Motherboard

Listen to a rendered version of his set at his blog, and watch a clip above.

The annual three-day Blip Festival is the mecca for all things chiptune, the throwback musical legacy of the Commodore 64, the Game Boy and all the other beeping video game systems of yore. This year’s fest, held at the Bell House in Brooklyn in the frigid depths of December, was packed with chiptune artists and enthusiasts from across the globe—many underage, mostly boys, and all participating in giddy, geeky, outdated-videogame-console-generated audiovisual bliss. It wasn’t all button-pushing: there was plenty of dancing (a sort of happy, frenetic, two-armed first-pumping melee that somehow combined moshing, raving, and vogue-ing), to match the electro-beats, colorful, chaotic visuals, and scrawny, spasming performers. There was however little sign of the illegal substances that one might think accompanied the scene. Highs here come straight from computer chips.

(Full disclosure: While I saved up my money and bought my first videogame console, an SNES, in elementary school — Donkey Kong Country, Toy Story,Street Fighter, The Lion King, and Earthworm Jim were my jams — my younger brother soon took over the videogame reins, and now shakes his head in dismay when he watches me attempt to use two joysticks simultaneously, or to properly use the ASHPD in Portal. In other words, I only know what an emulator is because said brother showed me how to use one so I could play Tetris Attack on the computer once the SNES had been traded in.)

See our other Blip Festival coverage by chiptune artist and blogger Zen Albatross

At Blip, we talked to one of the highlights, chiptune artist Sebastian Tomczak, a 26-year-old Australia-based chip music artist and hardware developer, about the surprisingly old scene, the surprisingly young crowd, and the freaky process of getting hundreds of un-medicated people to gyrate to the sounds of Game Boys.

Motherboard: What turned you on to chip music?
Little-Scale: In 2005, I came across the work of Paul Slocum, who is part of the band Tree Wave, and who is also a new media artist and curator. Some of his work involved using an Atari 2600 as a musical instrument—that was the first time I’d seen someone write modern music for these obsolete video game consoles. It was a complete paradigm shift for me. Before I would have never thought about using video games for that kind of thing.

What kind of things were you interested in before?
A lot of my music has been based on the idea of taking something out of its original context and using it in a new one. So maybe that’s the direction that I’ve come from for this—re-contextualizing obsolete technology.

Can you explain what exactly it is that you do? Pretend I’m your mom.
At first, I bought a device called a MidiNES, which allows you to control the sound chip in a Nintendo using a computer. So in real time you’re sending data to the Nintendo, which then generates sound based on that data. From there it got me thinking—there are a few video consoles that I grew up with that aren’t really used to make music—Sega consoles, for example. I really wanted to be able to write music using these consoles, which then led me to start developing technology to be able to use them. I started building this sort of stuff in 2007, early 2008. I’m currently doing a PhD back home at a music school in Adelaide, but [my PhD] is based around hardware and software development, particularly with chip music.

What’s the difference between consoles?
Old video game consoles have got a very unique sound, and each console has its own unique sound because it’s got different hardware inside of it that generates the sound, as opposed to modern video games that can play anything.

So before, when game companies were still using these now-outdated sound chips—were they using the same equipment to create the sounds for their games that you’re now using to create new sounds for your music?
Probably not. A lot of the software and hardware that we use in this scene is made by the people in the scene, so it’s all homebrew technology. Back in the day when Nintendo was actually using these consoles as their main market share, they would have had their own in-house way of developing music that was different. Almost all of the software and hardware created to work on these obsolete consoles have been written in the present day.

Can you talk a little bit about the history of the scene?
It’s been around for about twenty-five years. It sort of grew out of the demo scene—people writing small, non-interactive programs that were made to show off some sort of technical aspect of an obsolete computers. These programs would often have a sound as well, and eventually people just started writing music for the obsolete computers.

I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about the limitations and restrictions inherent to chip music.
If you’re sitting there with a modern computer, you’ve got heaps of tracks and channels, and you can pretty much do whatever you want. There’s the idea that having limited resources will force you to work creatively within those limitations, like finding clever ways of getting new sounds out of a system that might not have been heard as much before, or working around limitations. For example, the Game Boy only has four channels, so you can only make four sounds at once. The challenge is how to write music that sounds really full and textually interesting with only those four channels

So then what’s the line between creating ways to work with limitations and just plain cheating?
I guess that depends on your perspective. I’m really into hardware, so in general I don’t use any emulators. So for example, I don’t use Chipsounds — although I do respect David’s work. He’s put so much passion and effort into his product.

Basically, he’s created a way to tap into all of the different hardware.
Yes. In a way, his endpoint for what he’s doing with sounds is the software equivalent of where I’m going with my hardware. It’s basically all about making different types of sounds available to different people.

So is this a major debate within the industry?
I wouldn’t say that. Maybe some people might find it controversial that some people use emulation as opposed to not or whatever, but I’d say they’re in the minority. The idea is that as long as it sounds good, do it. But then I guess the question is at what point is chip music no longer chip music? You could extend the idea and eventually it wouldn’t be chip music. I guess everyone’s got a different idea of what it is.

So, you develop hardware.
It’s hardware in the sense that it’s an interface between the computer and the console, but there’s also a software element to it.

What’s your background then? Is it in programming? Is it in music?
I grew up playing the cello. Then I went on to do a degree in music studies—music history, theory, methodology, and technology. I’ve had to teach myself the skills in electronics and interfacing and programming to do the other stuff. I don’t have a background in computer science.

It seems like you’ve caught on.
I’ve had to, to be able to do all this stuff

What are the skills and tools one would need to start playing chip music?
I guess these days, especially with software like Chipsounds, it’s very easy because all you really need is a computer that’s got music software on it already. The Game Boy software, LSDJ, is very popular. So let’s say you wanted to get into it but you weren’t really sure and you wanted to try it first—instead of going out and buying a Game Boy and a cartridge and stuff, you could just download the ROM of LSDJ and use it in an emulator.

Can you talk more specifically about your own music?
I write quite a bit of music. This year I’ve probably done about ten releases. One of the things that I’ve really been interested in is the idea of de-clichéing a console. So if you have a Sega or whatever, the idea is that it’s got a certain sound to it. How can we get away from that association with that sound? So what I’m writing doesn’t really sound like Sega music even though it’s made with a Sega. I’m also really interested in writing music under limitations. I’m planning a project next year where I’m going to write one song a day for the whole year, which will be an intense time, but it should be fun.

So what’s the culture like in terms of the hardware and software—is it an open source community? Do people license programs? What’s the revenue model?
Revenue model? There’s a revenue model?

Let me rephrase that. How does what you’re creating get in the hands of other people?
Sure, well, because what I’m creating is part of a post-graduate degree, and I’m still doing that degree, it’s not available to the public yet. Once I finish, it will be made available. There’s a lot of chip music technology that’s quite open, in a sense that either it’s free or people can add and modify the code or hardware. The approach that I’ll take is selling both finished units as well as kits, so that people can start their own if they feel comfortable. I’ll be releasing software as well, so if people want to modify and come up with their own variations they can. The chip community on the whole is definitely very open and friendly. Maybe there’s not much revenue, but there’s definitely a lot of exposure that you can get.

What’s the scene like in Australia? What brings you here?
Well this is an invite only festival so you can’t ask to play—they ask you. The scene in Australia is pretty small. There are maybe about twelve to twenty people that are active at this time. But we’re all very close to each other, so it’s not like we’re competitive. We’re very supportive of each other.

What’s the overlap with this industry with other industries—videogame, electronic, other music genres?
Well, let’s start off with the videogame industry—there’s been a rise in faux-retro videogames in the past few years, and so to go along with that, people from the chip scene have been writing a lot more videogame scores. I know that there are a few guys in Australia that write music for videogame companies as well. They just use their chip gear to do that. In terms of other music—to my ears, a lot of modern pop and hip hop music has got chip music in it, just here and there, maybe adding a flavor to it. That’s maybe where something like Chipsounds would come in handy, because it’s only like seventy-five bucks but you can quite quickly and easily get the sounds out of it that you want and incorporate those into other music.

How would you describe the chip music audience?
With something like Blip Festival, it’s really important for them to get an underage venue. In fact, it’s really interesting that there are a lot of younger kids getting into it, because maybe from an outsiders point of view, the outlook may be that people are just into it for nostalgic reasons. I grew up with those video games, but I don’t think I’m into it for nostalgia at all; I’m into it for the exploration of music and sound. And I think that young people are really interested in it as well is proof of that.

Is it mostly boys?
Sure. But the same could be said about a lot of music—rock music, and so on. I guess male-dominated music scenes are relatively common? I don’t know. But there are quite a few well-known female chip artists— Computher, Leeni. There’s Bubblyfish, who’s been really active in New York scene since chip music started.

Can you talk about the visual component?
At Blip Festival, every performer is paired up with a visualist. It definitely plays a huge role in the mood that’s set during the performance. For example, when I was playing last night, I was playing with Rosa Menkman from the Netherlands. Her interest is in the exploration of glitch artifacts and compression techniques, so she sort of draws out glitches and compression artifacts and does creative things with them. It really suits the music nicely, because in a way, a lot of chip music relies on inaccuracies in the hardware or artifacts that are created by the hardware that you can make music with.

Did you collaborate with Rosa beforehand?
I sent her my set beforehand, because I wanted there to be a strong link between the visuals and the music. She was really happy that I sent that to her. I think she saw that as a sign of respect, because there have been other cases where a performer may only give her five keywords, and then she has to sort of improvise on the night. So it really depends.

Tell me a little about what it’s like to perform.
It’s not like a rock band where you can see each person playing each note, so it’s much less live in that sense. On a Game Boy, you might have everything pre-written, and then what you’re controlling is the structure of the music. Or you might be controlling the effects in real time. So it’s sort of a macro performance in some way. I guess one big part of it, which I get the sense of playing live here at Blip Festival, is to get the audience excited. To be dancing or moving on stage is really important.