For many of us, the electronic beeps of video games make up the soundtracks of our youths. But while those sounds have been replaced by licensed rap and rock songs by today's hottest artists, not everyone has forgotten those MIDI-driven days of yore. Dubbed "8-bit," "chiptune," and "bitpop," there are a number of musicians who use such old school video games machines as Game Boys, the original NES and the Atari 2600 to make music. And how better to explore this burgeoning music scene than with a compilation paying tribute to the pioneering German experimental electronic band Kraftwerk? Okay, yeah, fine, a compilation of bands covering tunes from the Mario Bros. games might've worked better, but since there isn't one, yet, we present five of the bands from 8-Bit Operators: The Music Of Kraftwerk. Their album is scheduled for release next Tuesday, February 6.



GameSpy: What video game machines do you make music on?
Jeremiah Johnson of Nullsleep: Both the Nintendo Entertainment System and original Game Boy and Game Boy Color. I also need to keep an old PC running Windows 98 around to use the EPROM burner to write my NES music to memory chips. But besides that, all of my music for the past 5 or 6 years has been written solely using the NES or Game Boy.
Johan Kotlinski of Role Model: A big, gray old Game Boy. Though I also use a Commodore Amiga. Mostly the Amiga 1200.
Ignacio Garcia of Neotericz: Game Boy, Atari 2600, NES, and SuperNES. But I also use a Commodore 64.
Jeremy Kolosine of Receptors: I use Game Boys, an NES, and an Atari 2600. I also use an Commodore 64 since various cartridges, both old and new, are available to make it an awesome dedicated synth, and a Sidstation, which uses the sid chip from the C64.
Seth Sternberger of 8-Bit Weapon: I use a couple Nintendo Game Boy classics, an NES, and an Atari 2600, as well as a Commodore 64 and 128, an Apple IIc and IIe, an Intellivision synthesizer, a Speak 'n Spell and Speak 'n Music, some hybrid lo-fi acoustic-electric drums, and an assortment of other vintage and toy synthesizers.
GameSpy: How, if at all, have you modified the game machines to make them more musical?
Johan Kotlinski of Role Model: I wrote Little Sound DJ, a music program for Game Boy. It's possible to put it on a custom cartridge so that it runs on the real hardware.
Jeremiah Johnson of Nullsleep: The modifications I've done to the actual hardware were pretty negligible. I've Prosound modded a couple of Game Boy Colors, which gives you an additional 1/8" line-out jack with a cleaner signal. For the Nintendo Entertainment System, I've had to remove the metal guide-bar inside the console, above the cartridge slot. This was necessary in order to play NES cartridges that had been hacked with slotted PRG EPROMS containing music data. Neither of these mods really makes the hardware itself more musical though - the software is where the magic happens.
Ignacio Garcia of Neotericz: I only modified the Atari to get a direct audio output.
Seth Sternberger of 8-Bit Weapon: All of my gear is used as it was sold off the shelf.
Jeremy Kolosine of Receptors: I use certain homebrewer's cartridges, such as the midiNES cartridge for NES by x|k and Synthcart for the Atari 2600 by Paul Slocum, as well as the LSDJ and Nanoloop for Game Boy.