N-Sider: How did Anamanaguchi come to fruition?
Peter Berkman: My friend, Jon Baken, was told about this program called Nerdtracker 2 in late 2003. He heard about it from a friend of ours, Kurt Feldman from The Depreciation Guild, who read about it in Wired magazine. There was a slightly well-informed article written by Malcolm McLaren there, I believe. So Jon and Kurt would trade songs they made in this program, and then Jon and I would trade songs. And soon enough I'd written a bunch of them and had a pretty good understanding of how the program worked. But basically I'd been interested in making that kind of music for a very long time. I had made some songs that were certainly influenced by those sounds so it only made sense to eventually evolve into using the actual NES hardware itself.
N-Sider: How do you maintain the integrity of NES sounds in your music? Are you using actual NSF files?
Peter: Yeah actually, all of the music coded in Nerdtracker 2 can be exported as a NSF file, and this is exactly what the NES outputs. It can be converted to the NES assembly language and use the 2A03 sound chip inside of there, telling the little chip what to do from what's written. I've found that emulations of the style usually fall flat—you really need the real thing to get that same effect. Also, working with limitations in voices and other parameters usually sparks some creativity.
N-Sider: Could you say that in the same way developers were first challenged by the limitations of NES hardware, so too is your music?
Peter: Yeah. I Imagine the original composers ran into the same problems I run into trying to translate what's in my head into five channels [laughs]. Although with the added instruments like guitars and drums, you can still get that thick harmonically rich sound that I love.
N-Sider: Speaking of harmonically rich sounds, it's obvious that one of your bigger influences is the NES Megaman series—what are some other games that have influenced you?
Peter: Everything by Koji Kondo, Mario stuff, but especially his Zelda arrangements. Some other NES games that influence me musically are Yume Penguin Monotagari and all of the music Tim Follin made—he really brought the NES to its limits through his coding. Silver Surfer especially really showcased what the console is capable of with extensive attention to coding.
N-Sider: Interesting. So are you actually controlling the NES hardware as a deck onstage, or is it more like a pre-programmed set?
Peter: The songs are written onto chips that are put into a cartridge, and then I put that into the console so it plays as a videogame. While we don't control any of this in real time, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not possible. Jeremiah's tutorial explains it very well. And there's actually an invention made by x|k who performed at Blip—It's called MIDINES, and allows someone to use any midicontroller as a way to manipulate the sound chip. We'd use it but we're usually too busy playing the parts on our instruments, so we leave it pre-programmed.
N-Sider: Do you ever run into problems with the hardware while playing live?
Peter: Yes, actually [laughs]. Well, only one real problem: taking out a chip and putting in another for a song—this takes time and is usually a bore for the audience, but we're trying to put multiple songs on the same chip.
N-Sider: So no cart-blowing?
Peter: [laughs] Only for novelty purposes. I'm pretty good at positioning the carts.
N-Sider: What's it like to play along with a 20-year-old game machine in front of people?
Peter: It's kind of a surreal experience. Hearing something you've worked on coming out of the actual hardware it was intended to be played on, something that seems so impossible and out of reach completed is a very bizarre feeling. But we usually get pretty into it.
N-Sider: I see. So why Anamanaguchi? Is there any particular meaning behind the name?
Peter: When I started making the music I was posting my files to this website called 2A03.org. It seemed like everyone had handles so Jon and I wondered what ours would be. We both just picked our screen names at the time. Mine actually comes from a very stupid inside joke from 7th grade.
N-Sider: So the name just kind of stuck?
Peter: Yeah. My friend Jeff said it's a word that's in the vernacular of both Jabba the Hutt and a Japanese businessman in a sauna. Fake Japanese I suppose.
Peter Berkman: My friend, Jon Baken, was told about this program called Nerdtracker 2 in late 2003. He heard about it from a friend of ours, Kurt Feldman from The Depreciation Guild, who read about it in Wired magazine. There was a slightly well-informed article written by Malcolm McLaren there, I believe. So Jon and Kurt would trade songs they made in this program, and then Jon and I would trade songs. And soon enough I'd written a bunch of them and had a pretty good understanding of how the program worked. But basically I'd been interested in making that kind of music for a very long time. I had made some songs that were certainly influenced by those sounds so it only made sense to eventually evolve into using the actual NES hardware itself.
N-Sider: How do you maintain the integrity of NES sounds in your music? Are you using actual NSF files?
Peter: Yeah actually, all of the music coded in Nerdtracker 2 can be exported as a NSF file, and this is exactly what the NES outputs. It can be converted to the NES assembly language and use the 2A03 sound chip inside of there, telling the little chip what to do from what's written. I've found that emulations of the style usually fall flat—you really need the real thing to get that same effect. Also, working with limitations in voices and other parameters usually sparks some creativity.
N-Sider: Could you say that in the same way developers were first challenged by the limitations of NES hardware, so too is your music?
Peter: Yeah. I Imagine the original composers ran into the same problems I run into trying to translate what's in my head into five channels [laughs]. Although with the added instruments like guitars and drums, you can still get that thick harmonically rich sound that I love.
N-Sider: Speaking of harmonically rich sounds, it's obvious that one of your bigger influences is the NES Megaman series—what are some other games that have influenced you?
Peter: Everything by Koji Kondo, Mario stuff, but especially his Zelda arrangements. Some other NES games that influence me musically are Yume Penguin Monotagari and all of the music Tim Follin made—he really brought the NES to its limits through his coding. Silver Surfer especially really showcased what the console is capable of with extensive attention to coding.
N-Sider: Interesting. So are you actually controlling the NES hardware as a deck onstage, or is it more like a pre-programmed set?
Peter: The songs are written onto chips that are put into a cartridge, and then I put that into the console so it plays as a videogame. While we don't control any of this in real time, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not possible. Jeremiah's tutorial explains it very well. And there's actually an invention made by x|k who performed at Blip—It's called MIDINES, and allows someone to use any midicontroller as a way to manipulate the sound chip. We'd use it but we're usually too busy playing the parts on our instruments, so we leave it pre-programmed.
N-Sider: Do you ever run into problems with the hardware while playing live?
Peter: Yes, actually [laughs]. Well, only one real problem: taking out a chip and putting in another for a song—this takes time and is usually a bore for the audience, but we're trying to put multiple songs on the same chip.
N-Sider: So no cart-blowing?
Peter: [laughs] Only for novelty purposes. I'm pretty good at positioning the carts.
N-Sider: What's it like to play along with a 20-year-old game machine in front of people?
Peter: It's kind of a surreal experience. Hearing something you've worked on coming out of the actual hardware it was intended to be played on, something that seems so impossible and out of reach completed is a very bizarre feeling. But we usually get pretty into it.
N-Sider: I see. So why Anamanaguchi? Is there any particular meaning behind the name?
Peter: When I started making the music I was posting my files to this website called 2A03.org. It seemed like everyone had handles so Jon and I wondered what ours would be. We both just picked our screen names at the time. Mine actually comes from a very stupid inside joke from 7th grade.
N-Sider: So the name just kind of stuck?
Peter: Yeah. My friend Jeff said it's a word that's in the vernacular of both Jabba the Hutt and a Japanese businessman in a sauna. Fake Japanese I suppose.