Month: April 2013

Oh, look over there – Kasatochi is back!

Right-click to download kasatochi3.zip (158mb)

As promised last week, this collection is much more narrowly focused, on two of my favorite orchestral-prog-rock songwriters/performers/producers. Each gets equal time on this bunch of chiptune conversions, which finally comes in at under the record time of a CD-R.

The tracklisting may baffle those expecting to hear the heavy-radio-airplay hits. In many cases the available MIDI files of the songs in question just didn’t make for good chiptunes. I wasn’t even necessarily able to do my favorites! What a deal. Track listing after the jump. … Read more

Oh, look over there – Kasatochi is back!

Right-click to download kasatochi2.zip (174mb)

This is the second “album” of Kasatochi chiptune conversions for your amusement and bewilderment. Again, I slightly overshot the record time of a CD-R, because I couldn’t bear to leave anything out. (Is anyone really using 80 minutes as some kind of limit anymore, or does it all get crammed into an iPod at the end of the day? Obviously, if I’m converting mostly-’70s-and-’80s-favorites into something that sounds like it comes from an old video game system, I’m a little behind the times – you’ll have to let me know. For all I know, I’m supposed to stretch this out to fit on a C-90 cassette.) Track listing after the jump. … Read more

I’m going to start at the end: Here! It’s a free album of chiptunes!

Right-click to download kasatochi1.zip (179.17mb)

Now let’s rewind to the beginning.

A few days ago a friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to a really rather impressive NES-style cover of Yes’ “Roundabout”. It was truly impressive.

Then I did some digging and figured out that, really, anybody can do this. Only a select few can do it well, but if you’re wondering about the proliferation of “8-bit cover song” channels on the ‘tube, here’s how it works. … Read more