Gifts For Gamers - Bliptronic 5000 & Other Chiptune Tools

GIFTS FOR GAMERS - A weekly column at Cold's Gold Factory that focuses on bringing you some of the coolest gifts for gamers of all types. Remember to check back here for ideas for Gamer Birthday Gifts, Stocking Stuffers for Gamers, and Gamer Christmas Ideas.


Gifts For Gamers

The Bliptronic 5000 and Other Chiptune Tools


The Bliptronic 5000

Chiptunes

"Nerd influenced music has seen a substantial rise in popularity over the past decade, mostly due to the ever expanding community surrounding it. Nerdcore hip-hop has dominated for years as the most well-known of the “nerd genres”, but in recent years the focus has started to shift to a new genre of music, which is largely homemade.

Chiptune music is the art of taking beeps and clicks from various retro gaming systems (such as the Atari 2600, NES, Gameboy, etc.), and manipulating the sound output methods to create music. Utilizing such familiar sounds often leads people who are not overly familiar with video game music to think they’re hearing classic old school game soundtracks, but to the trained ear it is obvious that the compositions are entirely new. Having been featured in games such as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Chiptune has been brought to many people’s awareness, though most of them still don’t know it by name."

-Quoted from the article "Introduction To Chiptunes"

The Bliptronic 5000 LED Synthesizer

The Bliptronic 5000 is a totally unique music making machine that plays sequences, chords, and loops and can be chained together with multiple Bliptronic 5000s or other effects units to create truly unique sounds.  These can be played just for fun or used to create your own 8-bit Chiptune music.  These are created by ThinkGeek and the ability to chain multiple Bliptronic 5000s together to create a symphony of blips and bleeps can be fun for multiple people.

Bliptronic 5000 is Sold Out at ThinkGeek,

but you can Buy From Amazon.



Bliptron 5000 Board Layout



Check out the video below to see the Bliptronic 5000 LED Synthesizer in action.  The video also shows 3 of the Bliptronic 5000s chained together and also shows how you can chain other effects units together to further alter the sound.  These things look like a ton of fun.  You can find all kinds of YouTube videos with these chained with tons of different effects, including guitar pedals, other digital sequencers, and digital effects units. 

The effects unit shown in the video below is the Korg Kaoss Pad.

 



Other Chiptune Creating Tools

If you are interested in producing some of your own chiptune creations, then here are a few more music production tools to help get you started with that video game chiptune sound. 

• Stylophone Retro Pocket Synth
• Korg Kaossilator 2
• Korg Mini-KP Kaossilator Pad
• Korg Monotron 16 Key Synthesizer
• 8 Bit Weapon : A Chiptune Odysey - Chiptunes Sample Pack

Be sure to check out the other Gifts For Gamers posts for more Gamer Gift Ideas.