A second installment that fully embraces the chiptune sounds from across the Atlantic (and beyond)—Taken with an iPhone 8
Note: While the book's presentation is unique, I'm not keen on sharing photos of individual pages. Instead, I embedded some YouTube videos which highlight tracks and demos featured in the book itself.
As gaming becomes recognized as mature medium for both its artistic merits and value in entertainment, scholars and enthusiasts are doing their best to document many early milestones. There are companies like Digital Eclipse who come out with fantastic anthologies, allowing the player to experience older games almost seamlessly via emulator while letting them comb through old manuals, box art, and even interviews with the developers themselves. Non-profit organizations like the Video Game History Foundation alongside hobbyist initiatives like the Retro Collective in Stroud, United Kingdom do similar work—hosting interviews on their respective podcasts, restoring microcomputers and scanning video game magazines for visiting patrons and scholars alike, and backing up ROM files as a means of preserving gaming history among other initiatives.When it comes to books, the Retro Collective’s Neil Thomas (RMC-The Cave on YouTube) has transcribed his podcast interviews into books form while Boss Fight Books works on weaving literary analysis and historical anecdotes with personal narrative in their ongoing book series. French book publisher Geeks-Line and Jeremey Parish catalog gaming consoles and their associated back catalog, condensing the work of the above groups into another digestible form.
The trouble with these books is the fact that…well, they are read-only for a medium lives and breaths on player inputs. That and, if you are like me, then you may be wondering how you can at least experience the music from these games. This is where Chris Abbott and Andrew Laggan come in with their Little Book of Sound Chips series. With these books, technical documentation meets a museum formed from pages—whether you are flipping through the print version or surfing through the digital version dotted with hyperlinks. Published by the minds over at FusionRetroBooks, these books are gaming at not just a glance, but a radio broadcast clear of static and full of chiptune goodness. What makes this even better is these books are easily affordable—Volume 1 comes to £9.99 or US$12.17 while the second installment costs £14.99 or US$18.26 (currently on sale for £7.50 or US$9.13 at time of writing)—so you do not need to shell out a good chunk of your paycheck to experience what makes video games memorable.
I backed both the first and second volume when FutureRetroBooks hosted their campaigns—and it was the second book that incentivized me to fully support this line of literature. My earliest moments in video games include the time when I accidentally pressed the eject button while my Dad played through Yoshi’s Island alongside all the moments I spent at a family-friend’s house playing Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Kart, and Mario Party, which in theory, would make me more inclined towards the third or fourth installments. When you discover the SID chip through a Canadian comedy troupe turned video production house and Paula through the many Amiga enthusiasts on YouTube, this makes it a different story.
The Little Book of Sound Chips: Volume 2 was the book I had most anticipation for where I could finally figure out what makes SID, Paula, Ricoh (NES/Famicom), and Yamaha (in the form of the YM2151) tick while also highlighting other arcade sound chips alongside more obscure ones. Some of the technical descriptions were slightly difficult to understand, but those who are well-versed with music and computer processing will appreciate the attention to detail. The brief glossary at the beginning of the book made much of these passages comprehensible without making me feel lost or lacking in knowledge—even if some of the jargon still seemed dense at some points.
This focus on the technical aspect of these chips is far from a setback in what is a great foray into video game history. Abbott and Laggan clearly want to make a book on music history in gaming for both computer-savvy technicians and those who fondly remember cruising down the beach in Outrun with “Magical Sound Shower” or “Passing Breeze”. For the latter crowd, the highlight comes in the form of myriad pages after the technical introductions and background history. Each of these sheets consists of the game’s title followed by a small (sometimes cheeky) description, a picture of gameplay, and a QR code. If you have a smartphone or tablet at the ready, these codes are a gateway to a YouTube video where you can hear the sound chip in action—and more importantly the soundtrack of said game. Sometimes, there is some gameplay included, especially with some of the Commodore 64 and Amiga titles, making this book into the afermentioned museum that I personally did not expect while reading through it.
Thing is, soundtracks are only a portion of what makes this book a solid entry about gaming history. Going back to the technical descriptions, you sometimes get a historical overview of the composers who took advantage of particular sound chips like with Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, Martin Galway, and many, many others who took advantage of both the SID and Paula chips in order to create soundtracks that made even the badly reviewed games worth playing. Missing these because the technical rundowns might be slightly difficult to comprehend takes a chunk out of what (and more importantly who) makes these soundtracks into something groovy and memorable.
Same can be said for the brief introduction into the Amiga demoscene and the chiptune music scene that the Nintendo Entertainment System’s (Famicom’s) Ricoh 2A03 inspired. The way these composers use said sound chips among many others to create unique numbers is one of the driving forces behind electronic music—and in some cases dance music—making this book into a historical powerhouse. Without Ricoh, you would not have the likes Jimmy Hinson (Big Giant Circles) or Anamanaguchi, nor would you have soundtracks from composers like Shovel Knight’s Jake Kaufman or Cecconoid's H0ffman. With the QR code sections usually ending up with homebrew games of demo tracks, the respective music scenes only add to an already excellent showcase with spice and amplitude.
The biggest issue this book has come down to the possibility of link rot because these videos are all hosted on YouTube. It is unclear if, or when, these videos may be taken down because of a DMCA copyright claim, which is not the fault of the writers. That is a larger problem for both gaming historians and composers (professional, indie, and enthusiasts alike) to solve over time alongside larger parties—both in politics and tech. Of course, you can always search for the soundtracks and demos on YouTube by keyword, but the varying results might give you the wrong track (or the right track, but the wrong sound chip). For now, the QR codes work continuing to make this book sing with every audio chipset.
I do have one piece of advice though: If you want to scan the QR codes, you might want to make use of your tablet instead of your smartphone. Since it does not open with the YouTube app, but in a separate webpage, the play button is small. If you pause it, you might end up hitting one of the suggested videos unintentionally.
Otherwise, The Little Book of Sound Chips: Volume 2 is a tome of happy listening that both acts as a gateway to nostalgia and a portal to gaming history. Whether you are a retro gaming enthusiast, music composer, or even just love music for the sake of it, this book will sit proudly either on your shelf or your coffee table.
The songs and documentation speak for themselves. No additional tuning required. 5 out of 5 Stars.
