My knowledge of the scene isn't great but I've heard a few times
now that you were involved in the chiptune scene, is that right?
That is correct. My first experiences with the chipmusic scene (if
you can call it that at the time), was around 2000. I had
purchased program called Nanoloop. Which is a 4 track synth /
sequencer program on a Nintendo Game Boy cart that allowed
you to create sounds, patterns and create songs using the synth
engine of the Nintendo Game Boy. Being from the small town of
Duluth there wasn't anyone else in the area to my knowledge
doing this. I used to perform in my high school talent show's.
My only outlet was MP3.com for this music and to my surprise
there was a very small “scene” located on the internet. At some
point I put the Game Boy down around 2002, and got a little
more involved in my “real” synth lust. In 2006 though the
chipmusic scene kind of found me again and I found this new
program called Little Sound DJ (LSDJ) for the Nintendo Game
Boy. At the time they were so obscure and hard to get because it
involved using these hard to find programmable carts, that a
used copy would sell for upwards of $300 on eBay. I loved the
program, it was tracker based, which brought me back to using
fast tracker and such when I was younger. I loved it so much that I wanted more people to be able to use this software. I sourced the programmable carts, and started selling the carts and offering a service of programming the carts for people if they could provide me with proof of their license purchase. I had no idea how much effect this would have on the scene at the time. I guess it was kind of like being a drug dealer I was asked to be an admin of a small online forum (8bitcollective) around 2006-2007. It only had about 500 members when I came on board. By the time the website went under we had grown the community to over 10,000, I had a monthly podcast with a good friend of mine (Unicorn Dream Attack) where we would showcase songs uploaded to the site. When the collapse of 8BC was inevitable a small group of us went on to start the current largest chipmusic forum that I'm aware of, chipmusic.org. I was heavily invested in this scene for 5 or so years. There was a lot of drama that went down during the 8BC end of days... I ultimately had to step away from the community for my own sanity. I still love the genre and dabble from time to time on my Game Boys. But I don't think I'll end up doing a 100% chip/8bit album ever again.
If people are following your Instagram and Facebook they'll see you often work across many formats including circuit bent stuff, 5U and eurorack. What do you think the benefits of working across different formats are?