, as as white as I possibly can. Yes, okay, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.400 I may I may be without the soul for getting down. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.320 And you know what that means that Jeremiah was a 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.320 bullfrog um, a good friend of mine. So we want 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.320 to talk a little bit about music. We we actually 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.280 did a podcast not re recorded it a while ago, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.400 but it hasn't published as the time of the recording 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.560 of this about music in video games. But it turns 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.680 out that the video games and music, it goes beyond 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.480 just the stuff that you find in games. As it 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.720 turns out, people have used the same sort of equipment 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.680 that was originally intended to allow music to play in 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.400 video games to create new music. Yeah, it's it's funny 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.040 because if you think about it, we as we were developing, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:24.319 we as in like people were developing video games, we 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.679 wanted musical inspiration. One of the things we talked about 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:33.039 in that episode was musical environments, creating the right mood 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.320 with music and sound effects to make the game more 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.520 uh enriching, and it makes it more of a rewarding 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.880 experience to play much more immersive that way, right, That's 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:45.480 the word I was looking for, but I was trying 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:50.120 to cover. Thank you for saving me. Um. The thing is, though, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.240 and you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily think about this, especially 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.320 if you didn't grow up with with the older video 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:01.560 game style that too bit, four bit, eight bit, a dollar. Um. 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:03.880 You you might be as a haircut in there somewhere. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.360 It's funny because you might you might think, well, you know, 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.080 that was so cruddy. I mean that the music wasn't 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.120 very high quality, and you know who cares. But as 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.799 it turns out, people developed sort of an affection for 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.320 that kind of a sound. Yeah, you can never disqualify nostalgia. 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:27.320 The nostalgia factor conquers all. And then you have hackers. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.560 And we're not talking about the associated press definition of hackers, 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.359 people who like to bust into computers to do damage. Um, 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.079 we're talking about the classic sense of the word hacker, 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.119 people who like to learn how things work and then 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.160 play with them. Yeah, take it apart, see what it does, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.519 put it back together in a different form, and see 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.880 if you can break it and fix it again. Yeah, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.120 there's been some really cool hacks when that comes to this. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.200 So let's kind of boil down what we're focusing on today. Now, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.440 if we were just talking about music and the music 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.600 you can create through video games, that would be in 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.639 a north miss topic. And even even so we are. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.880 The topic we've chosen to focus on is still a 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.880 pretty big one, and it's called chip tunes. Yeah, this 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.760 is this is the merger of hacking and the love 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.000 for the eight bit sound. Right, So we're talking about 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.440 the kinds of sounds you would get from classic video 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.800 game systems and computer systems, things like the Atari, the 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:25.760 original in nes, UH, the Commodore sixty four, and even 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.839 some of the older like ib M s and things 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.400 of that nature. We're talking about systems that had a 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:38.200 dedicated processor that was meant to generate sound, a dedicated 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.400 chip and uh, the chip was able to create a 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.600 certain range of frequencies and a certain range of tones, 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.480 and that was it. It wasn't like a true synthesizer, right, 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:54.800 It couldn't. It couldn't recreate the sound of, say, a violin. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.200 It could just create kind of a a weird sort 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:03.240 of simulation of a violin that no person who had 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.720 at least at least decent hearing would ever mistake for 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.320 a violin. But you could, you know, you could evoked 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.760 the same sort of feeling, right right, Um, yeah, it's 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.000 it's uh. I also wanted to clarify too, before we 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:19.560 go too much for the one I said eight bit 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.480 a minute ago that that seems to be uh the 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.200 slang term now for old video game Uh. So, don't 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.000 take that literally because some of the things we're gonna 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.760 be talking about, our our even more rudimentary than eight 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:38.279 bit uh sounds. In our History of Video Game Music podcast, 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.920 we talked about how on the earliest systems, the chip, 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.000 a lot of the system sounds on games like the 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.440 the early Palm consoles and the Atari, those were hardwired 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.480 into that, so programmers had to take advantage of whatever 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.120 was available to them on that chip. They didn't have 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.000 a lot of flexibility in that regard, and it wasn't 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.360 until several years into the video game home video game 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.040 craze that UH developers were able to create their own 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.320 sounds and put it embedded in the software and the 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.360 machine would play it back. That way, it would give 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.040 them more ability in that regard. So a lot of 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.839 people who make chip tunes are are taking apart consoles 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.279 like UH Jonathan mentioned and the the game Boy too 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.400 because they're portable. Um And the first person I ever 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.120 heard about I wrote a blog post about it a 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.720 while ago, was a guy named pixel Hate. He's a 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.800 probably or easily one of the most famous chip tune makers. UM. 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.280 He actually I've actually seen him busting. There's a video 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.600 of him on YouTube. His name's Matthew Applegate. He's lives 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.680 in the United Kingdom and UH, I actually seen him 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.880 with a modified UH game Boy out with a namp 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.880 on the corner, and there's a video of him playing. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.200 And it looks like he's standing there playing a video game, 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.840 because that's he's essentially taking it apart and doing this, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.160 but he's ah, it looks like he's just standing there 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.160 playing a video game, but he's actually playing music on 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.800 the device. Now, the question is, how do you make 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.800 that happen. Well. Part of the challenges that you actually 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:18.280 have to create software that will allow you to sequence music, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.800 loop music to create those different uh frequencies that the 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.039 device is capable of. Now you gotta remember that you 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.400 are you are confined to the the sounds of that 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.760 chip is capable of creating, right, It's not like you 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.479 can create any sound. Um. But there are quite a 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:40.480 few of these programs specifically for the game Boy. Um 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.760 let's see. I know that pixel Hate actually had come 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.680 out with some of those himself and has since retracted them. 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.320 It does not offer them anymore. Um, there's one because 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.040 he he said that he thinks it's um it wasn't 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.400 right for him to do that anymore, so he's not 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.520 making that available. But uh, yeah, he he was one 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.360 of a number of people who. Um, it requires some 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.279 some hardware modification because you have to you have to 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.960 wire the buttons up to take advantage of the sound 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.640 chip to some degree. And it depends, I think on 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:17.080 the console if if I've read correctly. Um, but yes, 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.040 it does require some some software engineering as well in 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.680 order to make it work. Yeah, there's uh there was 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.000 one cartridge specifically for the game Boy that would let 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.160 you do a lot of this, which you know, that 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.560 was great because the cartridge did the work for you. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.520 Um and it was called Little Sound DJ or l 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.800 S D j UH and again it had a sequencer 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.360 built into it. It could produce the different four bit 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.880 sounds that the game Boy could create. UM and it 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.480 had four channels for that, So you could create four 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.000 channels of music with this thing. And you could actually 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.280 create music live just like Chris was talking about. You 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.360 could using using the control pad and the elect and 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.560 start buttons and the A and B buttons, you could 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.680 create loops and insert different sounds and actually sort of 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:12.640 be a in this case, a four bit dj UM. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.000 And that's pretty cool, that's uh, you know. And and 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.680 that's actually taking direct advantage of the the chip in 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.560 the game Boy. It's taking advantage of that chip's capabilities. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.720 As it turns out, not all chip tunes makers are 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.119 using actual chips. But let's I want to talk about 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.840 one other chip that was really important as far as 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:33.679 chip tunes are concerned. It was one of those that 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.280 kind of inspired a lot of the early music makers 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.240 in in computer music and uh, and that was the 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.920 MS technology S I D Sound Interface device, which was 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.080 for the Common or sixty four. And this was one 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.559 of those devices that, like I said, was really instrumental. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.640 If you will, it's a little bit of a fun uh. 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:03.160 And in launching this US craze about the eight bit music. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.400 Another interesting thing just off off is kind of a 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.120 tangent is that you know you mentioned that, uh is 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.480 it pixel hates that? What you said? Yeah, pixel hate that. 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.480 He was from the UK. I've noticed that a lot 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:20.679 of the musicians who use the chip tunes method are 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.760 from Europe, or if if you're from the UK and 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.280 you don't like being lumped in with the Europeans from 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.400 the UK or from Europe. Ah, it's interesting. It was 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.880 just interesting to me because I also saw a guy 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.439 who had created a chip tunes synthesizer. He had converted 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.800 an old oregan uh into a chip tunes player. He 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.800 called it the chip a phone. What kind of organ 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.840 was this? Um? It was this old like electronic organ, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.760 like not not like a bellows organ or anything like that, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.160 but yeah, it's like an electric organ. And he had 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.160 converted it so that the various switches that would usually 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.880 change the tone actually would do the different waves because 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.600 chip tunes could play sound waves in various formations. You 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.840 have like triangle waves, saw tooth waves, pulse waves, and 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.199 each of these waves have have sort of a distinctive 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.440 sound to them, right, So you know, you think of 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.360 the think of the different video games songs from the 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.000 classic era, things like Legend of Zelda or Super Mario 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.960 Brothers and the various bleeps, bloops and ants, and you 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.960 know that those are all coming from the different shapes 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.960 of sound waves. And uh and actually the fellow who 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:40.520 made the chip a phone uh lenis Akisson probably totally 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.600 mispronounced his name. Um. He has a website where he 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.760 talks about exactly what he did to create it, in 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.040 including like the wiring that he did in order to 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:54.000 make uh this this um this organ that would let 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.920 him play chip tunes live. Because usually with chip tunes, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.400 what you're doing is you're either pro gramming something directly 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.840 and so that it will play automatically on a chip. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.360 So you know, you're not live, you're not performing it live. 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:14.679 You you you actually program it, or you're doing a 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.920 program with an emulator. And we'll talk about the emulators 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.240 in a little bit, But that that Commodore sixty four chip, 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.720 like I said, was a big um, a big inspiration 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.880 for a lot of different musicians, not just musicians, but 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:33.360 also engineers who are working on similar chips because the uh, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.160 the Commodore sixty four chip was the project started back 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:43.959 in one and can you guess where it premiered. It 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:45.560 was let me let me put it to you this way, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:53.880 biggest consumer electronics conference in the world CS two c 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.199 E S the Commodore sixty four Music Sound Interface Device 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.840 chip premiered. The engineer who designed the chip was Robert 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.280 Bob Yannis, and uh he actually later went on to 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.800 be a founder of a synthesizer company, so that makes sense. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.480 But his original plan was actually much more grand than 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.080 what came out, and part of the reason was just 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.360 that it was a time crunch. But the originally this 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.840 chip was supposed to have thirty two independent voices, which 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.520 is yeah, yeah, and you know, it just it was 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.960 it was too ambitious a plan, and it turned out 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.480 that that was just not gonna happen. He claims that 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:44.480 about seventy of the things he had planned to incorporate 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.079 in the chip made it into production, which I mean, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:49.920 when you think about how ambitious it was, I guess 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.240 that's not too bad, but uh, yeah it was. It 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.480 was this this sort of interesting mix of noises and 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.319 music that really got a lot of people interested. Um. 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.520 And a lot of that stuff did carry over into 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.520 the various chips that you found in other devices, not 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.600 not all you know, the Commverse six before had that one. Uh. 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.040 The other devices like the Atari had a chip that 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.800 they called Pokey. I remember Pokey. Yeah. Actually was going 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:20.840 to mention that in the history podcast, and it looked 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:22.600 like we were going to take a long time, so 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.080 I just skipped over Pokey. Yeah. We we actually lived 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.080 through most that history, which is why we were ready 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.319 to talk about it at length. Uh. The Nintendo Entertainment 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:35.040 Systems chip is the RICO to a O three, which 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.560 is you know, just rolls off the tongue. Uh. And 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.720 then you had other chips made by Yamaha and other 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.360 companies that um that were found in other devices like 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:49.360 IBM s and the Sega Genesis things like that. So 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.960 the the people who make chip tunes either have found 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:59.640 ways to to create software to write music and then 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:04.320 play them using these chips, or they found ways to 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.320 emulate the sounds generated by these chips in software format 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.920 and then they write the music for that. So, um, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.440 you've probably heard us talk about emulators before. In case 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.560 you haven't and you're not familiar with the term, an 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:24.120 emulator is some sort of hardware or software that recreates 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:29.600 or emulates the effects of another kind of software or hardware. 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.680 You hear about it a lot with video games because 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:37.200 the old arcade games all had dedicated chips that were 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.520 specifically designed to allow those video games to play. So 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.360 everything from the graphics to the sound, all of that 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:47.840 had dedicated hardware. So in order for you to play 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.560 the arcade game on a computer, you have to create 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.720 software that can sort of fool the the the program 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.120 into thinking that your computer is that hardware. It has 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.360 to recreate that. And that's why if you've ever played 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.160 an emulated video game on a computer, sometimes depending on 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.720 how good the emulator is or how appropriate it is 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.760 for the RAM that you're playing, the RAM is essentially 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:17.200 the game, the game may end up being very sluggish. 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:18.880 I remember I had a friend of mine who had 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.520 emulator that played most games really well, but there were 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:25.760 a couple of titles that if you were to try it, 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:30.040 it felt like the game was running on a quarter speed, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.640 which made the game incredibly frustrating to play because you 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.680 pressed jump and then you'd have to leave the room, 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.440 get a sandwich, drink a drake, come back, and then 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.000 you see that your guys finally off the ground. Um. 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.520 So yeah, emulators come with their own set of problems. 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.600 Not you know, not all emulators are created equal, but 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.440 that's your basic set of tools if you want to 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:55.240 be a chip tunes musician. Right. Yeah, it's funny because 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.680 I wanted to make the distinction earlier and then just 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.800 completely forgot to get into it. Um. The difference in 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:06.680 chip tunes is uh and and another technology. UM. Chip 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.360 tunes is generally the programming side of it, when you're 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.840 programming an old machine to make music, whereas circuit bending. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.200 Have you hearn that term circuit bending is actually is 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.400 actually creating short circuits in an electronic device in order 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.240 to have it make music. Um. And there are believe 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.560 it or not, festivals dedicated to both of these. So 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.320 circuit bending would that be like the kind of stuff 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.440 that people would do where they make hard drive spin 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.680 at certain speeds in order to generate music. I I 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:42.120 that's my understanding of postics. Um and and actually one 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.800 of the projects. When I first found out about Matthew 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.520 Applegates work. UM, the very first thing that I saw 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.360 called chip tunes wasn't actually by that by the definitions 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.840 I just mentioned a chip tune. UM. His album Obsolete 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.160 was a recording of devices. Is that. Uh. He had 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.359 to work with the National muse Museum of Computing in 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:11.000 the UK to get access to Do you remember this? 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.479 This is this is new to me, okay. Uh. They 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.880 gave him access to the machines at Bletchley Park. Yeah. 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.520 Bletchley Park for those of you who are not familiar. UH, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.359 is a computing center in the United Kingdom. It was 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.840 instrumental in again no fun intended in um helping break 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.080 the German code system that they were using in World 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.879 War Two. Um. This goes back to h r UM 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.399 podcast on Alan Touring. He's one of the people that 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.879 worked at Bletchley Park. UM. And now it is the 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.960 side of the National Computing Museum. Uh. And they gave 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.280 him access to some of the computing equipment that they 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:50.840 had there, and of course he had to promise he 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:55.040 wasn't going to break it, because creating chip tunes sometimes 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.800 involves hacking to the point where stuff just doesn't work anymore. 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.080 So he had to promise he was just going to 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.760 uh to record it. And what he recorded he was 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.639 able to manipulate with uh you know, sound editing software 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.520 and basically used the electric relays, not you know, the 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.879 the uh little electric switches that they used for computing. 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.000 And uh it's very staccato and percussive. But that's the 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.359 very first chip tune I ever heard. Really, I guess 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:30.280 technically wasn't a chip tune, yes, but yeah, using the 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.639 mechanical devices or you know, I guess you could call 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.720 him electro mechanical because they are electronics, but they are 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.679 also mechanical like a hard drive. UM, so yeah, you 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.919 have you have the difference there. Um. But the festivals 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.800 I was mentioning earlier, let's see, Uh there is um 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.080 the Blip Festival, which is a chip tune festival, and 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.800 uh there there is a series in New York called 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:04.000 Pulse Wave UM that is dedicated to this um. And 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.520 the Bent Festival is for circuit benders um, people who 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:13.560 use things like the speak and spell nice to create music. Well, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.600 and it just shows that that these little simple bleeps 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.359 and bloops can really inspire people to do some pretty 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.520 cool stuff. And I mean like, for example, uh, you 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:28.600 know I talked about video games live the orchestra uh 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.040 presentation of video game music. What's funny to me is 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.159 that now you've come to the point where you have 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.600 full orchestras, yes, playing and in some cases emulating in 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.120 the sense that they're trying to get these very sophisticated 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.440 instruments to sound like the bleeps and bloops that came 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.600 from the old video games. You've gone full circle because 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.960 the video game bleeps and bloops were meant to kind 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.639 of get us close to what we consider your classic music. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.760 You want them to sound like violins and and and trumpets, 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.080 and now they're using trumpets to sound like leaps and bloops. 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.800 It's a madness. Well, um, if you want to join in, 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.440 there is a chip Tune Marching band. And if you 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.320 go to the chip Tune Marching Band website um, which 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.360 I thoughtfully didn't include the address to in my notes. Um, 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:22.919 I can look it up in a second, or you 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.080 can if you want to. They will give you instructions 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.360 their instructions online and what you need to to create 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.440 your own chip tune instruments so that you can participate. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.280 That website is chip Tune Marching Band dot com. I 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.760 didn't know if it was something more difficult than that 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.280 I could know, but that that there you what is 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:42.919 up with me and my notes that I wasn't very 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.080 good today? I don't know. I'm I'm guessing it's because 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:50.080 you're using an um a tablet computer, which you know, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:54.439 I'm using a computer computer. And okay, enough of my 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.080 anti tablet bias. That's okay, the keyboard on your computer 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.119 computer doesn't work, This is true. But yes, the the 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.880 chip tune Marching Man, and I've also seen I've also 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:07.880 seen on YouTube. If you go to YouTube, there are 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.080 of course dozens and dozens of chip tunes videos, and 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.280 some of the videos like they include the videos of 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:15.840 the guy with the chip a phone where you can 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.440 watch him play on this this Oregon. You can watch 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.280 him play live all the tunes that came from old 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.040 video games, and he can get really close to the 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.520 sound of those tunes, like to the point where, uh, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.399 you know, if you close your eyes you can almost 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.000 imagine that this is the video game. Um, it's not 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.280 quite the same, because, of course, when you program a 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.360 song for a computer, it's always gonna play it at 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:43.800 that speed, you know, the tempo and everything. None of 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:45.920 that's gonna change there. It's never gonna make a mistake, 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.919 right Whereas we're humans and we occasionally do like you 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.080 hit a wrong note or you lose the tempo a 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.920 little bit, specially if you're a drummer, and uh say, 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.280 I almost never hit a wrong note, right, you just 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.760 hit the wrong beat. But yeah, the the you can 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:04.560 watch that. And there's also I saw a guy who 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.399 had what he called the chip tunes. He called it 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.000 a chip tune guitar or an eight big guitar, and 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:11.760 maybe he called an eight big guitar. Yeah. It was 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.160 actually a really cool project. He had designed it for 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:16.840 a college project or high school project. I think it 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.119 was college, but it was. It looked like a guitar body, 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.280 but instead of strings, it had six arcade buttons on it, 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:30.560 and then the fret had actually strips of of of 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.000 capacit type material so that it could detect when he 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.720 was touching it, and by pressing a button he would 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.400 generate a certain tone, and then by moving his hand 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.800 up and down the fret, it would actually change the 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.040 pitch and he could play it like a guitar, and 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.360 he could create loops. He would play a certain series 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:51.639 of notes that would become a loop, and then he 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.439 could switch to a different button and play other notes 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:59.240 and mix a song live using this guitar like device 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:03.760 that used of the chip tunes mentality, it seems to 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:05.919 me that it would be pretty easy to uh. And 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:08.160 I'm sure someone has done it. I just hadn't thought 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.800 of thought to look it up before you just said that. Um, 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.560 you know, to use the guitar hero style controllers. You know, 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.960 with some of those the buttons already wired up, you 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:21.800 probably wouldn't require a whole lot of modification to make 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.040 an instrument like that. And I you know, we could 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.200 look it up now, but it's kind of late. But yeah, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.840 you know, it's already wired to some degree and has 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:35.159 the switches in place so that it wouldn't require too 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:37.840 much change. And you can think of chip tunes also 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:41.720 being sort of the predecessor for um, for true synthesizers, 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.400 you know, uh synthesizers and are a little more sophisticated 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.879 than the old chip tunes chips. But uh, and of 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.320