Video game music culture

Computer and video game music, with the help of the internet, has developed into its own culture with many extensions beyond existence as a video game soundtrack.

Fans have aggregated together in person and on the net for various purposes revolving around video game music. Many inspired communities have flourished as a result, despite not being directly involved with video games or game production. Fans have produced recorded live performances of their own, as well as studio remixes. Some have also taken a much more technical approach, such as the chiptune and mod communities who emulate the actual chips from older computers and consoles. Other more technical focused cultures develop or use emulators to play back soundfiles from the original game images, or archive them for others to use.

Remixing

Though the term is very broad, remixing is still the most commonly used to identify a piece of music that is re-sequenced, performed live by a different artist, or generally inspired by an original piece from a video game. Presentations vary from simple orchestral interpretations of old chip tunes, to vastly differently themed departures into rock, jazz, metal, or any other of a number of genres.

A fan culture developed in the 1990s of transcribing video game music into a MIDI standard of some kind. This allowed fans, lacking any immediate musical performance ability but possessed some computer skill, to take early sound chip based music and re-imagine it with the variety of sampled instruments afforded by the General MIDI standard. More than a few archives of such works can still be found today and have even extended into other MIDI standards.

Fan performances have also gained wide notoriety, ranging from concerts to remixing the original music themes. A rock group called Minibosses was one of the earliest to gain traction online with their downloadable mp3s of performances, as well as offer CDs. An "a cappella" music group from the University of Wisconsin known as [http://www.uwredefined.com/ Redefined] , who performed (and acted) an "a cappella" medley of songs from popular Nintendo games including "Super Mario Bros.", "Tetris", "Mortal Kombat", and "The Legend of Zelda". A video clip of the entire performance was widely circulated on the Internet in 2005. [http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/13/1754231&tid=205&tid=141] Other examples are listed below.

Among the most visible to fans of game music are remix communities where recreational musicians, DJs, and other music talent produce re-arranged or remixed versions of tunes, and then share them for download in some compressed format. Production values vary from artist to artist, from single instrument solo, to massive multi-controller device soundbanks. Some of these artists have even gone on to received licensed support from the game publisher to publish their own work. Others may simply provide a CD of their work to those who ask.

Chiptune

Even more interesting to some are the fan communities that base themselves around writing remixed or even new music using the very same sound chips from the classic systems themselves. Though this, too, can be considered remixing, it is of such a specific medium that it bears separate distinction. Sometimes an emulator is used to generate the chip's sounds when the actual chip is not present. This is widely known as Chip Tune and is a very comparable to the use of an analog synthesizer in a music studio. Many times the composer choosing this format either has a specific familiarity with the technology being used, preference for the sound qualities of a particular chip, or is looking for a challenge in making an enjoyable music experience from a comparably simple musical tool.

Much of chiptune is actually not derived from any game music, and is original work, but because the hardware used it typically exclusive to video game equipment, it bears inclusion here.

ound file and emulation

Sound chip emulators, usually inspired by game system emulators, developed both as stand alone media players, and as plugins for popular media players like Winamp. Website communities have sprung up, and archives which contain partial ROM images of the sound information of a game allow fans to hear the game very similar to what it would have been like on the actual system. Each system emulated developed a specialised format such as NSF, GBS, SID, HES, VGM, SPC, PSF, PSF2, and others. This is the closest most people come to hearing the music as it was played as much as 20 years ago on its original game console if they do not/did not own the console.

ee also

Emulator format music

* Zophar's Domain

Performers

* 8 Bit Weapon
* The Advantage
* Machinae Supremacy
* MegaDriver
* The Minibosses
* The NESkimos
* Press Play on Tape
* Vomitron
* Powerglove

Popular sound formats by system

* Apple Macintosh, Macintosh II, Macintosh Quadra, PowerPC : Studio Session, MOD ("The Sound Tracker", "The Player Pro", etc.)
* 8-bit Atari : SAP
* Atari ST: SNDH, SC68, YM, MOD
* Commodore 64: SID
* Commodore Amiga: MOD, OctaMED (MED), Oktalyzer (OKT)
* Game Boy: GBS
* Game Boy Advance : GSF
* IBM PC Clone (with Sound Blaster or other sound card) : MOD, Composer 669 (669), MultiModuleEdit (MTM), Grave Composer (WOW), UltraTracker (ULT), Scream Tracker (S3M), Fast Tracker (XM), Impulse Tracker (IT)
* NES: NSF
* Nintendo 64: USF
* PC-Engine : HES
* PlayStation, PlayStation 2: PSF and PSF2, XA Audio
* Sega Genesis: VGM, GYM, GSR
* Sega Mark III: VGM
* Sega Master System & Sega Game Gear: VGM
* Sega Saturn: SSF, XA audio
* SNES: SPC (named for the SPC700 sound chip used in the SNES)
* Multiple Platform : MIDI, SCUMM, MOD

Remix hosts

* OverClocked ReMix

External links

Articles and essays about video game music

* [http://www.jameshannigan.co.uk/changing.htm "Changing Our Tune" - an essay on the unique role and function of music in games.]
* [http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/ Whalen, Zach. "Play Along - An Approach to Videogame Music". "GameStudies, the international journal of computer game research". Vol. 4, issue 1. November 2004]
* [http://vgmusic.com/vgpaper.shtml "Video game music: not just kid stuff"] – Matthew Belinkie, 15 December 1999 - an essay about game music.
* [http://www.gamessound.com GamesSound.com] - site with studies and resources for educators all dealing with game audio.
* [http://www.vgmusic.com/information/vgpaper2.html "Levels of Sound"] - Eric Pidkameny, Vassar College 15 May 2002
* [http://www.vgmusic.com/information/vgpaper3.html "Quality Video Game Music Scores, Considering the Standards Set, and Personal Reflections"] – Daniel DeCastro, New York University 14 May 2007

References