This be a problem puke. One day I wanna be a chipist!11!1!!!

If I'm willing to guess why, it's probably because bytebeat is not a chip.
Here are some formats you could learn if you wanna be a chipist:
nsf and deviants
FamiTracker
spc
PC-x801
SID
VIC 20
SMS
Genesis/Mega Drive
DefleMask
Wildchip

There are much more, and perhaps you already know at least one of these formats already. You'll get to explore these formats and more when Summer Chip comes around!

pandatracker is a chipist format

It's true that bytebeat isn't a chip, but it's an interesting distinction. Bytebeat produces its sound via executed code, so one might say that it is chiptune, with your CPU being the chip. Thoughts?

if you can canonically render a format (i.e. without software emulation of sound hardware) by recording "stereo mix" or whatnot on a computer (edit: or exporting directly to a PCM audio file), it should not be a chipist format. a sound chip is not even involved in that process.

but the categories have always been kind of arbitrary. 8k-48k modules are chipist, but 64k modules are mixist.

That is interesting, Jangler. Also wildchip is chipist, even though fakebit etc. qualifies for that format. The world of BotB is a queer one!

Imho bytebeat should give Codist points.

Jangler: That distinction sounds even more ambiguous/arbitrary IMO.

PERSONAL OPINION: If modxxk gets to be chipist then so should bytebeat (or at least bytebeat1k). Sounds like the distinction is as arbitrary as what falls under wildchip/"""fakebit""" anyway :)

Or since it's code, codist :P ^{(but technically some traditional chipist formats like NSF or SPC are code too so who cares lol)}

"Bytebeat produces its sound via executed code, so one might say that it is chiptune"

..isnt...that...how all DAWs work? they execute code and then sound is made?

*ducks*

I admit that my understanding of audio chips is a little shaky, but I believe that they have some really fundamental way of generating a waveform from scratch, and then maybe manipulating it to produce the sounds you hear. (True? False? Help pls) DAWs, on the other hand, take something that already exists — waveforms and samples and all that — and modify it. Bytebeat seems to me more like the former than the latter, since it basically ends up being encoded instructions to produce a waveform from scratch.

bb=code
chips=chips
and fix modules to be mixist.

Agreed?

FIRST OF ALL, i don't really care what kind of points bytebeat gives. now that that's out of the way:

the only fundamental thing about a sound chip is that it converts digital information to a specific type of analog signal. different chips have vastly different capabilities; the distinction of "modern" sound cards is that they can convert any, say, 48 kHz 24-bit PCM (read: any digital audio recording) that you throw at it to an analog signal, and as much of that as your computer has memory for. the possibilities are infinite.

the important thing, from my perspective, is that the digital information that you give modern sound cards—as opposed to the chips that we normally associate with "chipmusic"— is already a direct representation of an analog waveform, accurate to within its given bit depth (and sample rate, if below the nyquist rate for human hearing). under (unrealistically) ideal conditions, if you played a WAV file (using a digital-audio converter, or DAC) and recorded the output into another WAV file (using an analog-digital converter, or ADC) , you would end up with exactly the same information you started with.

by contrast, for the chips associated with chipmusic, the digital information given to the chip is usually a series of writes to its various registers at various times. sometimes a degree of PCM is also supported, but then hardware mixing is used (see: the paula chip from the amiga computer). the point is, some type of software interfaces with the sound chip, but the sound chip does the work of generating the resulting audio signal.

does that make sense? i might have rambled a bit.

so if we were determining format class by the metric i just implied, then i think bytebeat is pretty solidly in the mixist camp since you can generate arbitrary junk; it's just harder than if you were using a DAW or some other software. BUT like i and others have said, the format classes are not determined this way so who cares whatever.

maybe irrlicht could offer a different perspective since he's written various 1-bit music drivers, which are sort of their own type of animal.

All of you guys are clueless. Bytebeat should give criticist points.

Everyone's a criticist

Sure. Wtf is this thread anyway

BotB's criteria is pretty clearly "does it sound chippy?" (see: Wildchip and modxk), and while that's quite subjective, discussing which side of the line bytebeat falls on is like a southbound Canadian asking "have I crossed the U.S. border yet?" once they reach Texas.

@Jangler:
I'd say any chip that outputs music is a DAC, and any old DAC produces chiptunes.

bytebeat isn't emulating a chip of any kind
it isn't chip music

22:41 <jangler> easy concept: no chip = no chipmusic

yes there are many formats that don't follow this rule but that's not what the initial discussion here is about

but that being said, the point payout types for formats haven't been touched in forever and might benefit from reevaluation

Yeah, Savestate's right, it does seem kinda weird that you get 14 points for participating in a game jam

@MisaelK bytebeat can be produced w/o a DAC and still be authentic

If we're broadening the discussion a bit, my non-cheeky two cents on that matter is we really want to stick to "no chip = not Chipist", then we do need to re-evaluate where certain formats lie and push some things across the line to Mixist territory (which means modxk and wildchip become Mixist, eep!), XOR we go the "quacks like a duck" route and make bytebeat Chipist. The least-cool thing to do is be inconsistent.

XOR

We take irrlicht's magic Door #3 and make bytebeat Codist. I mean, you're literally writing code. :P

i agree with xaser and i'm inclined toward the options that conflict with my stated ideology

Option 4: Bytebeatist points

Imho, the inception of bytebeat was simply an algorithm against t and an algorithm by itself is not code. n00bs who write code inside their algorithms or write code to generate an algorithm to produce prettier and safe music are cheating the experience of experimentation and exploration. Just imho again. I'm sure I've stated all this before in some way or another. So bytebeat should be mathist points except no one cares about the art of maths and wants to be a big cheater pants! WIAIIAWIAIWIAW?!?!? Q___Q

If instances of "x is technically not y" were a drug, this thread alone would get me sent to the hospital from an overdose.

Chips and Fake bit are only machinations of the human mind.

The only real music is gee-tars.

I could port my stuff to maths

But really.

Mine basically is pure maths only for the for loop and the #defines which is essentially copy and paste for readability and smallness

Underrated post

If anything, i'm leaned towards opinion that bytebeat should earn you codist pts.

Codist points sound pretty good actually ;)

I agree with puke.

And the only suitable solution in that case, clearly, is to make bytebeat give t-ist points.

Or the best type of point a botbr could ever get,
4

Algorhythmist points

@puke7: Yes and no. The starting point was this Experimental music from very short C programs

thing. Then viznut created ibniz, with the main objective being to prevent people from blowing up their computers with dodgy C code. Point being, while the "algorithm against t" was a commong occurance right from the start, it was never a definite rule. On the other hand I agree that the main idea should be writing "pure" algorithms and not "building a tracker into the thing". But then again, if you can build a tracker into the thing, then that's quite an achievement in itself, and the fact that it's possible even in 1K says something as well. Either way, I don't mind, just sayin'.

On a side note, if people dig the idea of "small executable music", then let's maybe think about introducing a new format where ppl can use 4klang

and Oidos

and other good shit like that

_{and then we can finally take over the demoscene mwahahahaaaa.}

I also agree with bytebeat earning codist points. You can't make this format sound good without some knowledge in programming and music engine.

a bit late to the topic BUT I'm genuinely curious; the playstation's SPU chip can support s3xmodit playback; a psf (playstation's spu music format) of an xm track would be considered chiptune?

there's also an amiga mod player for pc beeper too, so i wonder; what's the criteria to determine what's chiptune?

edit: just readed Jangler's post, and found it very informative and clear, though i can't get what determines generating a sound

the only thing I learned is that when you dev a bytebeat algorithm in a browser app it's actually a DAW ;)

i'm in agreement with savestate on this. chipist is only for chips. bytebeat is computer software

I consider every format where its impossible to just load a giant .wav as your song chiptune. The spirit of chiptune is about limitation and a common working ground, not literally about chips (to me at least). So currently 1k = chipist and limitless = mixist seems good (codist would also make sense).

Another remark:
I really dislike the fact that it must be an algorithm against t. Short pieces of c code was the original intention.

was it ?? i always thought it was supposed to be f(t). when the format came around, that's all that was going on until the bytebeat wavetable engines started cropping up

i am idiot

dunt mind me

Savestate: you can have bytebeat wavetable engines that are f(t) ;)

0CC-f(t)