[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
chiptunes music
Backseat Driver ©2009 Leif Chappelle
Another week, another chiptune! Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m officially one week off due to a bombastic weekend that involved much less time holed in my studio and more spent outside in the gorgeous weather. Not complaining, though! Anyways… With this ‘tune’s creation in mind, I do have another 8-bit ramble in me.
When writing chiptunes today, we often forget exactly what those hardware limitations were back when the games were actually being created. Yes, we have a whopping four tracks available to write in… But, there’s also those pesky things called sound effects to worry about. Not only does the music need to fit in there, so does everything else audible!
You’ve probably noticed at times, playing an NES game, and certain parts of the music cut out. There’s precisely the reason. Wonder why racing games never had in-race music? Likely both Square channels were being used for engine sounds: yourself, and others passing by. Most commonly used for sound effects was the Noise channel, since it creates assortments of white noise that can be shaped by filters into something vaguely recognizable: sword slashes, things hitting the ground, etc. Because of this, though, compositions had to be even more limited. Or, at the very least, compensate for the potential interruption.
The Noise channel also produces one of the most potent sources of percussion for a track. The problem being, if sound effects are getting mapped to it, what you end up with is a very spotty beat that keeps getting interrupted by player actions. As a result, not many tracks used percussion very often. It was saved for special moments that perhaps didn’t require very many noise-generated effects. Games like the Mega Man series however, used the tonal channels for pretty much all of their sound effects, allowing for full percussion and much more rhythmic tracks.
Thankfully, for those just interested in the pure creation of music using those limitations, all four tracks can be used to the furthest extent of their possibilities. In the track above, I used a variety of techniques—most just found by tinkering around—to create what could be construed as as drum kit, breathing, and wonky electrical chaos. The other trick, of course, is creating all of this with a single line of notes without any overlapping bits. Counter-rhythms and the like need to be built around the concept of taking turns playing, which leads to an interesting puzzle of creating the illusion of multiple percussion elements playing together.
It’s a puzzle I’m still working out, but I’m decently amused by what came out of this track. Enjoy!
