Nintendocore

What it is

Horse the Band called their own music Nintendocore as a joke in 2003 and it stuck, which is roughly how the genre works generally. Take a screamo or metalcore band, replace the clean-channel guitar with an NES-voiced keyboard, and let the two argue. The drums here are the furthest thing in this family from a sound chip: a real kit, close-miked, played fast, with double kick and a snare that switches between a punk backbeat and a half-time breakdown from one bar to the next. That switch is the structural device of the entire genre. The chip part usually stays in a bright major key while everything under it is in drop C, and the collision of those two is the joke that the good records turn into something else.

What it sounds like

Loud, clipped and mid-forward. Kick is triggered or heavily gated with a click at 3kHz so double-kick sixteenths stay legible under distorted guitar. Snare is high-tuned with a short gated room, around 200ms, cut hard at 400Hz. Crashes are everywhere and mixed loud enough to smear. Guitars are eighth-note chugs through a high-gain amp, scooped at 500Hz. The chip sits on top as a straight NES pulse with no reverb at all, and it cuts through a wall of guitars that would swallow a synth. Vocals alternate screaming and a clean chorus, and the bass is usually inaudible by design.

Key elements

• The bar-to-bar switchOne bar of fast double kick with a backbeat, then one bar of half-time breakdown. The genre lives in that gear change rather than in either bar alone.
• Double kick in sixteenthsPairs of sixteenths on the offbeats rather than a continuous roll, which keeps the pattern readable at 180 instead of turning into a drone.
• NES pulse over drop tuningA 12.5 percent pulse in a major key, dry, sitting a fifth above guitars in drop C. It cuts because it is the thinnest thing in the mix.
• Crash on the downbeatEvery section change is announced with a crash on beat 1 and another on beat 3 of the breakdown bar, loud enough to duck the guitars.
• No swing anywhereThe chip part is quantised to the grid and the drummer is edited to it. The stiffness against a human performance is deliberate and audible.

How to get them

• Write two bars, not oneBar one fast, bar two half-time. Program the whole track that way before you touch a guitar, because every riff has to survive both feels.
• Trigger the kickBlend the close mic with a sample that has a 3kHz click and nothing below 50Hz. Gate at minus 30dB with a 5ms attack so the sixteenth pairs stay separate.
• Gate the snare roomRoom mics through a gate at 200ms hold and no release tail, high-passed at 400Hz. That is a shorter gate than the synthwave version and it has to be.
• Chip through an ampReamp the pulse channel through a light overdrive, no cabinet sim, then high-pass at 500Hz. It stops the chip sounding pasted on top.
• Sidechain the guitarsDuck the guitar bus 3dB off the kick with a 20ms release. At 180 that is what keeps double kick audible under a wall of distortion.
• Keep the breakdown shortTwo bars of half-time, never four. The device works because it interrupts, and a long breakdown turns the track into an ordinary metalcore song.

Reference points

Horse the Band, Sky Eats Airplane, An Albatross, Math the Band, Genghis Tron, and the Combat Records and Koi Records catalogues. Reference points for the sound, not endorsements.