MOON8 - Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Chiptune Style

MOON8 4 of 6 - Money
video upload by Sakanakao

Full album below.

"http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/... [mp3s]

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon arranged for NES by Brad Smith. Created using Famitracker, sound rendered with NSFplug."

Playlist:

via Retro Thing

Update via cw8cka in the comments: "Pink Floyd’s quintessential 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, has been a perpetual presence on record sales charts even since its release. A recent chiptune album, created by software programmer Brad Smith, takes a fresh look at the classic and capitalizes on its huge popularity, while succeeding in bringing something new to the table.

Chiptune, for those not familiar with the genre, is a form of electronic music in which music is created in a way emulating the production of music on early 8-bit video game systems such as the Nintendo NES. Composers are limited to the use of a square sound wave and only three oscillators. Despite these limitations, many chiptune albums have shown, especially Smith’s Moon8.

Smith spent nearly two years working on Moon8 in his spare time using the popular chiptune software, FamiTracker. He originally undertook the project for the amusement of a friend, and presented it at a small party. He then uploaded the work to Youtube, with no video other than a still frame depicting the original Dark Side of the Moon cover re-imagined in an 8-bit art style. Despite the lack of visual interest or marketing, the videos are on their way to viral success. In one short month, most of the Youtube videos already boast over a third of a million views.

Moon8 is a loving recreation of its source material, very rarely deviating from the original. The guitar voices, dynamic shaping, echoing vocal lines, and sliding pitch shifts present in the original songs are all executed with near perfection. Unlike many chiptune works, the album is completely listenable. I had no trouble sitting down for 45 minutes with my headphones on and playing the duration of the album. There were no headaches, and no uncontrollable urges to tear out and eat my own hair. Many chiptune composers could learn a lot from Smith’s style.

The moments in which it seems most impossible for Smith to recreate Pink Floyd’s work are the moments in which his work shines the most. Two of the most popular songs on the original album feature the heavy use of sound effects: Time, and Money. Certain effects in the sound collages that open these tracks are obviously impossible to render on the NES, but Smith reacts brilliantly. A sonically detailed effect of coins jangling together is represented instead by its comically simplified Super Mario equivalent. This nod to the video game background of the chiptune genre is cute and entirely appropriate. The cacophony of acoustic sounds from antique clocks that opens Time would also impossible to recreate on the NES. The listener is instead greeted with an equivalent cacophony of sounds resembling the alarm functions digital watches, cheap digital alarm clocks, and cellphones.

Moon8 is available for free download in a variety of formats on Smith’s website, http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html. The mp3 version consists of only two files, one corresponding to each side of the album’s original vinyl release, a move the speaks greatly to Smith’s great respect for the work he has made his own. Moon8 stands as a tremendous tribute to Pink Floyd, rather than the satirical mockery we can easily imagine it as."