This is the same venue (or chain) where we saw Toys of Vega. It’s great to see such great local support for the chip scene! If only all communities were so supportive.

Enjoy some bouncy happy chiptune vibes from Bit Shifter care of The Engadget Show

8bit visuals provided by Paris & outpt

Great live LSDJ skills!

She - Orion

Here’s a confusing sentence : She has announced completion of his new album.

For those not in the know “She” is the name of the musical project from Lain Trzaska.  His previous productions have been a spellbinding compositions of 8bit and synth electronica usually following a musical theme centered around the character “She”.   Lain recently released the album Coloris on japanese label PonyCanyon (yet to be reviwed on this site) to much acclaim, a great bit of publicity for Bitpop!

She’s next album proves to be in the similar vein. A microsite has been set up which has some “clues” as to the musical story which will unfold. It appers to centre around the female character “Sarah“.  A different heroine from the previous albums who is an AI.  Although, this is something I suspected of previous She character after hearing the Digital Ambient Designs album, so perhaps there is a link somewhere.

Orion will be released in September and will be available on CD and Digital via PonyCanon.

New Release : Electric High EP

There’s a new EP on the horizon from bitpop star 8 bit Weapon.  “Electric High EP” is a six track chiptune extravaganza, described as a “full throttle electronic thrill-ride”.

Not to be outdone by other mutiplatform artists, 8BW has used sounds and FX from a pleathora of classic 8bit computers and consoles including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Nintendo Gameboy, Nintendo Entertainment System(NES).

See here for more details www.8bitweapon.com/store.htm

Electric High

Chiptune Odyssey

We’ve received some news from chiptune gurus Seth and Michelle aka 8 Bit Weapon. Working in conjunction with Sony Creative Software, he has released a new loop and sample library called, “8 Bit Weapon: A Chiptune Odyssey“. It contains loops sample from genuine 8bit hardware such as the Apple II, Commodore 64, NES, Gameboy, and the Atari 2600. Each system library has everything from drums, bass and synth to special effects.

The sound library works with all major loop and sequencer software such as ACID, Ableton Live, Cubase, Garage Band, Logic, Soundtrack, beatmaker and includes demo songs from 8 Bit Weapon and ComputerHer

Users who purchase the “Green” (downloadable) version of the Sony loop library will get the full MP3 release of Seth’s “Electric High EP” plus an exclusive bonus track “Break Beat Bonanza” .

More details on Sony’s official page

La Roux - Bitpop in the UK

Some sources, such as Wikipedia, currently list Bitpop as being “not in the mainstream”.   Not so!  This site owes it’s very existence to the increasing popularity in Bitpop which has lead to it’s appearance in the mainstream.

In the not-too-distant past, bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode have used the 8bit SidStation in their music, often layered with more up to date hardware, such as the Access Virus.

Little Boots - Big Sounds

While currently in the UK charts; both La Roux (left) and Little Boots (right) employ the Bitpop style in their music.  La Roux using the SIDStation and Virtual Synths and Little Boots featuring the Tenori On and some other suspiciously SID-like sounds. Bitpop is far from underground, it’s downloadable from iTunes and on the shelf in HMV.  There’s even a section on Last.FM for Bitpop. So get your ears on!

On this sample track you are listening to 8bit drums, 8bit bassline and 8bit lead synth all provided by a Commodore 64. As you can probably hear, the additional backing used later in the snippet are taken from newer synths.

This is a classic example of Bitpop : a blend of old 8 bit sounds and new electronica and production techniques.

It’s important to note the difference between chiptune and bitpop.  Chiptune is music purely produced from the use of 8-bit equipment, whereas bitpop uses 8bit equipment alongside more modern equipment or indeed even older synths and acoustic instruments.

8-bit is retro cool!

Back in the 80s, computers and video consoles were finding their way into homes for the first time. The technology was simple and the games by modern standards were not graphically or aurally advanced. These limitations did however lead to a certain style which today remains popular as retro cool.

This generation of computer is typically referred to as 8-bit, a reference to the processor technology used at the time.

8-bit computers predated digital sampling and wave playback, so to give a computer sound capability required the inclusion of sound chips which were in effect 1, 2 or 3 channel synths capable of producing sine, square or pulse waves which could produce the necessary bleeps and bloops.

Screenshot from an 8-bit demo

This lead to the birth of the demo scene. Demos were programs coded with the purpose of displaying cool graphics acompanied by music. This music we now call Chiptune, Chip music or 8bit, a clear reference to this generation of computer.

Over the last few years, interest in these old computers and soundchips has rewoken and led to some familiar bleeps and bloops appearing in popular music.

Some artists are now specialising in producing this combination of pop music using contemporary production tools and methods with 8bit chiptune.

We call this Bitpop.