The Vagrance Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Now how exactly would I go about taking it apart to use as a synth (kinda, to produce those cheap old chiptune sounds)? Is there any website with a tutorial on this or anything? Any general help at all? Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 There are some gameboy ROM trackers available. http://www.littlesounddj.com/lsd/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon_(Game_Boy) Fun stuff. And actually, you can just emulate these... No reason to even use a gameboy. lol I'm sure it's possible to mod a gameboy and turn it into something like a Portable midines. That'll take a lot of electrical knowledge and patience, but when you finish you can sell the mod for monies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerrax Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Any analog synth can make Gameboy sounds. NES sounds can be done with an analog synth as well. 16-bit is where is gets tough to emulate exactly what it sounds like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Any analog synth can make Gameboy sounds. Kind of. I doubt most synths handle vibrato, arpeggiation, pitch shifting, noise, or whatever else the gameboy synth has the same way, all in one package. I'm sure it's possible but it's probably a bitch. Same with the NES, only you add DPCM onto that :3 p.s. Aleksi Eeben has demo tracks for the Carillon tracker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerrax Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Any analog synth can make Gameboy sounds. Kind of. I doubt most synths handle vibrato, arpeggiation, pitch shifting, noise, or whatever else the gameboy synth has the same way, all in one package. I'm sure it's possible but it's probably a bitch. Same with the NES, only you add DPCM onto that :3 p.s. Aleksi Eeben has demo tracks for the Carillon tracker Logic's ES 1 does all of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Logic Express is $300. Anyway, unless you have a question about trackers I think I'm done here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Vagrance Posted July 20, 2006 Author Share Posted July 20, 2006 So Trackers are the way to go? I'm not looking to make chiptunes but rather normal songs and just have the game boy sounds available to me like a synth or something. I'm actually cmopletely clueless aboutt trackers and such but I'm not sure they're what I'm looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nineko Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 you can do everything with a tracker if you download the needed samples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 just have the game boy sounds available to me like a synth or something. Well if you want to use a gameboy as a hardware synth via midi, that'll take some work. I realize this all may be frustrating at first, for something that seems so simple! The gameboy trackers are not exactly the best thing to learn tracking on. Everyone who stands out in the chiptune scene knows how to track incredibly well, but if you just want the sounds to use in your normal songs, that's fine too, and you can probably get away with using a normal synthesizer and basic waveforms in any modern sequencer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicTweaker Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 Any analog synth can make Gameboy sounds. NES sounds can be done with an analog synth as well. 16-bit is where is gets tough to emulate exactly what it sounds like. I dunno, it depends on what system... Megadrive uses an YM2612 -- I've got emulators for that, and there's also FM7, which I can use to play converted DX presets (<3 SOME). The SNES uses the SPC700, right? That's straight PCM data, usually with a unique interpolation to it... If you apply the right filters to your samples (hell, maybe even use those converters they have for actual music hacking), and you should be good to go. Plus, there's that SPC soundfont too. =P And the Neo Geo Pocket color is a 16-bit system... Yet that uses dual PSG chips, so you get 6 square channels and about 2 noise channels (I may be a bit off, but that's roughly it). But it's still PSG. In any case, it's not really accurate to seperate music chips on a system by thier "bit." Simply because the sound chips will always vary, depending on what the system is capable. Hell, the SMS had an FM chip on it. And, although scarcely used, delivered some pretty clean and awesome sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emura Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 Now how exactly would I go about taking it apart to use as a synth (kinda, to produce those cheap old chiptune sounds)? Is there any website with a tutorial on this or anything? Any general help at all? Thanks in advance. As far as I know it hasn't been done yet, and I thought I would end up being the first. As far as I can tell, the only way to actually make use of the sound generating capabilities of the GB is to keep the hardware intact and run sequencer/tracker software on the GB's Z80 processor. But that's already been done, so there's no point in even writing your own programs. Nanoloop and Little Sound DJ (LSDJ) are the two sequencers available for the Gameboy. Nanoloop can only be purchased in cartridge form, and usually sells on eBay for over $50 US. LSDJ on the other hand is a little more powerful, though you have to pay for a subscription to the program (which works a little like typical Antivirus software), then you'll need to either buy or build a Gameboy backup device. If you would rather develop your own solution, then you're pretty much on your own. I once had planned to do such a thing, but I've pushed that project to the back burner for now. Whatever the case, if you plan on writing your own program, you're going to need to learn C and assembly. Here are some links to hopefully get you started: http://www.devrs.com/gb/ http://fms.komkon.org/GameBoy/Tech/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 Emura, I did mention the Carillon tracker in the 1st reply. That one is completely free. There's some info on the wiki, then you go to Aleksi Eeben's page and hit "download" and the .zip is carilloneditor.zip. What a weird page Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emura Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 Emura, I did mention the Carillon tracker in the 1st reply. That one is completely free. There's some info on the wiki, then you go to Aleksi Eeben's page and hit "download" and the .zip is carilloneditor.zip.What a weird page ... crap! Note to self: read all replies carefully. Actually, that's one I didn't know about. I might be able to have some fun with that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psythik Posted July 25, 2006 Share Posted July 25, 2006 Anyone remember GameBoy Camera? Didn't it have some sort of synth/oscillator/drumloop minigame/prorgam thing? *searches house for old GameBoy Camera cart* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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