Video Game Music — 8-Bit Symphony Pro Review

A look at the incredible 8-Bit Symphony Pro, which re-arranges retro video game soundtracks into orchestral epics!

It started with a bleep. Then came a bloop. Next, waves and white noise flooded the bedrooms of 80s adolescents and older enthusiasts alike. As electronic symphonies — crammed into three channels of synthesised audio — blasted from the speakers of early gamers, a whole new approach to writing and experiencing music evolved. Of course, the parents didn’t understand. Naturally, teachers had no clue. But video games, and the unique compositions that accompanied them, belonged to a digital renaissance that swept and changed the world.

By 2020, as I write this, the power and influence of the video game industry cannot be denied. It’s among the most lucrative forms of entertainment on the planet, and is regularly lauded for its increasingly artistic qualities. Game music, for example, has long outgrown its chip-based roots; so far, in fact, that evoking those roots is resoundingly retro. Live orchestras and bands have become more common than anything else, resulting directly from the ever-increasing potential of memory.

Today’s trend of classically tinged game soundtracks definitely says more about the advancement of technology than…