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SOUNDCHECK

MAY 2011

INSIDE: THE BEAT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD: AN ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION

REMIXERS: ARTISTS OR CROOKS?

A SONGWRITER SHARES HIS SECRETS

PIRACY: A CASE FOR FREEDOM

AND MUCH MORE!

Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents Table Table of of Contents Contents Letter From the Editors.........................................................2 Group Bios..............................................................................3 Favorites of the Decades........................................................5

What to Remember When Attending a Concert.............6 We We We So Appalled.......................................................7 A Pirate’s Life for Me............................................................8

Legal Talk...........................................................................9 Electronic Revolution.....................................................11 What You Want in Your Band.......................................12 Music Making Software..................................................13

Rap It Up..........................................................................14 Instruments That the Ladies Love................................15 Upcoming ACL festival..................................................16

How To Write a Song...................................................18 Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Hearrd of................19 Chip Tunes.....................................................................21

Dear Readers, Thanks for reading this and stuff. Frank and Abby worked on it. Read the article about Columbine. It’s actually not depressing.

We hope that you are able to enjoy our magazine, and hopefully learn something from it as well.

Fun Fact: If you read this magazine while wearing a “Three Wolf Moon” shirt, your head will explode from awesomeness.

With love, The Soundcheck Staff.

Frank Feder (Adobe Illustrator) Frank Feder is hella cool. This fam is so live.

Frank is really in tune with music. He is really good at using music software to reveal his inner self and is always making hip-cool beats.

However, Frank feels that having another side of his life is important. This is why he plays lacrosse, as the goalie, such a Lax bro. “I’m hot because I’m fly; you ain’t cause you not,” says Frank one morning. Frank is so underground and cool, you can’t even find him in Google images. So, I had to hack into his computer and steal all of his gigabytes. Fortunately, he still had his megabytes.

Frank Feder actually does spend some of his time making music using Fruity Loops, a music making software that he highly recommends and promotes. Frank encourages others to also write their own music as well. Frank is a loving person who will maybe eventually care for you, after he makes up some nicknames for you of course.

This is a high resolution photograph that comes up when you search “Franklin Feder” while demanding 1024x768 image size. Finding high resolution photos of our actual group was quite problematic, and so we decided to do this instead.

Fuller Taylor (Fullah)

This is a high resolution photograph that comes up when you search “Fuller” while demanding 1024x768 image size. Fuller does actually play soccer, but he does not play for a maroon and white team, nor does he look this cool when playing.

Fuller is a member of Souncheck with a love of different things than others around him. While growing up, Fuller liked to play sports. Fuller is a really useful member of our group, specializing in making layouts that Abby has to fix and generally stealing Frank’s gigabytes. When Fuller is on task, he may get something done. But generally, whatever it is he does get done people don’t like.

Outside of class, Fuller spends his time playing soccer, playing on the computer, writing music, doing karate, and making fun of blind people.

Sometimes called “Young Grasshopper” he is known around town for being a total n00b. He fights with the speed of the wind, the cunning of a fox, and the strength of a forest fire. His middle name is his first name, but his first name is his first name. Not many people really understands why, but we understand that it makes us fuller people. Our group is full of spirit because of Fuller. We’re probably the fullest group in ezine.

Abby Saadeh (Abbuh)

This is another photograph that comes up when you search “Abby Hipster Glasses” while demanding 1024x768 image size.

Abby is actually pretty underground, but she doesn’t have a crow and would freak out if a crow landed on her arm like that.

Abby Saadeh was one of the most productive members in this group. By that I mean that she worked the most out of our group. And while she took a while to get things completed, she worked the hardest. If Miss Abby was not in this group, it is quite possible that our magazine would not have been finished. Abby actually writes a lot, and seems to be the final test that every article must go through, editing them down after you think it is done. Often times, she would show the page back to you and you won’t recognize it anymore.

Abby also practices Jewish Mysticism. She can be found late at night drawing pentagrams on the floor and writing in blood.It’s weird. She also drives a Camaro and speeds everywhere she goes. Her catchphrase is “Go away”, which she loves repeating in Ezine. She is also a member of Team Rocket, and helps with the technical stuff.

Recently she has been under some pressure from her supervisors because the air balloons aren’t quite Pidgey-resistant.

Sam Brown (Sam Brown) Sam Brown is a member of Soundcheck who spends a lot of his time NYAN’ing. Nyan Cat is a loop with electronic music with a .gif of a dancing cat. There is a rainbow behind him. Sam Brown also is a popular artists, 50% of voters on the Souncheck blog say Sam Brown is their favorite kind of music. He is a god among men, omnipotent in the skies of Austin, Texas, where he has lived his whole life in solitude. When he is bored, he shoots down fighter jets with his tongue. His tongue is the stuff of legend, some say it’s over 700 meters long.The Japanese tsunami was caused by Sam Brown doing a cannonball at a beach party in San Francisco. He wears a toga with Hermes’s shoes, with purple embroidery.

His millions of subjects offer him their first born child, but it is never enough for him. He requires that all of his people obey his every whim and frolic in his majestic glory. Whenever addressing Sam Brown, you must address him by “Sam Brown,” no more, no less.

This is a photograph that comes up when you search “Sam Brown Ninja” while demanding 1024x768 image size. Sam Brown is actually a ninja, and is really badass, yet we cannot verify at this time whether or not he is the Man in Black or not.

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Favorites of the Decades

Fuller Taylor

Haddaway - What is Love?

What is love? A hit from the 80s, reflecting the disco music of the time, that is still loved by many people today, especially in our teenage youth.

2010

2005 2002 2000 Gary Jules - Mad World

1995

Gary Jules is a Brittish artist who remade the Tears for Fears song Mad World, slowing down the tempo and adding a piano part. He brought more emotion to the song, and it became a popilar international hit.

1993 1990 1985 Hollies - He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother He ain’t heavy! He’s my brother! This classic song is of loyalty and being true to your family, and standing up for your friends.

1980

Foreigner - Urgent

1975 1970 1969 1965 1960

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1981

Urgent is only one of the numerous hits that Foreigner had, including Cold as Ice, Hot Blooded, and Jukebox Hero.

What To Remember When Atternding a Concert

Lay off the make up, girls! It can get hot out there and you don’t want your makeup running down your face!!

Abby Saadeh

If possible bring your own drinks!! Drinks at music festivals can be expensive

Bring a Water Bottle; You don’t want to dehydrate yourself!

Dress For the Weather

Do not wear your best clothes; chances are you will get dirty (spilled drinks, dirt, etc.)

At a large venue it may be possible to bring a chair; It is tiring to stand all day

We We We So Appalled

Abby Saadeh

“W

e don’t hate you because you’re famous, you’re famous because we hate you.”, Charlie Sheen tweeted after recent popularity surge of the song ‘Friday’, after it gaining over 100 million views.

Friday has become one of the most popular viral videos of 2011, becoming even more popular than Justin Bieber when compared on the iTunes top 100 chart.

“What the hell?” this was Katie Gleason’s first reaction to the Friday music video. “Saturday comes after Sunday? Really? I had no idea.” this is a very similar reaction to that of many other viewers resulting in over 2 million dislikes. “She just

“Now-a- days it seems like everyone’s doing songs like this”, says Leah Harvey, “There are people who can actually sing and who have been trying to get a record deal and can’t, yet Rebecca Black can get her stupid ass on the Today show when she can’t sing at all. These songs are seriously only good at being catchy.”

As rebecca black said in her recent interview with the Today Show, “It’s gonna get stuck in their head, that’s the point of it, it’s a catchy song”. And that’s just what it does, “I couldn’t get it out of my head!,” says Katie, “But over time, after hearing it all over the place, I guess I got used to her voice,

“We don’t hate you because

you’re famous, you’re famous because we hate you.” honestly can’t sing. It’s pretty obvious with all the auto-tune and the nasally tone.” Katie said as the chorus played. “I think this just shows that people will listen to anything as long as it’s catchy.”

Other artist like Lady Gaga or Ke$ha whose songs have similar attributes to that of Friday, consist of highly repetitive lyrics and the use of recording equipment to change the voice. “I think that because Rebecca used similar things in her song that other popular artists use, it helped her to gain Internet popularity so quickly,” Alex Haight said while her singing filled the air. And Friday is still becoming increasingly popular, gaining almost a million views in just 10 hours.

and the song kept getting stuck in my head. So I’d say I don’t really hate it, but I don’t like it either.”

Ark Music factory, the company that produced ‘Friday’ gets paid by kids and their parents who think they have some talent to show the world or whatever. They come out with hundreds of thousands of these “music videos” per week and just hope that one gets viewed enough to become popular. “It was just dumb luck that hers happened to be the one that became popular.” Leah Harvey says, “I doubt the popularity of this song with last much longer.”

A Pirate’s Life for Me How piracy changed the music industry forever

P

iracy, the illegal downloading of software and music, has become a huge nuisance for the music industry. Many have been fined hundreds of thousands by angry record companies and the RIAA. But could this new era of free music be pushing artists to make music for pleasure rather than profit? The answer is yes.

Piracy is the distribution or possession of music or software. The term “piracy” was slapped on to this process to link the illegal process to murdering and plundering and more unethical acts committed on the high seas. This term makes an act that is harmless to something harmful, just one of the tactics the RIAA uses to try to control the amount of piracy occurring.

This tactic is obviously not working as well as they might hope. More than 95% of music downloaded is pirated (digitalmusicnews.com). This shows the sheer amount of people supporting piracy, and spiting the music industry. The reasons are plenty and varied, but most of the reason is that these “pirates” can’t afford to pay the expenses to fill up the mp3 player they bought from the same company selling the songs.

Amazon and iTunes have a common price of 99 cents for songs. This is too expensive for just one three minute song! And,

up to a whopping $1.29 for just a single song. At this rate, the music industry is almost bringing this crisis upon themselves. Why would these customers pay to get one song, when they could get hundreds of songs for free in the same time?

Frank Feder

enjoy music and it’s more important to help people than to make music.

His song “We’re All the Pirate Bay” is the official song of the most popular and notorious torrenting site on the web “The Pirate Bay”. He makes music for people to enjoy, and he makes money by donations, not having people pay for his music.

His song states “Don’t write songs to make money, I write songs for people to sing along”. This shows the unity achieved through music, which anyone can appreciate. More artists such as the ultra-popular group “Radiohead” and “Girl Talk” have put their albums online for free, with the option to donate if you wish. This makes these artists plenty of money, without forcing their listeners to resort to illegal resources to get their music.

Piracy is not bad. Piracy is simply the beginning of an era of artists who produce music for the enjoyment of others, whose revenue comes not from forcing people to pay for their creations, but from shows and donations. An age where the huge companies like Apple and Amazon are not the profiteers in the music industry, but the artists themselves make the money they deserve. That is why I support the piracy of music and if the music industry can’t keep up, I think that’s just progress.

More than 95% of downloaded music is pirated The reason these figures are so startling is that the accessibility of illegal music is at an all time high. If you don’t have the dough, all you have to do is go to a torrenting site, click one button, and you have an entire album, or discography even, of whatever artist you choose.

This is the root of the piracy “problem”.

Although the music industry is being hurt, millions of people are being helped by gaining access to free music. Music brightens any one’s day. Even music artists understand this.

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oday’s society is in a cultural lock down.

The music industry has become so restricted that it is limiting the creativity of musicians. Artists like the Beastie Boys would not be able to produce music under present day restrictions, due to laws that the music industry has imposed. This is leading to a generation where musical creativity is limited resulting in a society that lacks personal expression.

Mashing is the process of taking two or more songs and putting elements of either song together to create a new piece of music.

This style of creating new music has been used centuries ago from Gregorian chants to today’s hip hop. DJ Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) creates his music by sampling catchy beats from multiple popular songs and cleverly combining them to create a new piece of music.

Making music is a form of creating art and like any good piece of art, mashing is creative and unique. While some people don’t believe that remixing is a form of art, I do. Music, like any art, should be pleasing for the listener to hear, which this genre of music is for many people. When something is innovative new and pleasing it should be considered art, right? But then why is a dull picture of a fruit bowl still considered ‘art?’

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ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION

he crowd is going wild, jumping and screaming and waving their hands in the air. Lights are flashing. You feel like your bones are being shaken by the intense bass coming from the huge sub-woofers. This kind of scene is becoming increasingly popular with the new generation.

Teens like Feroz Ahmed are spending more and more time at parties listening to this new music.

“The people [at parties] love to hear music with a strong beat. Music like dubstep and electro-house are my favorite.”

While Feroz has only gone to a few electronic music parties, also known as raves, he loves the scene and tries to keep his mind open when he is discovering new artists.

“I used to like jazz and blues, and as a bassist I still do.

But people just don’t want to hear those kinds of music anymore. If I go to a party and people are swing dancing, I would be really confused. But if I go to a party and people are shuffling and fist pumping, I feel right at home.”

Many like him are changing their preferences towards music with a harsh beat and a loud melody. In a world of stress and multitasking, some say that the fast BPM (beats per minute) helps them do things faster. Other people claim that the loud sounds help them relieve stress.

“Sometimes I get home [from school] and I feel really bad or tired. I’ll turn on some Showtek and then I feel good again, and I’ll be wide awake.”

Frank Feder

Showtek plays a kind of music called hardstyle, known in the rave community as the most violent and angry music there is. They have a lot of fans, because their music is empowering. A lot of the lyrics are about youth takeover and how anyone who doesn’t like their music can “F*** off ”.

Music companies aren’t making as much anymore, either. New forms of music are easy to make, and easy to get out to the public. Sites like soundcloud.com are popular for new musicians to get their music heard.

The record companies can’t control what’s published anymore. A lot of the new sounds are about how much the big record companies are controlling what’s heard.

The youth doesn’t like to pay for this rebellious sound. The music is frequently pirated, making it even easier for the message in these songs to get out to the public. More people hear it, more people enjoy it, and even more people resist the traditional forms of relaxed music.

The new generation needs a rallying point, and they have found it in dubstep and hardstyle. The older generations can’t stand the new music, citing it as “terrible, angry, and rough”, but the teenagers love it for the same reasons. This new music has made the youth angry. It has awakened them to how little control they have and how much power is imposed on them. These new beats represent an era of revolution and not accepting the control of older generations.

What You Want in Your Band

Fuller Taylor

The guitar is a held and plucked instrument.

The number of variations of guitars are so numerous it is almost pointless to count. There are rough illustrations dating back to the 9th century of a person playing a string plucked instrument. Simply because the guitar has an ancient past doesn’t make it useless today. The guitar is commonly used to “nail in the hook.”

This means that the guitar plays a hook, which is what keeps your listeners interested.

The bass guitar is used in many kinds of music. The bass is set the mood of the feel. Often times the bass is simply setting the beat, and gives the basuic chord changes of the song.

The chord changes of the song often depict the mood of the song, and can direct where your song is going. The kind of bass you have can be important to the style of your song.

Therefore, the bass is an essential instrument to have in your band.

The drums are a crucial instrument to have in a band.

The drums offer a unique sound that can guide your music along. They can set the tempo and give a basic “beat.” The first historical record of the use of drums is 684 BC, when drums were used to increase a soldier’s morale and change the outcome of a battle. Even today, the drums set the mood of your song, and are an important instrument to have in your band, what’s more, an instrument that should be played well.

SoundCheck 12

Music Making Software

Frank Feder

Creating Professional Sounds From Your Personal Computer

Fruity Loops 9 is a favorite around the offices of Soundcheck. This software is available for $99 dollars, which is a bargain considering all it does. The FL9 sequencer is notorious for being userfriendly and very customizable. Personally, I use the software with the Vengeance sound packs. These sound packs add a professional sound to your beats, and cut down on the cheesy presets you need to use from FL9.

Reason is one of the best softsynth programs available. A softsynth is a program that makes takes in MIDI data and renders that data into a sound.

Reason lets you customize your sounds however you like. The tools available in reason let you create insane basses, arpeggiated chord snyths, and peircing high notes if your song calls for them.

Trial and error with the presets of this program is always fruitful. Ranging from $100 to $250, this program is definitely worth trying out if you get sick of always using 3x-Osc to produce your synths.

Native Instruments is a pretty well known company in the music making community. Instrumental players and In-the-box mixers alike usually have one or two Native Instruments products lying around. Focusing on electronic music production, “Massive” is a VST plugin by NI that creates a truly filthy bass. Dubstep is becoming increasingly popular, and you may be wondering where you can pick up some of your own dirty wubs. Massive is one of the best ways, if not THE best way, to make a truly awesome dubstep synth. If you’re interested in dubstep production, make sure to check out NI’s massive for $199. NI’s products are on the expensive side, but make up for it in quality.

Rap It Up

Fuller Taylor

The Rap Music of Today

D

id you know that going to prison is a joke?

After serving a year long term for gun possession, one charge for possession of a weapon, and another charge for possession of a loaded weapon, all Lil Wayne had to say the day after his hearing was “What’s up, guys?” In the hours before his sentencing, Wayne only wanted to make sure his ‘real fans’ didn’t lose faith in him, saying “To all my fans, my real fans I really, really truly love you. I love you with all of me for real.”

A criminal record like Lil Wayne’s would actually prevent someone from getting a job. Fortunately, Lil Wayne is a rapper, a rap artist, and going to prison increases his income. In 2007-2008, his yearly income was $13 million dollars a year.

In 2008-2009 his yearly income was $18 million.

Fortunately for him, Lil Wayne does not have to worry about being employed. This is why he can go to prison for a year, and not worry about it.

This is why Lil Wayne actually started his own blog, and blogged to his fans while in prison, even after being moved to solitary confinement.

I found numerous lists of the “best rap songs,” and then I found ten songs that showed up repeatedly on those lists. Then, I got the lyrics of each of the

selected songs. Going through and circling every use of profanity, conducting my own research, proved itself to be quite a difficult task. I then counted the total number of uses of profanity and the total number of words altogether. On average, 11.3% of every rap song is profanity. That means that more than one out of every ten words is obscene.

Furthermore, using swear words does not have any significant lyrical advantage, other than being generally short and having a few different meanings.

Yet anyone with a decent thesaurus could easily find numerous viable and valid substitutes, with many matching in meaning and syllable. The reason that rap artists use swear words is to identify with their audience. Identifying with one’s audience is a part of music, but you must also practice what you preach. Practicing what you preach doesn’t mean hitting the streets and getting arrested though.

Many rap artists get arrested, yet, according to the Rolling Stone when they interviewed Lil Wayne, they do this because they want to have a “badge of honor,” because their fans will like them more.

In 2009, T-Pain made $15 million dollars. He did not make this money through his music, he made this by being featured (as a back-up and he gets the last verse) in a “I’m on a Boat” by the Lonely Island.

T-Pain made his money through entrepreneurship, not by being a successful, talented, and hardworking artist. Another artist, Timbaland, has not put out an album since 2007. Instead, he makes his money, again, as a enrepenuer. Instead, he spends his time producing music for other artists, such as Madonna and Chris Cornell. 50 Cent and Akon both owns a clothing line, Kanye West designs shoes, and Lil Wayne starred in a Film. These artists became famous, and then used their acquired fame to become as famous and rich as they possibly could.

In the end, the current rap music you hear today is an industry. It is an occupation, neither a hobby nor past time.

SoundCheck 14

Instruments that the ladies love Vuvu zela!

Sam Brown

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SoundCheck 16

How to Write a Song Fuller Taylor

W

alt Lewis had scheduled a writing session with George Brown, a fellow songwriter. Walt made a list of about ten songs that he would go over with George.

When they actually met, Walt would sing the songs off the list and together they would decide what song they would develop. Walt Lewis had gone to Nashville two days before the writing session, and had been struck by a movie that was coming out. As he thought a more and more about the movie, Population

The audience also plays a character, which can be the audience, if your singer has more of a narrative role, or sometime that audience plays a “mysterious character called you.” What is important to know when writing a song is who you want your audience to be.

“You can give them that is accessible, that is familiar enough to make them comfortable, and yet at the same

“The most important thing to remember in writing a song is that the person who sings it will be playing a character” None, he thought of the title for a new song, Population One. When he finally walker into the room, and played a only a little bit of hi new song, and George Brown said “OK, we’re writing this today.”

“You cannot force songwriting to ‘happen,’ ” says Walt Lewis. Songwriting is something that you have to really work at. In this story I will try to help you along the way to writing songs.

“The most important thing to remember in writing a song is that the person who sings it will be playing a character,” says Walt Lewis.“It’s important to know... who is the character that the singer is playing.”

time different enough to be interesting to them,” says Walt Lewis. One way to make your songs interesting to your audience is to understand some general forms of commercial songs.The first, is a verse chorus bridge form, which consists of a verse, then a chorus, then a bridge, usually closed by a repeat of the chorus. Another is a verse channel chorus. This form closely resembles the previous form, except between the verse and chorus there is a sort of ‘channel,’ where (generally) the pitch rises higher and higher and finally drops off at the chorus.

The last form of commercially popular songs is where the sections are in an A-A-B-A form.”

In the A-A-B-A form, there are two general sections, an A section and a B section. The music and lyrics are different between the two sections. In the A-A-B-A form the title is generally the last line of a section. But titles can also be an afterthought, for any form.

“The hardest part [of songwriting] is to make the song worth listening to,” says Walt Lewis. “And by that I mean there are hundreds of thousands, millions of songs that have been written, and when you have an idea it may be the best idea that you’ve ever had, but when you actually perform the song, you’re putting your song up against every other song that’s ever been written about that particular subject, or that particular idea.”

While this might sound like a difficult feat, you will get better with practice.“Most songwriters know that to really be a songwriter it’s something that you have to do over and over and over. Very few people write a successful song or even a particularly good song the very first time. So my advice would be to do it over and over because you love it, and then try over time to get better at it and learn as much as you can about it.”

SoundCheck 18

Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of

Abby Saadeh

SleepTalk Sleep Talk is an Austin based Electronic/Dream Core band.

This band consists of vocalist/keyboardist Mike McNeil, guitarist Benjamin Bizarre, bassist Nicholas Wong and drummer Anthony Ortega.They are inspired by The Cure, Minus the Bear, Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse.

Good Song: Saturn Website: SleepTalkBand.com

Crystal Castles Crystal Castles is a group from Toronto, Canada.

They were named after the lyric “Crystal Castles, the source of all power” from the theme song for She-Ra’s fortress. Their debut album was included in NME’s “Top 50 Albums of the Decade”. By a fan their music was described of as “ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast that pierces your skull with their sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever”.

Song: Baptism Website: CrystalCastles.com

Delorean Delorean is a Spanish band that was formed in 2000 that creates Indie music with a Mediterranean sound .The band was named after the iconic time machine from the Back to the Future series.

Delorean first got music press exposure after making remixes for The XX, Cold Cave and Franz Ferdinand.

Good Song: Real Love

Twin Shadow Twin Shadow is the stage name of American musician George Lewis Jr. who creates Indie Pop/Electronic music. George Lewis Jr. was born in the Dominican Republic and later moved to Florida and then moved to NYC where he started creating music.

Song: Castles in the Snow Website TwinShadow.net

Local Natives Local Natives is an indie rock band from Los Angeles.

They produce music with a Psychedelic/Folk sound.

Local Natives started to attract favorable views from the music press in which they were compared to Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend.

Song: Wide Eyes

SoundCheck 20

Sam Brown

T

he Atari 2600 is credited with being one of the world’s first ever home video game console.

Most famous for it’s classic titles such as “Pac-Man” and “Pong”, few realize that this ancient computer can be used as a musical instrument. In 2002, Musician Paul Slocum developed a video game cartridge for the 2600, called the “Synth Cart” which allows the user to snythesize sounds utilizing the 2600’s onboard sound chip. The 2600 can generate “Square Waves”, “Sawtooth Waves”, “Noise Waves”, and other varieties of The Commodore 64 was a revolution in video sounds on 2 channels. You can buy a game and computer sound. It is famous for its Synthcart of your own at Atariage.com use of the SID(Sound Interface Device) chip. for just 25$ The SID featured 3 oscillators that can generate square, triangle, saw tooth, and noise waves.

On top of that, each of these channels can be passed through a filter and utilize a ring modulator. Also, each channel has a volume envelope (ADSR) control. To produce Commodore-like sounds, you can track down a SIDstation (pretty expensice) which uses the same SID chip, or you can just download Goattracker and load up your created songs onto the Commodore. One artist who uses the Commodore’s SID is Timberland.

T

he Nintendo Entertainment System was first released in Japan under the title ‘Famicom’, short for Family Computer, in 1983. This console is most known for spawning series like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Using PC programs like Famitracker and NerdtrackerII, one can make songs utilizing the 2 pulse wave channels, triangle wave channel, noise channel, and the DPCM custom wave form channel. Of course, if you want to play your PC made songs on you NES, you have to do some intermediate hardware modification. If you can muster up the moolah, you can purchase a Midines cartridge that will make in MIDI compatible device able to operate the NES for about 109$.

S

ega released the Genesis (or Mega Drive in most nonamerican countries) in Japan October 29, 1988. The Genesis’s most popular series was arguably Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact, one of the composers for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack was Michael Jackson. The Genesis has 2 sound chipsl; a 6 channel Yamaha2612 and a 4 channel modified Texas Instruments’ SN76489. The Genesis has a unique sound and is great for intricate songs, but can be rather costly. You can download a .VGM Genesis tracker and load your songs on to a Genesis flash cartridge (a blank game cartridge that can be connected to a computer), which will run you about 80$.

The Atari ST was a personal computer released by the atari corporation that had mainstream success for use as a musical instrument, largely due to it’s built in MIDI ports. There were many programs that were designed for music composition on the ST. But finding one of these today is a bit hard, especially with prices on Ebay ranging from 70$-100$. The Atari ST was used by popular artists like Madonna and Fatboy Slim.

The Nintendo Gameboy is arguably the most popular retro console to create music on. The Gameboy has 4 channels of synthesis; 2 pulse waves, a noise channel, and a custom wave form channel. The Gameboy is great because of it’s portability, and getting your hands on one is not nearly as difficult or expensive as most consoles. You can find one on Ebay for 20 or 30 dollars, At a pawn shop for about 20$. Gameboy compositions are usually done on LSDJ, a game created by hobbyist Johan Kotlinski, or Nanoloop, Which is more of a sequencer with programmable loops. The gameboy is famously used in one of Beck’s EPs, and is used by popular chiptune artist Bitshifter.

SoundCheck 22

I GAVE THAT GIRL A PUPPY

GIRLS LOVE PUPPIES

Prepared by MagCloud for LASA EZINE. Get more at lasaezine.magcloud.com.