Interview: Brad Smith, MOON8
Posted on 29th Mar 11 by Mike McGrath Bryan | 
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Dark Side of the Moon is considered by many to be the greatest record ever. Now, imagine it as the soundtrack to a circa-1985 videogame. Drop-d catches up with Brad Smith to discuss adapting the prog masterwork to 8-bit, and more…
Where did the idea for an 8bit Dark Side of the Moon cover album come from? Was there a germ for the idea, or was it always just there? It’s not something I’d thought about before I started it. I think it happened because it combined several things that I enjoy, all at once. I have an interest in the details of old game hardware and its music. I like to make transcriptions and arrangement of music. I like the challenge of working with a limited means (like old game hardware). I like Dark Side of the Moon.
There’s a longer answer to this question in my FAQ at: http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
I began the project when I came across a program called Famitracker, which I’ll describe in answer to your next question. I don’t really know why, but the very first thing I wanted to do with it was cover Dark Side of the Moon. I get urges to do silly things like this all the time, but only a few of them still feel like a good idea five minutes later. This one I stuck with.
What software was used? How did you go about adapting the music from the grandeur of Pink Floyd, to the humble NES chip?
Famitracker was essential to this project. It’s an open source NES music tracker. All of the notes and expressions are entered and edited there. I listened to the original album bit by bit, over and over, figured out what musical content is in there, and how I wanted to reuse it in my cover. When it was finished, I exported this to an NES emulation format called NSF so that I could render it with my favourite NES sound emulator called NSFPlay (it just sounds nicer than the others to me). After that, final audio editing was done with Audacity (I tend to stick to open source tools whenever I can).
How do you feel it’s been received critically?
I feel it was received well. I was surprised by how much response it’s had.
Was there nerves at all on your part, regards dealing with Pink Floyd fans?
No. Any direct correspondence I’ve had has been positive. There are plenty of derogatory remarks about it on forums and YouTube and other places where there is more anonymity, but none of it bothers me. Some of it I find really funny.
Was it difficult going about gaining the permission to release this through iTunes and so forth? After I wrote MOON8, I did not make it available for sale for a long time because I did not realize that this is actually very easy. Permission for cover songs is compulsory provided that you pay the standard mechanical royalties. I use an online service called Limelight to take care of royalties, and CDBaby to get my recordings on iTunes.
Are there any plans for a vinyl release, in the tradition of the original album? 
I’m not a big fan of vinyl, actually, mostly because I can’t stand how they physically degrade with each playback. I do have a record player, but I only use it for things I can’t find in a better format. I would love to have a CD release, but so far there haven’t been enough sales to justify it.
Is there more room, do you think, in music as a whole, for 8-bit music and chiptunes? Or has the novelty worn off by now? Do you think that it can see a wider audience than its current fanbase?
Well, I don’t really try to predict future markets. I just make music that I want to hear. Covers of video game music seem to have increased dramatically over the past decade, and chiptunes have as well. There are a lot of people making chiptunes today, and obviously the internet has made it easier for people with niche interests to share them. I don’t really find genres very useful to how I think about or enjoy music. There are good and bad chiptunes. It’s easy to describe music by its category or style, but it’s harder to express how or why it is done well or badly, which is weird because it’s much more important. There are several chiptune covers of Thriller but there is something that makes Virt’s the best one. It is easy to have an idea like a Pink Floyd chiptune; the challenge is trying to execute it well. It’s the same challenge in any genre.
Any further plans for more albums to 8-bitify?
I later did a cover of Freebird, since it was requested a few times (probably as a joke). I’ve usually got a music project of some kind going, but there are no 8-bit covers in the pipe at the moment. Probably a lot of my future music will be electronic or chiptune, but really it could be anything.
Tags: Audacity, Brad Smith, Dark Side of the Moon, Famitracker, MOON8, NSFPlay, Pink Floyd
