Chiptune refers to the genre of electronic music that is created through old computer sound chips–or, at the very least, attempts to emulate their sound. Originating from the computers and video game consoles from the 1980’s and early 90’s, computer sound chips were the most popular means of implementing music and sound effects within games through waveform generation. However, due to hardware limitations at the time, these chips could only produce a limited number of waves (i.e. sawtooth, square, triangle, noise, etc.) on a limited number of channels. As a result, this gave video game music a rather distinct and memorable sound.

In a contemporary sense–considering that computers and video game consoles have sound systems far more technologically advanced than those on old Nintendo systems–“chiptune” is generally used to describe music that emulates the sounds on those retro consoles and computers. Although the sounds can be (and are) easily recreated with modern audio software, many artists choose to use tools such as MIDI controllers with old consoles to create “authentic” music using the original hardware.

Artists:

• Disasterpeace
• Anamanaguchi
• Nullsleep