Chip music

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15 Years of Scene Spirit

Here's a C64 musicdisk containing 18 SID tunes that I've released in various demoscene competitions over the years. The collection is simultaneously released as an album on Spotify and other streaming services. Read more.

Posted Saturday 19-Feb-2022 10:58, 0 comments.

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A 9-bit pitch technique

This article describes a new approach to representing pitch in C64 playroutines. The intended audience is people with a general understanding of C64 coding and SID playroutine design, although readers outside this somewhat narrow demographic may still find the article interesting. Read more.

Posted Monday 30-Mar-2015 22:44, 5 comments.

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A Chipful of Love For You

I made a schlager chiptune for Gubbdata 2013, and it won the C64 Music compo! Read more.

Posted Monday 6-May-2013 22:07, 9 comments.

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A Computer In My Backpack (And A Chiptune In My Heart)

This was my contribution to the Oldskool Music compo at Revision 2016. It ended up on a 5th place. Read more.

Posted Monday 28-Mar-2016 11:51, 8 comments.

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Air on a Rasterline

My contribution to the C64 Music compo at Datastorm 2013, where it ended up on 5th place. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 20-Mar-2013 16:08, 3 comments.

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Allt under himmelens fäste

I suppose it's a bit upside-down to make a SID cover of a Visa Röster song. Read more.

Posted Thursday 9-Aug-2007 08:32, 3 comments.

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A Mind Is Born

Making a demo in just 256 bytes would be a formidable challenge regardless of platform. A Mind Is Born is my attempt to do it on the Commodore 64. In the absence of an actual 256-byte compo, it was submitted to the Oldskool 4K Intro compo at Revision 2017, where it ended up on 1st place. Read more.

Posted Thursday 20-Apr-2017 06:13, 99 comments.

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A Prehistoric Tale

Jochen Hippel's epic title tune for the Atari ST version of the game A Prehistoric Tale from 1990, played live on two Pocket Operators. Read more.

Posted Sunday 17-Apr-2016 21:25, 3 comments.

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Bach Forever

A short loop based on Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582. Read more.

Posted Friday 5-Apr-2024 11:41, 1 comment.

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Bit banger

Bit banger is my most constrained and minimalistic microcontroller-based demo yet. It won the Oldschool 4k compo at Revision 2011. Read more.

Posted Monday 13-Jun-2011 10:23, 20 comments.

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C64 Theremin

I used a C64, two 555s, four resistors, a spoon, and a clamp to build a working Theremin. Read more.

Posted Monday 29-Aug-2022 20:24, 7 comments.

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Carol of the Bells

This piece, Shchedryk, was written by Ukrainan composer Mykola Leontovych in 1916, as an assignment for a harmony course. The ostinato is an ancient new year's chant. Peter Wilhousky wrote the English lyrics in 1936, transforming the song into a Christmas carol. Read more.

Posted Sunday 19-Dec-2010 18:01, 4 comments.

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Castlevania

Two well-known pieces from the Castlevania series: Vampire Killer by Kinuyo Yamashita and Bloody Tears by Kenichi Matsubara. Read more.

Posted Saturday 17-Sep-2011 19:11, 4 comments.

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Chopin vs. the Flappy-Bird Volume Control

Frédéric Chopin's Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28 No. 4, with the right-hand part played on a Commodore 64 running Qwertuoso, demonstrating the new Flappy-Bird volume control mode. Read more.

Posted Friday 10-Mar-2023 07:52, 0 comments.

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Chuck Rock

The intro theme from Chuck Rock (Amiga version) performed with an ensemble of Commodore-based instruments. Read more.

Posted Friday 8-Sep-2023 07:32, 2 comments.

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ClownC0re's “Computers” on computers

This is my reinterpretation of ClownC0re's Computers, performed on computers. Read more.

Posted Saturday 16-Mar-2024 14:28, 1 comment.

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Craft

Craft is a demo running on its own minimalistic demo platform. The demo platform is based on an ATmega88 microcontroller. Read more.

Posted Thursday 27-Mar-2008 20:33, 183 comments.

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Delta

Title theme for the C64 game Delta, composed by Rob Hubbard in 1987, performed live on the Chipophone. The piece was heavily inspired by the final movement of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack which was composed by Philip Glass in 1982. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 25-Aug-2010 18:23, 6 comments.

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Dial-a-SID

I rebuilt an old bakelite phone into a jukebox for SID tunes. Here's a video about it! Read more.

Posted Sunday 4-Jul-2021 21:31, 10 comments.

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Dishwasher Groove

A beat was coming from the dishwasher in the kitchen, so I turned it into a SID tune for the C64 music compo at Gubbdata 2017, where it ended up on 3rd place. Read more.

Posted Thursday 21-Sep-2017 19:32, 0 comments.

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DuckTales, The Moon

DuckTales, "The Moon" level, composed by Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (?) in 1989, performed on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Sunday 15-Aug-2010 11:27, 5 comments.

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Elements of Chip Music

This is my chip music seminar from Revision 2011. Read more.

Posted Monday 2-May-2011 19:18, 14 comments.

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First Day of Spring

I was asked to compose a tune to a chip disk, early in 2006, but the whole project appears to have been abandoned. So I'll just put my song here instead. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 2-Jan-2007 13:55, 0 comments.

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Fratres

Fratres by Arvo Pärt is one of my favourite pieces of music. The analytical meets the aesthetical as Pärt takes us on a meditative, harmonical journey, built up from a simple set of mathematical rules. Read more.

Posted Monday 3-Dec-2007 06:52, 49 comments.

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Fugue on a theme by D. M. Hanlon

This is a SID tune that I composed for the Crack Intro Music Competition 2017 at CSDb. The rules called for a looping tune, no longer than 1 minute. I decided to write a fugue. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 4-Oct-2017 21:01, 3 comments.

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Glyptodont

Glyptodont was my contribution to the C64 music compo at Datastorm 2017 Summer Edition. It achieved a meager 5th place out of six, although that is perhaps to be expected for a pensive and melancholic tune. I hope you will enjoy it anyway! Read more.

Posted Thursday 21-Sep-2017 19:42, 1 comment.

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Glyptodont performed on the... Qwertar?

My SID tune Glyptodont performed live on a new C64-based instrument. Read more.

Posted Friday 7-Jul-2023 10:51, 10 comments.

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Hardsync

Named after one of the characteristic features of the SID chip, Hardsync is a C64 party game that follows in the (wait for it...) footsteps of games like Dance Dance Revolution and StepMania. Read more.

Posted Thursday 8-Nov-2012 14:23, 12 comments.

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In Darkness Hope

My SID tune In Darkness Hope performed live on the C=TAR. Read more.

Posted Friday 22-Dec-2023 09:07, 0 comments.

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International Karate

International Karate, composed by Rob Hubbard in 1986. This one turned out to be incredibly fun to play! Hope you'll enjoy listening as well. Watch out for the two places where new loops are recorded on the fly. Read more.

Posted Sunday 20-Feb-2011 21:39, 7 comments.

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Intertwined

I made a SID tune together with Dane of Booze Design. It ended up on 2nd place in the C64 Music compo at Datastorm 2017. Enjoy! Read more.

Posted Wednesday 15-Mar-2017 07:08, 0 comments.

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King Fisher 0x28

This little tune was composed for my good friend Linus Walleij, who turned 0x28 recently. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 10-Jul-2012 20:46, 6 comments.

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Kung Fu Goldfish

A fun event at Backslash 2007 was the 4 KB tracked music compo. My contribution was in the MOD format (ProTracker), which turned out to be quite a challenging restriction. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 1-Aug-2007 17:01, 1 comment.

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Legend of Zelda

Legend of Zelda, composed by Koji Kondo in 1986, performed on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 3-Aug-2010 18:16, 14 comments.

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LFF

LFF by Matt Simmonds (4-mat), performed on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Sunday 15-May-2011 13:17, 7 comments.

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Little Nemo: The Dream Master

Music from the game Little Nemo: The Dream Master, composed by Junko Tamiya in 1990, performed on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Sunday 12-Dec-2010 09:44, 1 comment.

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Live at Datastorm 2017

I got the opportunity to play my Pocket Operators live at the Datastorm demoparty in Gothenburg, in front of about 200 people. The performance mainly contains my own compositions reinterpreted for the POs, but I've thrown in a couple of covers of classic C64 tunes too for good measure. Enjoy! Read more.

Posted Friday 7-Apr-2017 04:48, 5 comments.

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Live at Fjälldata 2024

Mahoney (of Mahoney & Kaktus fame) and I sat down to play some SID tunes at Fjälldata, the only demoparty I'm aware of that features a grand piano. Read more.

Posted Friday 16-Feb-2024 08:26, 3 comments.

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Live at LCP 2011

I was given the opportunity to perform live with my chipophone at Little Computer People in Lund. Here is a recording of the concert, courtesy of SceneSat, along with video provided by members of the audience. Read more.

Posted Sunday 21-Aug-2011 12:20, 6 comments.

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Live at X'2016

I reinterpreted some of my tunes live on Pocket Operators at X'2016. The concert went well, but it wasn't recorded. Instead, here's a video of one of my rehearsal sessions, with some audience-contributed footage from the concert edited in. Read more.

Posted Monday 7-Nov-2016 07:13, 0 comments.

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Lunatico

Lunatico was my entry in the prestigious X'2016 demo compo. To my surprise and joy it ended up on 2nd place, beating such titans as Censor Design and Offence/Prosonix. Read more.

Posted Monday 31-Oct-2016 23:29, 8 comments.

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Machine Yearning

Machine Yearning is a 4 KB musicdisk for a modified C64 with two SID chips. Read more.

Posted Sunday 9-Apr-2023 16:52, 12 comments.

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Making 8-bit Music From Scratch at the Commodore 64 BASIC Prompt

In this video, I make 8-bit SID music on a Commodore 64 without any software apart from the built-in BASIC interpreter. This involves poking numbers into memory and hardware registers and writing machine code in decimal. Read more.

Posted Friday 27-Sep-2024 08:28, 7 comments.

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Mega Man 3 Intro

The opening theme from Mega Man 3 (original japanese title: Rockman 3). For this tune, I implemented a new feature that allows me to record a loop into memory, and start the playback using a pedal at a later time. Read more.

Posted Sunday 13-Feb-2011 20:40, 4 comments.

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Metroid, part 1

Metroid, intro and ending tunes, composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka in 1986. Read more.

Posted Monday 28-Feb-2011 18:12, 3 comments.

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Metroid, part 2

Metroid, in-game music, composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka in 1986. Read more.

Posted Sunday 13-Mar-2011 21:26, 3 comments.

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Metrolled

Sorry, I just had to do this. =) Read more.

Posted Tuesday 8-Mar-2011 18:34, 8 comments.

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Mike the Grasshopper

This was my contribution to the chip music compo at Hype 1999. It ended up on a shared 3rd place. Read more.

Posted Sunday 30-Jul-2006 12:02, 0 comments.

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Monti On The 'Bin

Qwertuoso is put to the test in this rendition of Vittorio Monti's Csárdás for C64 and piano. Read more.

Posted Sunday 2-Jan-2022 10:58, 5 comments.

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Monty High Score

The high score theme from Monty On the Run, composed by Rob Hubbard in 1985. Arranged for left hand and pedals. Read more.

Posted Sunday 8-May-2011 21:44, 3 comments.

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Nymphaea

This SID tune was composed for (and partly at) Breakpoint 2008. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 25-Mar-2008 18:26, 2 comments.

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O Holy Night

I play O Holy Night on an assortment of 8-bit hardware. Read more.

Posted Friday 2-Dec-2022 10:55, 0 comments.

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Paraforce

A "bastard pop" track consists of two different pieces of music, by two competing or quarreling artists, played back at the same time. Read more.

Posted Sunday 24-Dec-2006 13:10, 5 comments.

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Partita Prelude for 8-Bit Ensemble

Floppy drives and stepper motors have been used to make music before, but for live playing I think the technology is underexplored. Read more.

Posted Friday 3-Jun-2022 07:16, 3 comments.

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Perfectly Well-Adjusted

This was my contribution to the music compo at X'2016, where it ended up on 20th place. Read more.

Posted Monday 31-Oct-2016 23:25, 0 comments.

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Perpetual Fragility

Perpetual Fragility is a small Commodore 64 demo that I wrote for the snowstorm compo at Fjälldata 2023. Here's an explanation of how it works. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 15-Feb-2023 21:20, 2 comments.

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Phasor

Phasor, like Craft, is a demo running on a custom minimalistic ATmega88-based demo platform. But it generates a composite video signal (PAL) instead of a VGA signal. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 7-Apr-2010 13:58, 47 comments.

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Platform Hopping

Let's recreate the sound of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System on a C64! Read more.

Posted Tuesday 13-Jun-2023 20:32, 2 comments.

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PO-2x

I'm proud to announce Arcade, Office and Robot, three affordable, portable synthesisers that I've developed for Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator series. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 26-Jan-2016 05:34, 25 comments.

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Pokémon Trading Card Game

This is my Chipophone interpretation of the Credits music from the Pokémon Trading Card Game video game. The music was composed by Ichiro Shimakura in 1998. Read more.

Posted Monday 20-Sep-2010 20:11, 4 comments.

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Power Ninja Action Challenge

Here's another ATmega88-based hardware chiptune, this time composed for Little Computer People 2009. It was my contribution to the "other music" compo, and won the 1st place. Read more.

Posted Sunday 19-Jul-2009 17:47, 14 comments.

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Pushing Onwards: Return of the Chipophone

The Chipophone bleeps again! This is my cover of Pushing Onwards, from the 2010 retro-game VVVVVV. Read more.

Posted Sunday 25-Mar-2018 14:25, 11 comments.

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Qwertuoso

Qwertuoso is a small program for playing SID music live on a Commodore 64. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 29-Dec-2021 21:04, 2 comments.

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Qwertuoso Tutorial

A hands-on introduction on how to play the Super Mario Bros Underworld Theme in Qwertuoso. Read more.

Posted Friday 4-Feb-2022 08:29, 0 comments.

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Reverberations

It struck me that, at least in theory, organ pipes should generate quite primitive sound waves. If so, how come a church organ doesn't sound like a chip tune, which is also built up from simple waveforms? Well, actually it will, if you remove the church. And if you connect a Commodore 64 home computer to a loudspeaker in a large hall, it will sound like an organ. Read more.

Posted Saturday 10-May-2008 07:27, 26 comments.

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Romance from Chopin's 1st Piano Concerto

Featuring one SID chip and one piano. Read more.

Posted in ancient times, 6 comments.

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Safe VSP

I contributed this one-filer to the C64 Demo compo at Datastorm 2013. It ended up on 7th place, which I consider quite good for a technical proof of concept. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 20-Mar-2013 22:23, 18 comments.

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Scene Spirit

This was my contribution to the music compo at X 2014. It ended up on 10th place. Enjoy! Read more.

Posted Monday 15-Dec-2014 10:36, 3 comments.

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Shards of Fancy

Shards of Fancy is a C64 demo released in the Oldskool Demo competition at Revision 2013, where it ended up on 6th place. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 2-Apr-2013 16:01, 2 comments.

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Sidreloc

Sidreloc is a tool for relocating SID tunes any number of whole pages, using a novel but remarkably simple algorithm. It can also relocate all zero-page variables used by the tune. Read more.

Posted Monday 28-May-2012 08:13, 19 comments.

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SID theme search engine

Finally! The SID theme finder has been resurrected and upgraded to modern HVSC path names. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 29-Jan-2008 06:36, 9 comments.

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Slaepwerigne

This SID tune was composed for Breakpoint 2009. It ended up 7th in the Oldschool Executable Music compo, which isn't too bad considering its original approach. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 5-May-2009 05:35, 0 comments.

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Sommargubbe

This laidback summer ditty got 3rd place in the C64 music compo at Gubbdata 2022. Read more.

Posted Sunday 3-Jul-2022 19:45, 0 comments.

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Specular Highlight

I composed this SID tune for the Executable Music Oldskool compo at Revision 2014, where it ended up on 5th place. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 13-May-2014 22:46, 4 comments.

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Spellbound

Spellbound, composed by Rob Hubbard in 1986, performed on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 21-Jul-2010 21:42, 26 comments.

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Spin, Crazy World

The Slängpolska is a Swedish folk dance that involves a lot of spinning. Read more.

Posted Friday 24-May-2024 06:40, 0 comments.

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Stein Pedersen's Nocturne

A beautiful SID tune by Stein Pedersen appears at the very end of the Commodore 64 demo 2011 — A Press Space Odyssey by Offence. Here I've adapted it into a piano exercise for the left hand. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 6-Dec-2017 07:37, 2 comments.

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Still Alive

A chipophone cover of Still Alive, Jonathan Coulton's song which plays at the end of Portal, featuring the lovely Gabriella as GlaDOS. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 20-Apr-2011 22:00, 3 comments.

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Summer cloud

This is my first regular SID tune. It was written for Backslash 2007, where it ended up on 4th place. Read more.

Posted Saturday 14-Jul-2007 11:19, 2 comments.

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Supremacy / Overlord

Music from the c64 version of Supremacy: Your Will Be Done (known as Overlord in USA), composed by Jeroen Tel in 1990. Read more.

Posted Sunday 20-Mar-2011 20:22, 3 comments.

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The bitbuf

The bitbuf is a portable 8-bit minimalistic live looping machine. Designed as a tool for chip music improvisation and live performances, it aims to provide a set of simple yet versatile features. It's a work in progress, but I've made a prototype which is already quite functional and enjoyable to work with. Read more.

Posted Thursday 22-Dec-2011 14:20, 179 comments.

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The Chipophone

The Chipophone is a homemade 8-bit synthesizer, especially suited for live chiptune playing. It has been built inside an old electronic organ. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 21-Jul-2010 21:42, 213 comments.

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The Commodordion

The Commodordion is an 8-bit accordion primarily made of C64s, floppy disks, and gaffer tape. Read more.

Posted Friday 21-Oct-2022 17:14, 64 comments.

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The evolution of C64 games 1982–2023

A brief illustrated history of Commodore 64 games accompanied by that cello piece by Bach performed on the C=TAR. Read more.

Posted Friday 19-Jan-2024 08:33, 6 comments.

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The hardware chiptune project

Normally, when you create a chiptune, you start with an existing chip (such as the SID chip or the YM2149) and write a tune for it. We decided to start from scratch, and create a chip and a tune. Read more.

Posted Saturday 30-Jun-2007 11:04, 85 comments.

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The SID septet

The "Vad faller..." ("What woodland...") movement of Lars-Erik Larssons Förklädd Gud (God In Disguise), arranged for a SID septet. Read more.

Posted in ancient times, 4 comments.

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The Swan

In an attempt to squeeze as much emotion as possible into a tiny chip, I managed to fit Camille Saint-Saëns' The Swan into 480 (out of 1024) bytes of ROM on an ATtiny15. The microcontroller runs at 1.6 MHz and provides 32 bytes of RAM (actually registers). Read more.

Posted Monday 26-Apr-2010 16:12, 10 comments.

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The Tenor Commodordion

The Tenor Commodordion is an ergonomically improved version of the Commodordion. Read more.

Posted Friday 16-Aug-2024 13:16, 1 comment.

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Thing On A Spring

One of Rob Hubbard's earliest tunes. The slide effects are triggered by pedals; other pedals are mapped to drum sounds. I goofed up considerably at the end, but decided to upload anyway. Hope you don't mind too much. Read more.

Posted Sunday 6-Feb-2011 20:40, 3 comments.

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Think Twice III

The C64 demo Think Twice III, released by The Judges in 1987, is perhaps best known for its soundtrack by Jeroen Kimmel (Red). This is my Chipophone interpretation of the classic SID power ballad. Read more.

Posted Sunday 12-Sep-2010 18:41, 7 comments.

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Three PC Pieces

Here are three tunes, originally part of PC demoscene productions, now remastered and resynthesized with better sound generation code. Read more.

Posted Friday 18-Aug-2023 06:13, 0 comments.

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To Die For

Here's my contribution to the C64 music compo at Gubbdata 2016. It's in the style of a highscore ballad—hence the name—and it ended up on 4th place. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 5-Jul-2016 22:14, 0 comments.

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Toy Rocket

This little SID tune ended up on 3rd place in the Oldskool Music compo at Revision 2017. I composed it on a real C64 using my recently released tracker, Blackbird. Hope you like it! Read more.

Posted Tuesday 2-May-2017 20:37, 2 comments.

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Unity

Here's a cover of Unity by TheFatRat, performed on 8-bit pocket operators. Read more.

Posted Wednesday 2-Dec-2020 15:53, 4 comments.

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Variation 18

This was my entry for the wild compo at Revision 2015. Read more.

Posted Sunday 5-Apr-2015 19:56, 7 comments.

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Vivaldi Summer Presto

The Presto movement from Vivaldi's Summer performed on Commodore-based instruments. Read more.

Posted Friday 17-Nov-2023 08:53, 1 comment.

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Vocalise

Rachmaninoff's Vocalise arranged for C64 and piano. Read more.

Posted Sunday 13-Mar-2022 22:02, 2 comments.

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Warhawk

The soundtrack from the C64 game Warhawk, composed in 1986 by Rob Hubbard, played live on the Chipophone. Read more.

Posted Tuesday 1-May-2018 21:34, 4 comments.

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Wintergatan Marble Machine 8-bit jam

Like many others, I was impressed by the Wintergatan Marble Machine and its built-in tune. Here's my 8-bit interpretation of it, played live on Arcade and Robot. Read more.

Posted Monday 14-Mar-2016 20:54, 4 comments.

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Withering Bytes

A short piece for human and machine. Read more.

Posted Friday 6-Dec-2024 08:05, 0 comments.

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Your Heptacular Eyes

Karmic organised a “Non-standard Time Signature Compo” over at CSDb, so of course I couldn't resist making a contribution. Here's my SID tune, which actually ended up on 1st place! Read more.

Posted Tuesday 5-Jul-2016 22:14, 0 comments.