Tag Archives: 8 bit

Live 8 bit Rancho Relaxo

Noggin – Live 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo part 1

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Part 1

Title: Live 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo part 1
Artist: Noggin
Album: Live 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo
Date: 2008

This is the first part of my set at Rancho Relaxo precluding an AMODA showcase. Highlights of this show include meeting Captain Sievert and Yatagarasu aka Hexcrusher. The Cap’n has the gameboys down, and Hexcrusher was rocking a Nintendo and a distortion pedal.
Love those guys.
Still noisy, albeit maybe a bit more focused than the encore that I’ve already posted.
Download: Live 8bit set at Rancho Relaxo (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Live 8 bit Rancho Relaxo

Noggin – 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo part 00000010

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Part 1

Title: Live 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo part 00000010
Artist: Noggin
Album: Live 8 bit set at Rancho Relaxo
Date: 2008

When I moved back to Texas in 2008, having spent the previous year doing nothing but producing music (and doing lots of math in the process), I had sound exploding out of me. Ethan Master of the Hawaiian Ukulele, Steward of Rancho Relaxo, asked me to participate in a pre-AMODA “8-bit” show. Now, I’ve never considered myself strictly 8-bit, but I jumped at the opportunity to basically drone out in a dark basement and maybe make people expand their understanding of what things like 8-bit are really about. Recent experiments into feedback loops through the ER-1, music written for gameboy (had to meet the criteria), and a custom-built distortion box (think of it as analog 8-bit sound) all came together to produce a swath or digital crustiness reverberating off the graffiti’d stone walls of the Rancho Basement. The wonderful visuals provided by no less than three video artists of course helped the ambiance.
There are some re-worked Noggin classics in here, and part 1 will be up at some point.
This is Noggin doing noise, if that aint your thing, open your ears and mind or please, move on.
Download: noggin-8bit-set2 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Chew remixes and covers

Tim McGravy – Planet PCM

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Title: Planet PCM
Artist: Tim McGravy
Album: Chew
Date: 2010

In honor of my newly resurrected Nintendo, here’s an early 8-bit cover of this Black Sabbath classic that I recorded in the Red House basement one cold, Washington winter day.

I would like to dedicate this one to Baxter and her expanding family, notably the newest member.

This is the sound coming off the actual NES itself (2 channels).
About the resurrected Nintendo – it just started going to a solid white screen on turn on, so I went the most popular route and bought a new 72-pin connector. That didn’t help, so I started seeking out a new NES. The one I ended up finding was in pretty bad cosmetic shape, so I yanked the circuit board out of it, and stuck it in the nicest case I had…which also already had the mods for 1/4″ out.
All this for a show I’ve got coming up on Friday 02 September for Atarimatt’s record release party – this is going to be an insanely rad show.
Download: Planet PCM (right click and choose ‘save as’)

As Yet Unknown collaborations remixes remixes and covers

Noggin – Brinesta (Full Mix)

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Title: Brinesta (Full Mix)
Artist: Noggin
Album: As Yet Unknown
Date: 2010

After too much delay, I got around to modding a Nintendo (graciously donated to science by DJ Dag-Nab-It) to output two independent channels of audio. The original NES is mono (one cable), and this mod has been described as a ‘stereo’ mod. What’s actually going on is a little bit cooler.
The NES can only make five sounds, 2 square wave tones, a triangle wave, a noise channel, and a very lo-fi sampler. From the chip inside the game system, the two square waves come off one pin, and the rest of the sounds off the next pin. That means you can hack in a couple jacks, run one channel (square waves) into one channel of a mixer, and run the rest into another…giving you hands on control of each track independently.
If you’ve ever heard me talk about mixers before, you might know that the mixer is probably my favorite instrument to play. So having such immediate, analog control over such raw, mathematical signal feels really good. This is the first time I fired up MIDINES with the MPC sequencer.
The second half of this track is a remix / rejiggle of Smile Transylvania’s excellent re-jAm / repurpose of a track from the Super Nintendo game Super Metroid.
We even made a video of what midines synthesises to the incoming midi messages.

Download: hutchines20100410 (right click and choose ‘save as’)
This the original version of this track: https://turntablearchives.com/trackaday/music/eps/live-at-johnny-picassos/noggin-brinesta-live-version

As Yet Unknown

Sure Dread – Natty Know (Noggin Natty Circuit Mix)

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Part 1

Title: Natty Know (Noggin Natty Circuit Mix)
Artist: Noggin
Album: As Yet Unknown
Release Date: 2010

Last spring I started doing remixes by reworking others’ tunes through a vintage Nintendo running MidiNES. This results in endless fun and a new appreciation for dealing with limitations…the NES can only make 5 sounds at any given time, and only 3 of those are melodic.
This is a remix I have done for a guy called Sure Dread from the DubRoom. Sure Dread, I would like to commend you on your excellent work.
This song is by Sure Dread, I have done this remix out of respect and admiration for his work.
I also have to give props to Rocky for helping tweak this shiznit in the basement w/ me.
Download: Natty Know (Noggin Natty Circuit Mix) (right click and choose ‘save as’)