Product day 4

February 18 2016

Product Day 4:

This is most likely my final day working on my product. I have added the last 30 seconds needed for my chiptune to reach a total of two minutes. I have written the last few verses, and I have written the conclusion as well. I've also added some touch-ups to make some previous sections sound better by adding effects such as volume shifts or pitch shifts. Overall, I believe that my product has been polished and that it's ready for presentation.

Product Day 1

February 15 2016

Product Day 1:

Not being familiar as a musician, much of what I have written is done by ear. However, using FamiTracker is easier than I initially expected. The guide I have read is helping, and though I haven't made use of the effects available (pitch slide, volume slide, etc.), I'm hoping to incorporate it in the future. So far, I have written the introduction and a verse for my chiptune, making a total of roughly 30 seconds. Though it's easier than I thought, it's also more time consuming than I thought. My goal is to finish 30 seconds every day so that I can finish this chiptune in a total of four days. See the "Day1.mp4" file for a video recording of what I accomplished today.

3rd Discussion with Supervisor

February 26 2016

3rd Discussion with Supervisor

Upon discussing my criteria/specifications to my supervisor, she approved of what I presented. The meeting was scheduled a week later than I had initially planned for, so I had actually already done work on my product already for the sake of efficiency. One thing she was concerned about was my use of the process journal, since I didn't use it very often at the time of our last meeting. However, I reassured her that I had put in many more entries since our last meeting. One thing I asked about though was whether my criteria should be a checklist or a criteria scale. She decided that it was best for it to be a criteria scale, and that I should take reference from the existing MYP criteria scales. Our meeting was a little shorter than usual though, since the coffee house event was on the same day, but I think we covered everything that we needed/wanted to cover.

Determining Product

February 15 2016

Determining Product

After researching the evolution of video game music as the hardware for gaming consoles developed, and considering that my global context is scientific and technical innovation, I believe I want my product to be a short tune that reflects the audio limitations of video game consoles around the 1980s, or in other words, creating a chiptune. In this case, I'm going to create a chiptune based off the audio chip inside the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In order to achieve this, I'll use a program called Famitracker (http://famitracker.com/), an audio tracker program that emulates the audio chip inside the NES. To figure out how to compose music using this program, I'll read tutorials created by other users of the program. One in particular is a blog post that contains 12 sections of how to use Famitracker (http://btothethree.tumblr.com/post/104644129447/how-to-use-famitracker-chapter-1-introduction). This blog post will most likely be my primary source of information for using Famitracker. Famitracker has the ability to export the tunes it creates as a .wav file, so that will most likely be the file format of the product I'm creating.

Research Notes on "Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes"

February 12 2016

Research Notes on "Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes"

Source: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/96/94

Importance: Absolutely essential

• Chiptunes- music composed for the microchip-based audio hardware of early home computers and gaming consoles
• Strictest definition, but has been changed over time
• Before the end of the 1970s, digital arcade games were the primary computing experience in public locations (bars, roller-skating rinks)
• Accompanied by a nearby DJ, radio, jukebox, etc.
• Early 1980s- Computer gaming introduced into homes,
• Most games featured only a short theme, sound effects, or no sound at all
• 1977- Apple II computer featured a built-in speaker that can be programmed to play short musical phrases/sound effects
• Music still rare due to storage limitations
• 1977- Atari VCS (Atari 2600) designed to attach to a TV, had a television interface adapter (TIA or Stella) that controls audio and video signals
• TIA could produce two voices simultaneously but was difficult to tune
• Composers used the second voice as controlled bursts of noise for percussion since adding harmonies would be unpredictable
• Tonal limitations made it difficult for composers to make interpretations of pre-existing songs
• Forced developers to adjust to the limitations
• Ex: Musician for Pressure Cooker game instructed to make a song using only tones the system could reliably produce
• Also used one voice for music while the other for sound effects
• Most games remained limited to primitive single-voice melodies
• 1981- Robert "Bob" Yannes began developing a new audio chip for computers called SID (Sound Interface Device)
• Intended to be useful in professional synthesizers as well as microcomputers
• Has diverse sounds that cost little resources in CPU by using synthesizer hardware features
• Capable of producing 4 different waveforms- square, triangle, sawtooth, and noise
• Had diverse pitch and lengths of sound
• Allowed for programmed audio filters to be applied
• 1981- Commodore decided to use SID in it's next microcomputer, Commodore 64
• Allowed greater flexibility in sound compared to Atari VCS
• Musicians had to work in code to write music though
• Loops of a song are split into subdivisions called microloops
• Microloops can be stretched, layered, and randomized to change the music
• Musicians inspired by electro, progressive rock. heavy metal, etc. to write their songs
• A distince timbre for each voice can emulate a rock band
• 1985- NES introduce had similar audio capabilities to C64
• Games stored in cartridges had more space than the medium for C64, allowed for games to include more in-game music
• NES didn't have as much success in Europe, Europeans preferred programmable computers for gaming such as the Atari St, Amiga, or IBM PCs
• 1987- Karsten Obarski built a tool called The Ultimate Soundtracker that gave a graphical interface for the four sound channels of the Atari A500
• Had a piano roll for each channel
• Allowed non-programmers to have access to the music tools in their home computers
• Tracker tools for Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS PCs all used digital samples rather than hardware synthesis
• Sample-based music no longer met requirement of chiptunes but many tracker composers continued using the synthesized sounds that characterized the SID tunes due to aesthetic preference
• Late 1980s- Computer games came with multiple forms of copy-protection, and there became a scene of reverse engineers working to crack the protection and redistribute copies of games, certain groups began implementing custom intros into the games with animations, scrolling text, and custom music
• Intros for cracked software gave amateur chiptune artists more opportunities
• Trackers were distributed free and fans used these to playback music, music file formats contained the samples/patterns used in the song and where editable
• Created a learning environment for people to create their own chiptunes
• 1990s- Online communication via internet allowed musicians/groups to release their own tracker music, independent of games, as albums
• 1997- Online tracker contest had over 300 entries, 1998's had over 500
• 1998- Momentum of tracking community mysteriously ended
• 1998- Chiptune netlabels started to appear online
• Micromusic.net encouraged users to upload their own works and interact with others
• By this point, chips like SID aren't the latest form of technology anymore, but many producers chose to use computers from the 1980s to make music
• Chiptune artists used gaming hardware for music to impact the listener's attachment to such devices
• Nintendo Game Boy particularly popular among chiptune artists
• Was a popular system (200 million sold) and was the most widely available system with a synthesizer in the 1990s
• Reverse engineering of Game Boy and their publishing online allowed custom applications to be made
• 1998- Nanoloop released, a synthesizer and sequencer application
• Little Sound DJ came shortly after, still used by chiptune artists today
• Gave access to the 4 channels of the Game Boy but also included digital sample playback and a visual piano roll
• Late 1990s- MIDI compatibility made for Game Boys that are modified
• Allowed non-programmers to make music for video game consoles and use it in existing studio practice
• Not done with tracker tools
• Today video gaming appears in popular music either through references, interpretations (remixes), or production methods similar to the audio technology at the time (synthesizers)
• 1982- American pop musicians Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia had success with the song "Pac-Man Fever", but only used recorded sounds from the game as non-musical accompaniment for the guitar song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-MONIvP6kI)
• 1992- Richard D. James created a song called "Pac-Man" that used sounds/samples from the game as essential musical elements (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjEDX-2M7Qk)
• End of 1990s- Bands began recording progressive rock interpretations of video game songs from the NES and C64
• Groups such as 8-bit weapon started combining the synthesizer sounds of the video game consoles with more conventional instruments such as drums or keyboards
• Songs interpreting/replicating chiptunes didn't just appeal to gamers,
• Zombie Nation's "Kernkraft 400" sampled a melody line from video game "Stardust" composed by David Whittaker, widespread popularity of it suggests that its appeal was from Whittaker's original chiptune rather than the song catering to gamers

The article was very informative for me since I never really looked at video game music this way. This article doesn't focus much on milestones or hardware, but explains how a new genre of music, chiptunes, was born as a result of the synthesizer chips in video games. The article explains how video game music evolved to grow outside the realm of video games, something which the other articles didn't mention. This makes it important since it explains how video game music went from being non-existant into being so beloved that it inspired songs based on them and a genre based on them. This article also has many sources to help maintain its credibility, so I know that the article isn't just baseless claims. 

Research Information on "Levels of Sound"

Source: http://www.vgmusic.com/information/vgpaper2.html#history

Importance: Absolutely essential

• 1958- Tennis For Two, one of the first video games, had no sound at all
• 1972- Pong was the first video game to feature any sound
• 1972- Mangavox Odyssey had no sound
• 1978- Space Invaders was the first video game to feature a soundtrack
• Not music, but a sound pulse that accelerated in frequency when the aliens got closer to the player
• First instance of non-diegetic sound (Background music amplifying the mood)
• 1980s- Music becomes popular in video games
• 1980- Pac-Man has an opening theme and a theme for cutscenes
• Early games didn't have continuous musical soundtracks due to storage and audio limitations
• Melodies could only be short lines of notes, little to no harmony, and monaural
• 1981- Atari released Tempest, the first arcade machine to use a revolutionary "Pokey chip"
• Pokey chip was a dedicated audio processor that had 4 channels and could control pitch, volume, and distortion of tones
• Allowed 4 "instrument" music to be performed for the first time
• 1985- NES released, first popular home console to support soundtracks varied soundtracks
• Contained many soundtracks popular today still (Tetris, Super Mario Bros., etc)
• Koji Kondo's soundtrack for 1985s SMB indicates video game music moving more towards being like film music and being a storytelling medium
• 1989- Micheal Jackson's Moonwalker released for Sega Genesis, first instance of video game soundtrack collaboration with a pop-culture musician
• Increasing audio/storage technology meant more sophisticated soundtracks could be made
• 1994-  Nobuo Uematsu's soundtrack for Final Fantasy 3 on SNES featured character-specific leitmotivs and a variety of styles
• Meanwhile on home computers, sound cards came with sound banks of 128 sounds with the ability to play 16 at the same time (MIDI)
• Allowed small files that told the card what sound to play and when to play them
• Played a large role in computer music because they were small in size and games used to be on 1.5 MB floppy disks
• 1995- Sony releases Playstation with 24 channel CD quality stereo sound
• Supported MIDIs, Redbook audio (CD quality sound), and MODs (Near CD quality but smaller in file size)
• 1996- Nintendo 64 released, but uses cartridges instead of CD, so CD quality music not used often due to storage limits
• 1996- Wipeout XL for Playstation featured soundtracks by popular techno artists, allowed players to select which song they wanted to listen to which is common today
• 1997- PaRappa the Rapper released for Playstation, music-orientated game where the player pushed buttons in time with the beat
• Opened way to a new type of game, popularized by DDR in 1998
• 1999- Thrasher: Skate and Destroy and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for Playstation first to feature licensed music from well-known hip-hop and alternative punk artists
• 2000- National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences let interactive games compete in Grammy awards
• Video game music now has the potential to receive substantial recognition
• 2001- Nintendo GameCube released with a Digital Signal Processor that supports up to 100 voices and 64 simultaneous voices of 3D sound
• MiniDVD fomat allows storage for CD quality music compared to N64
• 2001- Microsoft Xbox supports Dolby Digital sound (a first), and 256 simultaneous stereo voices from 64 channels
• 2001- Vib-Ribbon released, player navigates through levels generated by the music playing, players could put their own audio CD inside to make levels based on the tracks
• Innovated music-driven level genre (Audiosurf, Musicracer)

This article focuses less on the hardware aspect of video game music, but makes up for it in it's detail on milestones in gaming, such as the first instance of a soundtrack collaboration with a pop-culture musician. This article is quite informative and serves well for my research.

Research Information on "Digital Sound and Music in Computer Games" 1987-2000

Source: http://3daudio.info/gamesound/history.html

Importance: Absolutely essential

• 1987 - NEC TurboGrafx-16 released
• 6 digitized sound channels
• 2 sound channels for ADPCM-compressed samples
• First console to support stereo output
• First console to use a CD-ROM w/ an attachment, allowed developers to to create more realistic music and sounds in games
• 1989 - Nintendo's Game Boy released, innovated portable console market
• 1 channel offering 4-bit sound samples
• • 3 PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) channels
  • 1 White Noise channel

Image: http://www.originalsoundversion.com/inverse-phases-music-from-old-sound-chips/

• 1989 - Sega Genesis/Mega Drive released
• 6 channels powered by a Yamaha synthesizer chip
• 4 channels powered by a PSG chip
• 1991 - Sega CD add-on released,
• Added 8 PCM sound channels to playback recorded sound
• CD-ROM technology and added PCM channels allowed pre-recorded music to be put into games
• 1991 - SNES released
• Had a digital signal processor that can mix up to 8 voices at once and change the pitch and volume of each voice
• Each voice powered by a small pre-recorded instrument sample
• A special program tells the DSP which samples to play and which to alter the pitch/volume of
• Similiar to MIDIs
• 1993 - Panasonic 3DO released
• First CD only console
• 1994 - Soundtrack for game Tempest 2000 was released as a CD to be sold
• First instance of a commercially sold soundtrack for a video game
• 1994 - Sega Saturn released
• 32 channels of CD quality audio (16-bit 44.1kHz)
• Had limitations: Audio samples have to be decompressed to the internal audio memory buffer of 512k before being used, limited quality and/or amount of audio samples that can be played at the same time
• 32 MIDI channels
• 32 channels powered by a Yamaha synthesizer
• 1994 - Sony Playstation released
• 24 channels of CD quality audio
• Allowed for real-time effects (Pitch modulation, digital reverb, amplitude envelopes)
• Support for MIDI
• Audio didn't have to be decompressed like Saturn
• Audio memory buffer of 512kb
• 1996 - Nintendo 64 released
• Unlike other consoles at the time, used cartridges instead of CDs
• Limited storage, usage of sounds and speech can't be as extensive compared to Saturn and Playstation
• No unique audio chip, audio is handled by CPU and other processing chips
• Played 16-bit 48kHz audio
• Number of channels not defined, depends on software
• Filters and effects can be added to sound
• 1998 - Sega Dreamcast released
• Used a GD-ROMs, similar to CD-ROM, but had 1.2 GB storage instead of 700 MB
• Two sound processors create 64 channels of CD-quality sound
• Audio no longer needs to be decompressed before using
• Audio memory buffer of 2 MB
• Allowed for real-time effects to be added
• 2000 - Sony PS2 released
• Used a DVD-ROMs, typically 4.7 GB
• 2 MB sound memory
• Had one soundchip with 48 channels of 16-bit 48kHz audio
• Also supports 8 channels of surround sound, making it the first console with multi-channel surround sound

This article details the hardware capabilities of important video game systems, and how they affected the ways developers could implement music. This article is very important since it gives a detailed history of the beginnings of sound in video games, the rise of music in them, and eventually the evolution of video game music as the audio capabilities of gaming systems advanced. This is exactly what I need for my investigation.