From Chiptunes and Bit Pop

Hello Thorsten, you are the organizer of the successful Ohrbit Festival, a Chiptune, 8 Bit and Bit Pop Festival in Duisburg. The event takes place once a year, making the Chiptune music scene accessible to a wider audience.

First of all, what is chiptune, 8 bit and bit pop? What are the differences and what exactly does that have to do with music? The music is characterized by a characteristic artificial sound, which can be combined with the classic Super Nintendo or Sega Master System games, for example. However, the origin generally lies in the home computer and video game era. Chiptunes are created through the targeted use and manipulation of a sound chip. The sound chips in the first computers and consoles were rather equipped with relatively primitive tone generators. A simple analog tone generator can only produce a sinusoidal tone. With the first consoles, up to four tones could later be generated in real time and the waveform of the signal could also be influenced. The result sounds very artificial /electronic and that is what makes it so exciting to create music with it. Due to the limitation and limited framework conditions, the most interesting tunes and tracks come about. Related genres are Bit Pop, Video Game Music and 8 Bit /16 Bit. If Chiptune can somehow be represented as a separate genre, since the sound was generated electronically, but any other genre can in principle be converted. Even though the majority of the artists specialize in electronic music genres, there are also good chiptune reggae, chiptune punk or chiptune hip hop tracks.

[H2]Why the event title "Ohrbit" and why the Ruhr area as a location for the festival?

The title of the festival is a composite artificial word from "Ear" and "Bit" and alludes to the obvious on the orbit (orbit). This should make it clear that we at Event Management always strive to offer the festival visitors a wide range of national and international artists. We also try to select different artists musically, so that we can offer the audience the full spectrum of related genres Chiptune, 8 Bit, Bit Pop and Video Game Music. The location of the festival naturally resulted from my hometown Duisburg. It would certainly have been possible to choose another city in the Ruhr area. The proximity to my place of residence offers many voicesjudge the organization and implementation of the festival.

How do you do chiptune? And could I learn that too?

Chiptune and related genres are created in a variety of ways these days. In principle, only an electronic device with any sound chip is required. Generally, this is the case in all game consoles and computers. In exceptional cases, a small sound chip is even installed in calculators. As far as the actual manipulation is concerned, there are also several options. On the one hand, the so-called circuit bending, where sounds and effects are created by intervening in the actual electronics and even by short circuits. Only a few use the possibility to completely tone tone generators themselves (keyword Do It Yourself Culture) or to change or extend existing tone generators with simple electrotechnical means, such as potentiometers or other electronic components, so that modulation is possible. Nowadays, so-called tracker programs such as Nanoloop or LSDj for the Gameboy also exist for many devices. So software that is built like a primitive DAW (digital audio workstation) and allows the technically possible waveforms, effects and tracks to be created and managed. Depending on the sound chip, the range of functions is then more manageable or more complex. Likewise, there are now numerous VST plugins and synthesizers that have digital signal processors and produce the desired 8-bit sound. Everything can now be conveniently used on a computer in a DAW. While some artists work as close as possible to the actual sound chip, others prefer to work with modern means. Either way, it certainly takes a lot of knowledge to do chiptune yourself. On the one hand, of course, music theory and, on the other hand, learning a (tracker) software or understanding a sound-generating circuit. You can learn everything! There are also numerous workshops all over Germany on the topic of music with the Gameboy and the like, which make it easier to get started.

As the organizer of such an event, you have probably already met many artists. What are they like and what makes these people so special?

That is a difficult question. So of course, I have already met some artists, although on the corresponding day of the event the time for detailed private discussions is rather tight. Nevertheless, I consider artist support to be a very important component of the festival and I therefore always personally take care of each individual artist and his needs before, during and after the eventaging. In my opinion, the artist support begins much earlier, so that one could definitely include the artist acquisition. In general, one could argue cheekily that Chiptune musicians don't tick much differently than musicians of other genres. Some are more eccentric, others more introverted. I personally find it always exciting to get to know another creative person. I think what makes these people what it is is the mixture of the certain urge to make music, that is, to express their emotions, as any musician can probably understand, and their curiosity about everything from the technology and technical implementation to the finished song . Last but not least, of course, the fun with the music and the technology is in the foreground. I have always experienced the entire Chiptune scene as very friendly and accommodating, perhaps because it is still relatively manageable. I have rarely experienced cooperation and cohesion, not least with the help of social media, so positive. The demo scene, the retro scene and, of course, the retro game scene should also be mentioned as related scenes.

The Ohrbit Festival is not the only Chiptune Festival in Germany. Such an event has existed internationally since the late 80s. How would you describe the coverage and distribution in Germany and internationally?

Yes, we are actually rather late with our, relatively small festival, what now However, it will take place for the sixth time in a row and will continue to do so. There are some established national events, such as "8 Pauli" in Hamburg, which unfortunately took place for the last time in 2018, "chip hits the fan" in Nuremberg, the revision demo party in Saarbrücken or the 1UP Fest in Karlsruhe. Surely there are more events in Germany, Berlin or other big cities. So far we have not been able to find anything comparable in the Ruhr area. At that time we thought that such an event was somehow missing in the middle of Germany. New festivals continue to blossom and others are not being continued. Relevant international events are certainly Eindbaas in the Netherlands, Bitgrid in Belgium and Chipwrecked in Denmark. Similar events are also offered in England, France and Italy, but I would (unfortunately) still describe the distribution as isolated and sporadic. We hope that there will be more and more events of this kind in the future and that the chiptune scene will be further established.

What do people do when there is no event where you can experience this type of music live?% 5B /H2]The artists of course regularly publish singles, albums, EPs and other formats, so the stock of new chip tunes will certainly not run out so quickly. In addition to their own websites, popular platforms are bandcamp or soundcloud. There are also Chiptune facebook groups in which artists post new publications or refer to events. For the German-speaking countries, for example, the group "Chipmusik - DE", which was founded and maintained by the two artists irrlicht project and Tronimal at the time. Likewise, web radio stations have been founded to accompany their reports and reports on retro games with chip tunes or even complete concerts in send the ether. Here are the lovely boys from "Radio Parallax", which you can easily stream on their website. Or also "The Station", the web radio of nerds and geeks. An internet blog published on the topics "from retro to today".

Are you really interested in listening to the iconic chip sounds? Then you do not have to search long, we have put together some recommended Chiptune websites for you:Radio Paralax|RainWave|GermanRemixGroupDo you know any other recommended Chiptunes websites? Then let us know in the comments!

[H2]Is there a direct connection to classic video games /retro games or is your own music mainly composed using the appropriate sound chips?

The chiptune scene is not limited to specially composed music. There are also some musicians and also whole bands that specialize in remixes. For some game soundtracks, beautiful, new versions and forms of performance in various styles have emerged. The most well-known melodies have a high recognition value among the audience and thus the frequently used retro games are experiencing a second spring. Not least due to the fact that you have new emulators that allow you to run multiple game consoles with a lot of games, for example on a small Raspberry Pi in the living room. A small round of Super Mario Kart in the evening on the sofa has probably not hurt anyone. But in general you can say that the retro games offer an indescribable abundance of beautiful or playful melodies and many possibilities to use them again or to reinterpret them. Whether sampled, remixed, or replicated straight away.