Chiptunes = WIN was an online community and music label that would put out large compilation albums of chiptunes. Since 2012, the label released a big annual album, as well as a few side-albums. My friend Ap0c was a judge for Volume 5, so I decided it would be funny to submit a joke rendition of 8-Bit Beast’s Haunted House, disguised as a popular chiptune artist, Bit Shifter. At first the album organizers were mad, but when they figured out it was my doing, they decided to use it as a hidden gag track. We tweaked the artist’s name a bit, and thus began my job as the bonus track guy.
Before this point, Haunted House was an inside joke amongst a handful of folks in the chip scene. After Volume 5, I went on to use the song in SiIvaGunner rips, where people started recognizing it, pushing it to meme status. ChipWIN even went on to release a Haunted House-themed album (after we teased that the joke was retired), and SiIvaGunner themselves even teamed up with me to create a grand bonus Fusion Collab. After which, following Ap0c’s suggestion, I started submitting covers of the Matlock theme instead.
ChipWIN has presumably been shut down since 2020, and unfortunately there isn’t an archive of the albums anywhere, to my knowledge. However, I was able to gather my joke tracks and release an album. So… Here’s that. Highlights include an Auxcide-themed Haunted House/Sandstorm mashup, a seven minute Christmas medley of a wave channel singing “dick butt,” and a spaghetti western rendition of the Matlock theme.
Tag Archives: LSDJ
The Beast Awakens
This track was featured on the ChipWIN April Fools album 8-Bit Best, an album comprised entirely of Haunted House remixes. I tried to capture the essence of Haunted House’s weird time signatures, and attempted to make them seem more… Intentional. I also tried to tell a story with ambience and sound effects, almost like a cutscene in an NES or Game Boy game. I even turned the lead instrument (which I refer to as a “gadunk”) into 8-Bit Beast’s laugh. To bring the whole thing home, I sprinkled in some references to Cache Boss, my first ChipWIN bonus track.
Mario at a Crab Rave
This is an LSDJ cover of Crab Rave, by Monstercat. This started as a joke over on Twitter, where I combined the sarcastic text Crab Rave memes with a meme from the chip music community, “chiptune is dead.” I wrote the hook in LSDJ, crushed the video into Game Boy-esque graphics (160 x 144px, 4 colors, pea green tint), and added a caption using the LSDJ pixel font. The tweet started gaining traction, so I finished fleshing out the cover and put it on SoundCloud. I used custom waveforms to recreate the steel drums from the original song, and layered waveforms to create a double-octave effect.
Gourmet Skate
This begins as a straightforward cover of Gourmet Race from Kirby Super Star, but becomes a cover of Superman by Goldfinger. This same joke could have been explored as a SiIvaGunner rip, but I was already working on a cover of Gourmet Race and decided it would be fun to perform at Chipspace Open Mic.
The following year, I performed a version where the Gourmet Race portion of the song has 1-2 Oatmeal samples. You can hear that set here.
Spaghetti in my Stocking
This track was featured on the ChipWIN Winter-themed album ChipWINter Wilderness. I started writing this song under the title “Spaghettaboutit,” but I only had the title and melody down, and that I wanted the mood to be happy. It was going to be about the feeling of being awkward and embarrassing myself (or “dropping my spaghetti“), and shaking that feeling off and having fun. I had trouble progressing on the song, so I set it aside for a few years… And then I was approached to create a winter track. I started fleshing the song out with Christmas music tropes (sleigh bells, church bells, generic chord progressions, etc.) and this was the result.
Sound familiar? You may recognize this song from my demo reel. If not, go check that out!
Float Islands (Beta Mix)
This is the song that plays in the third stage of Kirby’s Dream Land, but the melody and chords have been replaced with Peach Beach/Daisy Cruiser from Mario Kart: Double Dash. An old, popular rip of Peach Beach had been recently taken down, and I decided to submit a rip commemorating it. I already recreated Float Islands in LSDJ for a scrapped rip, and since both are island tunes, they fit together perfectly.
Red Canyon – Kirby’s Dream Land 2
This is the music that plays in Level 5 of Kirby’s Dream Land 2, but with the melody and chords replaced with Take On Me by a-ha. This is actually an LSDJ cover of an existing rip, Yogurt Yard – Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. It was submitted during the Nostalgia Critic Takeover. The Nightmare in Dream Land song and the Kirby’s Dream Land song are both recreations of Yogurt Yard, from Kirby’s Adventure. I wanted to submit a “de-make” of the Nightmare in Dream Land rip, but since I’m more comfortable working in LSDJ than FamiTracker, I used Red Canyon.
Main Theme – Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown
This is an LSDJ remix of All Star by Smash Mouth, but the notes have been changed to Meet the Flintstones. It’s a combination of an existing rip (Main Theme (Beta Mix) – Shrek) and my existing Shyabeetus remix of All Star. Every year that I attend MAGFest, I perform a slightly different version of my All Star remix, and this was the one I performed in 2018. The breakdown section features samples from Joel’s reaction to 7 Grand Dad.
Green Greens (OST Version) – Kirby’s Dream Land
This is the theme from the first stage in Kirby’s Dream Land, but the melody and chords have been replaced with the North Qeynos theme from EverQuest. This is the inverse of my first rip on the channel.
MAGFest 2017 – Open Mic set
This is an assortment of songs I played at Chipspace Open Mic in 2017. This was the first year SiIvaGunner was a guest at MAGFest, so I wanted to create a High Quality Rip inspired set. The full set list is as follows:
00:00 – All Star (MAGShrek’d Remix – 2017 Edition)
02:47 – Metal Crusher (LSDJ remix)
03:50 – Wood Crusher (Woodman melodyswap)
04:45 – Steep Halation (LSDJKK Cover with intentionally inaccurate minor scale Snow Halation)
06:59 – Cache Full Boss (Deluxe Edition)