CNN:  How did you discover Chip Tunes and what keeps you fascinated about the concept?

Pixelh8: It’s hard to pin down to just one incidence, one of my first is when my baby sister spilt a drink into my NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), I took it apart and it’s started to make funny noises as the screwdriver hit different parts of the circuit board, it was still plugged in and turned on, in hindsight this was extremely dangerous.

The second encounter was with the MOD scene on the Amiga 500, not Mod as in mod’s and rockers, but .mod files, the short files pirates of videogames would embed at the beginning of the hacked software to show off their music, I really got into writing music on the Amiga 500 and when PC’s came into the home with their “real” sound I just wasn’t that taken by them and continued on with older machines.

Whats kept me interested is it’s limitations of the sounds the computers can physically produce, and yet at the same time the sheer variance in the types of music/feelings it can convey.

I will look at a machines specifications, and think yeah that’s fine, but what can it really do, I don’t play video games anymore, I play with the insides of video game machines, it’s far more entertaining.

CNN: How did the scene evolve?

Pixelh8: I would say chip tune is an offshoot of the .mod scene, through the love of computer generated sounds, however it differs in that .mod music was about when the machines were commercially available chip tune music wasn’t.

Chip tune music is retro spective, people weren’t able to compose music for a game boy when the game boy was commercially available, only now with home made software is it possible.

With the internet and various websites about, there is a lot of nostalgia for the 80’s and chip tune music fits comfortably in that, the sounds are reminiscent of things in your childhood (for a lot of people) and are normally happy ones, and chip tune music relies heavily on those previous experiences with those types of sounds.

CNN: Who is your biggest influence?

Pixelh8: Probably Aphex Twin and  Squarepusher although not chip tune musicians, their music hit me when I was a teenager and I realised I was not alone. I didn’t want to be them but they certainly inspired me to just do what I want with sound.

CNN: In Layman’s terms how can someone change a Gameboy into a musical instrument?

Pixelh8: There are several pieces of software available now, Music Tech which is a real time synth on a gameboy, Carrilion which is a tracker, as well as LSDJ & Nanoloop. They are all  pre-made cartridge made by chip tune musicians. The alternative is to study C programming and electronics for about 10 years.

CNN: How does playing a console differ from playing a more traditional instrument?

Pixelh8: I think it’s more fun, my argument I had with a music teacher recently was, when kids get to school and some of them for the first time start learning an instrument, reading musical notation and playing it is almost alien, whereas most of them have already had experience with something similar in videogames they are able to pick up a game boy and play and often forget altogether about looking at the “instrument”.  For me it’s more fun and immediate.

CNN: What do you tend to do for a live show?

Pixelh8: Loads of vintage computers, a custom built touch screen Mac, and lots of home made software, it would be impossible to play every note live unless I had an orchestra of people playing, but I am slowly making a lot of my machines communicate with each other, which means more stuff on stage. Lots of cables everywhere which often scares sound engineers but it’s all fine.

CNN: What other child’s toys have you transformed?

Pixelh8: Tons of “edutainment” machines, I hate them, loads of childrens musical keyboards, loads toys free with meals, and anything I can find in a car boot sale or second hand store, the more obscure the better and I am slowly going through every vintage computer I can afford, and that makes sound and making them into real time synths.

CNN: Chip Tunes seem to be dance music orientated can/has the method been used in other genres?

Pixelh8: I am so glad you said that, yes chip tune as I often argue is not a genre in itself, but the instrumentation, almost every genre is flirting with it at the moment, Hip Hop to Rock to Hardcore to Pop, it is just an instrumentation. I have even been asked by a few big musicians for that “chip tune sound” on their music, and I think it’s great if it helps more people learn about it then great.

CNN: What was it like performing with Imogen heap?

Pixelh8: She knows her stuff, it’s as simple as that, she is one of the best musicians, she knows her hardware, she knows her software, the first time I met her, and I think the first thing she said to me, was something like I need your brain for five minutes, and then asked me loads of technical questions, I was so impressed.  I have talked to her a lot about chip tune music, and out of thousands of artists on the internet she picked myself and David E. Sugar to open for her, both of us chip tune artists, so I wonder if this exposure has in some way infiltrated her new album.

CNN: Who else has impressed you with their ingenuity and originality using ChipTunes?

Pixelh8: Paul Slocum of Treewave & Aleksi Eeben both of them are excellent. They have both been an inspiration both musically and in terms of the fact they have both developed software for chip tune music.

CNN: What do you think is the next step for Chip Tunes, how can it continue to evolve?

Pixelh8: Theres gonna be a lot more, it’s in it’s infancy there will be ups and downs, but all in all due to the nature of the music , I think it’s gonna be fun. That’s all it should be. I know from personal experience that chip tune will also be used for new things like advertisements, film soundtracks, video game sound tracks (ironically). It’ll be funny to see chip tune music in the charts, it’ll happen, don’t know when but it will.

Pixelh8