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Rooted in the emergence of video game audio technology, and subsequently rerouted through the subversive musicality of an underground participatory culture, chiptune is a form of electronic music that blossomed into a means of self-expression and global phenomenon toward the end of the twentieth century. This musical genre is the subject of a new special series in the Journal of Sound and Music in Games. We asked the guest editors of the special series to tell us more. 

by George Reid and Marilou Polymeropoulou

It all began with a blip: the simple sounds—electronic buzzes, fizzes, and rasps—that emitted from the earliest forms of mid-20th century computer entertainment like Tennis For Two, Spacewar!, and Pong. These brief, basic sounds would soon develop into the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s alongside the proliferation of home computers and video game consoles, animating the platforming acrobatics of Bubble Bobble, Super Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog, and the musical refrains that textured their pixelated worlds. These are the sounds of ‘chiptune’, the name given to the electronic music and SFX of video games spanning 8 and 16-bit generations of computer and console hardware. It is a name that refers to timbral characteristics and technology alike: in contrast to the cinematic finesse of today’s game audio production, early video game consoles and home computers of the 20th century synthesized their audio in real time, lending it distinct sonic characteristics born from limitations in processing and memory power. And long after the obsolescence of 8-bit and 16-bit console and home computing hardware, chiptune’s routes into the 21st century persist as simultaneously tethered and liberated from its video gaming and technological roots.

In the last 25 years, chiptune has flourished through the remediation of the technological constraints—both compositional and timbral—that lend it its sonorous distinctiveness. This remediation has seen a rapid proliferation of intertwined technological and cultural practices that make up the vast umbrella of chiptune’s musical ‘biome’. This is achieved in a multitude of ways: maintaining original platform hardware and homebrew trackers to manipulate the sound chips; modding and retrofitting the hardware to bend the abilities of the machine beyond its designed, commercially-orientated potentials; and emulating sound chips via virtual instrument plugins (VSTs) and sampling methods in order to make chip-sounds more accessible without the economic and cultural capital of the hardware. These heterogeneous methods of remediation are an exploration of and experimentation with obsolete audio technologies that were once the only means to produce video game sound. 

One of the reasons why I chose to study chipmusic was my own memories of Game Boy sounds and graphics from my childhood years: being unwell with chicken pox and playing Ducktales in my bed; discovering one summer The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and being so enthralled that I continued playing it although it was in a language I did not know how to speak (German; another kid at camp gave me his game). These sounds were the future to me then and when learning about chiptune, I thought that this is the sound of a future past. —George Reid

There are many notable instances celebrated within the chipscene and beyond. The first decade of the millennium marked the popularization of the Nintendo Game Boy as an accessible and mobile music-making device, predominantly using Nanoloop (1998) and Little Sound DJ (2000). Events such as the Blip Festival and netlabels promoted chiptunes to a wider audience, both locally and globally. Chiptune was established as an internet-based participatory culture, and an umbrella of online communities were a place of listening to music, learning how to compose it, interacting with creators and fans, and finding out about new releases and in-person events. The experimental and playful ethos that stemmed from the demoscene ideology continued, adding more nuances to the subgenre of bitpop which, at the time of writing, incorporates both chiptune and pop music compositions crafted using 8-/16-bit platforms or their characteristic sounds.

Local hubs of chiptune activity kept expanding in the second decade of the 2000s, and more chiptune parties appeared. With the emergence of social media new ways of communication and connection were established. Local events such as Eindbaas were then able to broadcast live online via platforms like Twitch. Just as more online communities appeared e.g. uCollective, others disappeared almost overnight (see the 8bitcollective), and at the same time, online music hosting platforms such as Soundcloud and Bandcamp were embraced by composers. The global technological shift that happened during the Coronavirus Pandemic created more opportunities for online performances and for creating a sense of digital belonging. In this time, a variety of chiptune-related products were launched, from Podcasts to weekly parties on Twitch.

Moving on to the third decade, the world was in the wake of Covid. Chipwrecked remains currently the largest outdoor chiptune event; Chipmusic.org and Micromusic.net are the only online communities still in use, with more and more discussions on chiptune taking place on Reddit, Discord, and other social media depending on the sociocultural background of fans and creators. 

Chiptune’s distinctive timbral bleeps, bloops, and blips are as prominent as they ever were 25 years into the 21st century. 2025, in fact, is a resonant year for chiptune for a few reasons: the year marks the 40th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s release; the Nintendo Game Boy music tracker Little Sound DJ (LSDJ) turns 25 years old and the celebration takes place in Sweden, its birthplace. The last 25 years have seen a vast expanse of chip-musical innovation and the proliferation of (sub)genres, some evoking the compositional practices of 20th century video games and others transcending these ties altogether. Though emerging in the late 1970s and 1980s, 21st century chiptune presents rich (sub)cultural, musical, and technological grounds for study, and the literature on compositional practices and scenes have been prominent in the years since. 

A significant portion of early writings have been predominantly authored by practitioners who have adopted techno-social perspectives on chiptunes (Tomczak 2008, 2011; Kotlinski 2009; Phelps 2009; Carlsson 2010) while further work focuses on various theoretical strands: ethnographic and cultural perspectives (Yabsley 2007; Pasdzierny 2012; Nova 2014; Polymeropoulou 2014, 2019; D’Errico 2016; Kummen 2018; McAlpine 2018; Hermes 2022; Hermes 2024), ludomusicology and compositional techniques (Collins 2008, 2014; Carlsson 2008; Troise 2020; Schartmann  2025), mobility and handheld production (Tonelli 2014), artistic production and networks of social actors (Goriunova 2012), intellectual property and copyright (Zeilinger 2012, 2013), listening subjectivity and fandom/subcultural identity (Reid 2018; 2020).

Against the backdrop of research insights, our new special series "Chiptune in the 21st Century" with the Journal of Sound and Music in Games seeks to develop chiptune scholarship with focus on accessibility, diversity of represented voices, and critical engagement with the subject matter of chiptune’s ongoing expanse in the here-and-now as well as in relation to its vibrant history. With the last quarter of a century in mind, the series commences with the theme of memory power, featuring "Aesthetics of Fondly Remembered Chiptunes" by Oskari Koskela, Kai Tuuri, and Jukka Vahlo, who provide an ethnographic study into chiptune’s aesthetic experiences and their relationships with reminiscence.

If you are considering submitting an article to the series, please feel free to get in touch! We invite perspectives from practitioners, academics, and fans alike, encouraging creative pieces as well as traditional academic submissions in the form of interviews or journal articles (between 4000-10,000 words excluding references).

Big love, bleeps and bloops,
Marilou and George

We invite you to read the introduction to JSMG's special series, "Chiptune in the 21st Century," and the first article in the series, "Aesthetics of Fondly Remembered Chiptunes," for free online for a limited time.

Print copies of JSMG's issue 6.4 in which the series was launched, as well as other individual issues of JSMG, can be purchased on the journal’s site. 

To ensure ongoing access to JSMG, please ask your librarian to subscribe and/or purchase an individual subscription.

References

Bolter, Jay David  and Grusin, Richard. Remediation: understanding new media. MIT Press, 2000.

Carlsson, Anders. “Chip music: low-tech data music sharing.” In From Pacman to pop-music: interactive audio in games and new media, edited by Karen Collins. Ashgate, 2008.

–––––. “Power users and retro puppets: a critical study of the methods and motivations in chipmusic.” Master’s diss, Lund University, 2010.

Collins, Karen. “In the loop: creativity and constraint in 8-bit video game audio,”  Twentieth-century music 4, no. 2 (2008): 209-227.

–––––.  “A history of handheld and mobile video game sound.” In The Oxford handbook of mobile music studies volume 2, edited by Jason Stanyek and Sumanth Gopinath. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Driscoll, K. and Diaz, J. “Endless loop: a brief history of chiptunes”. Transformative works and cultures 2, (2009): https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.096

d’Errico, Mike. “How to reformat the planet: technostalgia and the “live” performance of chipmusic,” Journal on the art of record production 6, (2012).

Goriunova, Olga. Art platforms and cultural production on the internet. Routledge, 2012.

Hermes, Kirsten. “8-BIT MUSIC ON TWITCH: How the chiptune scene is overcoming the pandemic,” Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 14, no. 1 (2022): https://dx.doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2022.14.01.07

–––––. “Levelling up chiptune: nostalgic retro games console sounds for the ROLI Seaboard.” In Innovation in music: technology and creativity focal press, edited by Jan-Olof Gullö, Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Justin Paterson, Rob Toulson, and Mark Marrington. Routledge, 2024.

Kotlinski, Johan. Amiga music programs 1986-1995. Royal Institute of Technology, 2009.

Kummen, Vegard. “The discourse and culture of chip music: studying the methods and values of the chipscene.” Master’s thesis, University of Agder, 2018.

McAlpine, Kenneth. Bits and Pieces: A History of Chiptunes. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Nova, Nicolas. 8-bit Reggae: collision and creolization. Editions Volumiques, 2014.

Pasdzierny, Matthias. “Geeks on stage? Investigations in the world of (live) chipmusic.” In Music and game: perspectives on a popular alliance, edited by Peter Moorman. Springer, 2012.

Phelps, Phillip. “A Modern implementation of chiptune synthesis.” UWE Bristol, Faculty of Computing, Engineering, and Mathematical Sciences. BSc Music Systems Engineering project, 2009.

Polymeropoulou, Marilou. “Chipmusic, Fakebit and the Discourse of Authenticity in the Chipscene,” Widescreen 1 (2014).

–––––. “Knowledge of Limitations: Hacking Practices and Creativity Ideologies in Chipmusic,” Music & Hacking (2019): 10.4000/volume.7277

Reid, George. “Chiptune: The Ludomusical Shaping of Identity,” The Computer Games Journal 7, no. 4 (2018): 279-90 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40869-018-0070-y

–––––. “Chiptune: The Ludomusical Shaping of Identity.” PhD Diss., Kingston University, 2020.

Schartmann, Andrew. Analyzing NES music: harmony, form, and the art of technological constraint. Intellect Books, 2025.

Tomczak, Sebastian. “Authenticity and emulation: chiptune in the early twenty-first century.” Presented at the International Computer Music Conference, 2008.

–––––. “On the development of an interface framework in chipmusic: theoretical context, case studies and creative outcomes.” Dissertation, Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, 2011.

Tonelli, Chris. “The chiptuning of the world: Game Boys, imagined travel, and musical meaning.”  In The Oxford handbook of mobile music studies volume 2, edited by Jason Stanyek and Sumanth Gopinath. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Troise, Blake. "The 1-Bit Instrument: The Fundamentals of 1-Bit Synthesis, Their Implementational Implications, and Instrumental Possibilities." Journal of Sound and Music in Games 1, no. 1 (2020): 44-74.

Yabsley, Alex. “The sound of playing: a study into the music and culture of chiptunes.” Dissertation, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, 2007.

Zeilinger, Martin J. “Chiptuning intellectual property: digital culture between creative commons and moral economy,” International association for the study of popular music journal 3, (2012).

–––––. “Chipmusic, out of tune: Crystal Castles and the misappropriation of Creative Commons-licensed music.” In Dynamic fair dealing: creating Canadian culture online, edited by Rosemary J. Coombe, Darren Wershler, & Martin Zeilinger. University of Toronto Press, 2014.