Chiptune

Chiptune is written for the actual or emulated sound hardware of machines like the NES (Ricoh 2A03), Game Boy (DMG/MGB), Commodore 64 (SID 6581), and arcade boards using the AY-3-8910 or SN76489. The palette is dictated by the chip: usually two pulse-wave channels, a triangle, a noise channel, and on the C64 a more flexible three-voice synth with filters. Tempos sit roughly between 120 and 180 BPM, and because each channel can only play one note at a time, melody, bass, and percussion compete for the same four or five voices. Composers use fast arpeggios as fake chords and channel-switching tricks to fake drum hits, so the music tends to be busy and precisely sequenced.

The scene grew out of the European demoscene of the late 1980s and the SID-tune trackers built around the Commodore 64. A second wave appeared in the early 2000s once emulators and Game Boy cartridges like LSDj (Little Sound DJ, 2001) and Nanoloop turned consoles into portable instruments, and acts started performing live on hardware. New York's Anamanaguchi, Tokyo's YMCK, and the UK's Sabrepulse pushed chiptune out of the demoscene and into clubs and indie labels through the mid-2000s. The release of Anamanaguchi's 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' game soundtrack in 2010 brought the sound to a much larger audience.

Count the voices: most NES tracks use four channels at once, so when the melody jumps up, something else has to drop out or share a channel. Listen for arpeggios so fast they blur into a chord — that's the standard trick to imply harmony on a monophonic voice. The noise channel does the work of an entire drum kit, so kick, snare, and hi-hat are all just shaped bursts of white noise at different lengths.

Start with YMCK, 'Family Music' (2003), which pairs Japanese-pop melodies with strict NES-style restrictions. Then try Anamanaguchi, 'Endless Fantasy' (2013) for the live-band-plus-chip hybrid.

LSDj, the Game Boy tracker most live chiptune sets are made on, was originally written by a single Swedish developer, Johan Kotlinski, in 2000 — a Game Boy cartridge sold for around $50 became the standard instrument of an international touring scene.