Chip music

Chip music is music written using only the most elementary synthesis features of a computer or sound chip. Historically, this would mean the features of an audio co-processor like the analog-digital hybrid SID on the C64 or the Yamaha YM2149 on the Atari ST and ZX Spectrum. As newer computers stopped using dedicated synthesis chips and began to primarily use sample-based synthesis, more realistic timbres could be recreated, but often at the expense of file size (as with MODs) and without the personality imbued by the limitations of the older sound chips.

Modern PCs running emulators can now play with a fair degree of accuracy the music written for old computer systems, and some new artists continue to explore the challenges and possibilities of writing music within the old chip music framework.

Also see: bitpop.