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Post by Aaron Campion on Jul 12, 2008 11:04:29 GMT -5
This is a common question among many and a complaint from CrunchyCo staff members. I felt I should touch on the subject and hopefully shine some light on all of you confused souls.  First of all, doesnt it look like CrunchyCo is a web-comic only site? I mean, pretty soon theres going to be 4 more web comics and still no comic series's!!! Does anyone know why? It's because web-comics take very little time to produce, commonly take less materials to create, and are just all around easier to do! Full comics take a lot of planning, time, and lots of money to print. It may be years before CrunchyCo ever has any comics!! With that said, you can also understand how easy it is to produce Chiptune, or any other electronic music for that matter. Once you have finished your gameboy tune, you plug it into the back of your computer and its really not going to sound much better than that! Also, you are usually a solo artist, and really can work anytime on music on your own schedule. Now, actual bands not only have to work together to figure out some kind of jam schedule, they have to slowly jam together, work together, and spend long amounts of time each inputting ideas until finally they have a song. Then, it takes months practicing, getting a tight set, then lots of money and hard work recording at an expensive studio to get a good sound, then sending that off to get it professionally mastered. Not only that, but a band that is actually good will have very little interest being on crunchyco, because most genres have extremely competitive real record labels to choose from that will pay for them to go on tour, pay for production of their merchandise, get their cd into stores and so on. Chiptune music has gained much popularity and recognition in the online community, but none in the mainstream media, thus not very many real record labels. Chiptune really thrives on web labels and for the most part, the type of music is mainly free most places. But what really sets Chiptune apart from most genres and why there are so many great artists out there is because programs like LSDJ are really limited. Now, being limited is great because you are forced to push yourself, and in LSJD's case, forced to fill every second with something interesting because you only get to have 4 sounds at any one time! Limitations really bring out the best in a musician, and you can hear it in the Chiptune music that these artists are pushing their hardware to its very limits. Its like if you removed all of the strings off of a guitar, you'd have to be a little more creative to get something good sounding, dont you think? And really push that one string to its very limits!!! With all of this being said, we at crunchyco would really like other types of music, but i just think it may take years to have more great sounding non-chiptune bands!  |
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 13, 2008 2:53:17 GMT -5
Aaron's right that it will probably take a very long time to expand other genres to the same level as our current chiptune line-up. It definitely does take a lot more work to get other types of music recorded with enough quality to gain significant recognition. I don't believe I've ever complained about the direction CrunchyCo is going with these chiptune artists, I've just always emphasized that we are open to all types of music. The chiptune thing is hot right now, and hopefully other genres will get just as hot eventually, but like Aaron said, it will take time just like it will take time for me to make some real printed comics. Better get workin' on that.
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seth
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Post by seth on Jul 13, 2008 7:27:49 GMT -5
my two cents:
i like chiptune, but it gets old and boring really fast. obviously creative minds (fighter x!) can create better music, but bleeps and boops only express a small range of artistic ability. personally, i'm getting pretty sick of the LSDJ fad (yeah, it's a fad; the program's been around for years and it's only now blowing up!). i like texture and range in my music. for what it's worth, my favorite artists on crunchy are KGHB, smugg and circles--and older fighter x-- none of which are chip-centric. you don't need have a full band to record a song with 'real' instruments. i've done it plenty of times and i'm pleased with the amount of control i get and the feeling of a full band when i'm the only one playing.
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Post by Aaron Campion on Jul 13, 2008 12:22:38 GMT -5
since chiptune is not a genre, and is merely a medium that music can be created on, it really allows endless amounts of types of music. That being said, i find it hard to describe chiptune as "boring". LSDJ has been around for awhile, but you are just hearing about it and noticing it everywhere, so i can see how you would think it was a fad. I think you would have more appreciation if you yourself used LSDJ, and if you continued to use it and really mastered the hardware and learned every trick, you would actually be able to hear the difference between someone who knows what their doing with it, and someone who sucks. You are really missing the beauty of chiptune; the limitations pushing the musician to their fullest and bringing out the best in them! The lack of vocals that forces you to somehow create emotion with a 4bit pulse wave!
As far as the showcase CrunchyCo artists, if you just do not personally enjoy LSDJ, most of these artists have much more than that to offer you; Fighter X and Sabrepulse mainly have older chipbreak and non-chiptune music, Leeni has solo acoustic songs and the rest of her stuff is nanoloop, Firebrand Boy uses guitar, vocals, a commodore 64, and many other things, McFiredrill has new milkytracker stuff, and of course KGHB has hardly any LSDJ at all!
You recording all of your stuff yourself is fine, but my main point is that if someone plugs LSDJ into their computer and records a song, it isnt going to ever sound much better than that! ITS VERY SIMPLE! You on the other hand, who are recording the instruments yourself, i ask you this; are the recordings really the best they ever could possibly get? You are really that good? Its easy to record a full band and have a shitty recording (listen to the smugg album), but in comparison to the Chiptune artists, its going to take a lot more money, time, and serious professional help to get the best recordings you are ever going to get.
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 13, 2008 14:11:48 GMT -5
Some of the best and most interesting music in my opinion is the stuff that incorporates a variety of instruments with 4bit chip sounds. I definitely see where Seth is coming from, as 4 track chip music alone does not exactly create the most dynamic and full sounding music. I also do see where Aaron's coming from when he mentions the fact that it is much more difficult to get a quality recording of real instruments, which is why electronic stuff almost always has better quality (unless you're a real recording pro). Some of my favorite stuff on CrunchyCo is the stuff that gives a balanced mix of the two sides, i.e. chip music incorporating stuff like vocals or guitar work. Any genre of music can become repetitive and boring if it is done repeatedly in the same way. Other genres have had a much longer time period in which to become bland than chip music has. It's fresh appeal is part of its intrigue. At the same time, it is absolutely important to incorporate a variety of sounds to keep it interesting.
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seth
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Post by seth on Jul 13, 2008 15:42:44 GMT -5
LSDJ has been around for awhile, but you are just hearing about it and noticing it everywhere, so i can see how you would think it was a fad. um, yeah that's basically what i just said... but that's kind of what a fad is. we'll see if it stays popular, and for the developer's sake i hope it does, but it's only recently blown up. I think you would have more appreciation if you yourself used LSDJ, and if you continued to use it and really mastered the hardware and learned every trick, you would actually be able to hear the difference between someone who knows what their doing with it, and someone who sucks. You are really missing the beauty of chiptune; the limitations pushing the musician to their fullest and bringing out the best in them! The lack of vocals that forces you to somehow create emotion with a 4bit pulse wave! this is the second time you've used the "if you don't know the medium inside and out, you don't count" argument, and it has nothing to do with it. i do know how to use trackers (LGPT/piggy specifically), and they are fun to play with but not something i'd really want to learn in and out. as far as my opinion on the genre, i like a lot of music. i listen to a lot of music. i don't usually generalize whole genres, but most chiptune does not appeal to me. technical proficiency is not the most important part of music; otherwise we would only be listening to metal and classical. as far as the rest of it goes (getting tired of quoting), no, i'm not the best musician, nor do i claim to be. i don't have the very best gear, nor do i claim to. if i get an idea, i can record it and then once i have the means to, i can record it better or have someone do it for me. just because lsdj is widely available, does that mean we should level the playing field for other music too? should we replace all the stratocasters with first act knockoffs? the DW kits with CBs? just because something isn't played perfectly or recorded perfectly does not mean it's not as "good". compare no age with sum-41, or cannibal ox with lil jon. |
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 13, 2008 16:32:51 GMT -5
Some stuff that is crappily recorded actually sounds really cool. haha
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beb
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Post by beb on Jul 13, 2008 16:38:58 GMT -5
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 13, 2008 16:49:06 GMT -5
are you saying Desaparecidos is crappily recorded? i think a better example would be like Commander Venus, which doesn't have the best recording quality but it is amazing.
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Post by mcfiredrill on Jul 13, 2008 22:36:12 GMT -5
 I really hate chiptunes they are fucking annoying with their fuckin square wave blurbly arppegios and shit. CrunchyCo should kick off all the chiptunes artists immediately and make them eat all their super mario bros NES cartridges and chop up their gameboys and pour solder all over them and eat it like a bowl of cereal YUMMY!
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 13, 2008 22:52:51 GMT -5
I really hate chiptunes they are fucking annoying with their fuckin square wave blurbly arppegios and shit. CrunchyCo should kick off all the chiptunes artists immediately and make them eat all their super mario bros NES cartridges and chop up their gameboys and pour solder all over them and eat it like a bowl of cereal YUMMY! Haha! I wonder, if a chiptune artist eats their gameboy, will they shit chiptunes? |
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Post by Aaron Campion on Jul 14, 2008 2:03:17 GMT -5
hhahahahah god damnit
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Post by Webmaster Gabe on Jul 14, 2008 3:09:18 GMT -5
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Post by Aaron Campion on Jul 14, 2008 11:02:57 GMT -5
yes, at least that guy knows chiptune is not a genre! seth please just think before you continue to post in this thread! do you even know what chiptune music is? it is simply any music that is made using a video game console sound chip, which leads to an endless amount of various types of music, which is why i find it very confusing how you can so easily label chiptune as boring! Check out tugboat profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=2229784 the track "remix medley" is a hiphop song. his track "my darling" is like a 50s style love song or something, and the track "shes a doll" sounds almost like a Muse song! If you want some metal sounding chiptune check out VIRT. If you want more of a "rock band" style, theres tons of that, check out anamanaguchi! if you want a folk chiptune artist, check out Bud Melvin. If you want some 80s sounding stuff, check out Covox, and for some Electro House stuff, check out Trash80 (for the record, some of these artists may just be using plugins) You saying chiptune is boring is like me saying "yeah, i dont really care for the sound of guitars, i think any band/artist who uses them are boring". And another thing, yes i do think you would have more appreciation for chiptune if you knew more about it, just like you wouldn't make statements like "The drummer from Blink 182 is boring" if you knew more about the drums! |
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seth
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Post by seth on Jul 14, 2008 15:59:49 GMT -5
i'm using chiptune like the majority of people use the terms 'electronica', 'dance', even 'rock'. it's a pretty specific sound using a set of building blocks (in this case a low-power sound processor), and regardless of whether or not it's chip-hop, dance-y or whatever, it's still chiptune. my use of the word genre has nothing to do with my argument. there are a lot of people who don't like guitars, either. that doesn't really help your argument. there are bands that incorporate guitars into their sound, and then there are people like yngwie malmsteen that sound awful because they take the spotlight away from the band as a whole and overdo it. chiptunes aren't bad but what i'm saying is that chip-only music gets really boring after a while. i didn't say anything about incorporating lo-fi electronic elements into other music. as for the rest of it, i've been drumming my entire life. i'm self taught, as was my dad who gave me my first drumset. drums run in my family. i'd like to at least HOPE that i know what i like when it comes to the instrument i know best. i just don't like attention-whore whiny boring drummers. if you want a feel for what i consider to be good drumming, listen to something with max roach, pig destroyer, tokyo police club, flaming lips (anything with steven drozd up until yoshimi), and cicadas ( www.myspace.com/cicadas ). your attacking MY 'knowledge' or ability to appreciate music is childish. quit grabbing for straws; i'm not telling you that your taste is invalid. quit telling me mine is. |
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