finding cracktro/intro chiptunes music?

January 26, 2006 2:50 AM

Where can i find chiptunes (specifically from intros/cracktros) in mp3 format?

I listen to many various VGM/chiptune styles and i notice a lot of the music that i find are either covers or experimentalish music made on gameboy/NES. I'm specifically looking for chiptunes that are in cracktros/intros or music of a similar style. I dont really care if it's made on an amiga, c64 or any other system, but i really miss those cracktro songs.

So far i have found ym rockerz that closely fits the description, and while some of their songs are good, other's really aren't. I also browse on micromusic and 8bit people but there are so many artists listed there i dont have time to listen to them all.

Please suggest a place to download or buy. I really would prefer mp3 over .mod formats though.

posted by EvilKenji to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

i'd say the demoscene would be a good starting point.

Also, Nectarine has many, many links to chip-generated sounds, including their own web-radio that you can listen to :)
posted by slater at 4:08 AM on January 26, 2006

ojuice.net
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/
untergrund.net (link shows all their hostees)
defacto2.net
kohina.com radio

a good start into 8bitpeoples would be nullsleep

there's also ocremix.org and vgmix.com for game remixes (oc has a good radio stream)
posted by suni at 4:37 AM on January 26, 2006

Note that MOD/S3M/XM etc files can be converted to MP3 using WinAMP with an MP3 writer plug-in. I found a huge collection recently at cd.textfiles.com.

The High Voltage SID Collection (Google for HVSC) has pretty much every C64 tune ever and they can be played using a range of software emulators, at least one of which is a WinAMP plug-in. Though I prefer my "Catweasel Mk3" with a real SID chip.
posted by krisjohn at 5:13 AM on January 26, 2006

"Note that MOD/S3M/XM etc files can be converted to MP3 using WinAMP with an MP3 writer plug-in."

Also note that the built-in WinAMP modplayer uses (or did use, at the last time I touched WinAMP) the MikMod engine, which sounds like shit. If you plan to do your own conversions, you're probably not going to want to record the output of MikMod for any reason.

There are a couple of ancient MSDOS players that sound good, but the only decent modern player appears to be ModPlug. Get that and raid The Mod Archive.

As to music: Some of the newer Fairlight releases are on their site, with the most recent files being MP3s.

You might also want to rifle through The Hornet Archive. While they mostly focus on demos and intros themselves, they do have a music section. Be aware, though, that Hornet covers the PC demoscene which rarely exhibited the talent that the Amiga and C64 scenes did.
posted by majick at 8:38 AM on January 26, 2006

What in God's green World 6-2 is a cracktro? Sorry for the derail but I must know.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:43 PM on January 26, 2006

rock: i'm sad that your internet came without google, it's an additional intro on cracked software, when you start the app/game it shows you some scene bla like shoutouts and greetings and plays music
posted by suni at 3:48 PM on January 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

Majick is fairly accurate on the quality of the built-in MOD player. Fortunately, there's a better one available.
posted by krisjohn at 5:05 PM on January 26, 2006