syphus

Not sure how all the US-based Nintendo chipsters missed this interesting looking Blockparty release, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been talking about it in all the usual circles. Anyway, this is the first release of a new NDS tracker – NitroTracker means well, but sadly doesn’t seem to be coming up with the goods. If this guy’s gone for his own custom format, then maybe it’ll be able to carve out its own comfy niche…
Looking forward to giving it a shot, when I can find my DS. It took second place in the Wild compo at Blockparty, and the pouet thread is here.

The Chip Tune Marching Band, which I helped organise in Newcastle and Helsinki, has gone to New York for Bent Fest without me (while I’ve been living it up at Breakpoint :). Jamie Allen (lecturer in the department I work for) and Kazuhiro Jo put this idea together and are doing the workshop wherever they can.

Yes, I hear you cry, there are no actual ‘chiptunes’ involved, per se. The phrase is attention-grabbing, though, and reflects the fact that people are making crazy chip-style noises with squarewave generators, and it’s all terribly good fun.

Having said that, if you look closely at the video on the Make article, you’ll notice a surprisingly high ratio of chip-musicians to regular people: Cerebral Scars, Goto80 and, of course, myself :D

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/04/handmade_music_bent_edition_-_tonig.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Just got back from Breakpoint ‘09 in Bingen, where my favourite production of the weekend was Syntax Infinity – an MSX2 demo from Tulou and Traktor. I dunno exactly who worked on it, but they’re both excellent Amiga groups I wasn’t particularly surprised to see that the great music was done by everyone’s favourite Esau, who’s a member of both. Anyway, check it out.

I’ll elaborate and possibly post some similar things of interest as and when I recover from the 10-hour living-death layover at Stansted and stop hallucinating.