Category: Music

8 bit cover version of Magic! – Rude: Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

I couldn’t think of a more ironic way to celebrate a divorce than with a song about a marriage proposal. Hahaha. 🙂

One of those hybrid SID waveforms of mixing triangle with a thin pulse makes an appearance in this one. Sawtooth bass, very minimal PWM – just to mix up the flavour a bit. Oh, and SID 6581 R4 filter goodness in the instrumental solo.

I love a bit of reggae, even if it is watered down for pop music. Hahaha.

Made with ♥
Gavin

8 bit Bitpop (Chiptune) cover of an awesome 80s song – Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

I wanted that bangy-clangy sound so I’ve used a bit of ring-mod in this one. Kinda feels like how I did Kiss’ ‘I was made for loving you’ – but different. 👍

One (or two) of my most loved features of the 6581/8580 SID Chip is its Ring and Sync-Mod capabilities. I don’t use them often since they are hard beasts to master. I’ve gone for quite a bit of ring/sync in this one.

I’ve also done a nice little transition from a real whistle to a ring-modded SID generated one.

As always, made with ♥
Gavin

Made with the sounds of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES/Famicom).

Think of this as two NES’ together. It’s Bitpop, I’m allowed to use a few more channels if I like! 🙂

Made with ♥
Gavin

Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

Brown, blue, violet sky, hurtful, purple, green & mean – Anything you like. Spin the wheel, see if you win!

I don’t know how I wanted this one to sound but the way it turned out is exactly how I wanted it to sound – part carnival/funfair and part glorified ice cream van. 😁

I’ve been to the Brisbane City Amusement Centre and the Sunnybank Amusement Centre and noticed how more games are skills based carnival games rather than video games. I think that’s where my carnival inspiration came for this low-fidelity cover.

As always, made with ♥
Gavin

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsqdbEQ9Muk[/embedyt]

Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

I had a fella leave a comment on Reddit after I asked what other Iconic Aussie songs I could consider doing and he came back with “How good are you at emulating bagpipes?”. That could only mean one thing. This song.

I actually tried doing this one a few months ago but it ended up on the cutting room floor because the vocals I have are, well, not the standard I wanted. But I really like this song and wanted to have a go at those 8-bit bagpipes!

Since I recently did ‘Lily Was Here’ and that is an instrumental. I thought “why the hell not?”. So I’ve picked up from where I left off with this one. I tried again to massage the vocals into the piece but, nope, it just wasn’t working for me.

Here’s ‘You’re the Voice’ – no vocals but still quite bitpop. Still using exclusively the sounds of the Commodore 64.

As always, made with ♥
Gavin

Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

I think I’ve mentioned that I love Sia. 😂
Her music is super expressive and heavily utilises moody & serious chord progressions. I like her as a performer too. She often compliments her singing with performance art – possibly as she doesn’t see herself as a performer – it works for me just the same whatever her reasons are. Her vocal capabilities are also amazing. I know I’m using cover singers but these cover singers have a tough job in doing one of her songs.

So here’s my go at ‘Elastic Heart’s in six SID channels. The percussion alone is two channels. I hope you like it.

Made with ♥
Gavin

Made with the sounds of the Commodore 64 home computer.

When this song came out in 1989, I couldn’t stop listening to it. I remember recording it onto a tape for my car stereo and playing it over and over again. There’s a few songs that I remember over time incessantly playing – The Obvious Child, Paul Simon, Elecktraglide, David Whittaker,

My plan for this song is to do multiple versions by targeting various sound chips from the 80s. I’m starting with my beloved C64 SID chip but I also plan to do a Amstrad/ZX Spectrum, NES & Gameboy version of this song. Over time, not straight away. It’s going to be a side project.

It’s strange, I used to do instrumental only pieces but now I’ve grown accustomed to doing these Bitpop songs with vocals, I’m a little scared to do a song without vocals as I have nowhere to hide the imperfections.

This remains to be Bitpop even though it doesn’t have any vocals as I am still using modern sound production techniques to aide the underlying chiptune.

Made with ♥
Gavin