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Underground > Radio & Music >

making music on gameboy?!

20:15 / 16.09.01

if any of you out there with the old "grey bricks of fun" (or any modern color/pocket manifestations) think the software athttp://www.littlesounddj.com/ or http://www.nanoloop.de/ looks interesting you should shoot me a note ( yourlittlepony@gurlmail.com ) within the next few days . . .

09:54 / 17.09.01

Nintendo music is ace! "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" had some beautiful toons worked into its story. As did the Gameboy Pokemon series.

I saw an amblum the other week with old C64 tunes. It had the "Last Ninja" theme! I'd give anything to hear that again.

09:54 / 17.09.01

yeah, tons of that old game music is "the dope shit" but i'm talking about using those old systems to compose new music ;> ... i'll admit that using a gameboy for composition is certainly a bit of, ehm, a fetish-tainted but i've never lurked in the closet over such issues

BUT while we are on the topic of c64 tunage check out http://remix.kwed.org/, it's a pretty rad site dedicated entirely to remixes of all the classics. i've got some other similar sites bookmarked for original versions of stuff from amiga/c64/gameboy and nes but all of it is pretty easy to hunt down.

as a side note to fans of electronic music in general, the latest and greatest in file sharing is probly http://www.soulseek.org/. i just checked it out today and it's cool--exclusivly for electronic music and a nice community there.

09:54 / 17.09.01

Music composed on a GameBoy? That would be the shit... They've really gotten GB music to sound good. None of the blip-blip stuff from the early days. Music composition with that range of sound would suck ass.

09:54 / 17.09.01

yeah, there's a lot of cool sound you can milk out of those 8bits, the demo songs on the little sound dj page don't do it full justice (it is worth checking out some of the bands they link to). not only can you do a lot with just a gameboy, if you bother to build a midi cable for it (probly under 20 bux for all parts) you can synch it up with whatever other midi gear you're running ... i know it's not the same as a sidstation but for $500 less (gameboy 15 + software 35 + cart $30 = 80 compared to 580) it's the best way to get lofi sound into your midi setup (tho if you're not ever doing live stuff the hardsid card is another cheep way to go about it).

17:21 / 17.09.01

yeah, but it's VERY obtuse, and it's only a limited sound chip.

It's kind of a niche thing.

As is www.droid.dk - a bizarre little thing, a knob and two buttons (four so lefties can use it too). Burbles ahoy.

And whilst you're at it, commodore-64 music from www.sidstation.com - a synth based on the SID chip. Which is very, very odd. And gave us "Kernkraft 400". Grrreat.

19:41 / 17.09.01

paleface--what are you calling obtuse? yeah the sidstation/sidsyn/hardsid (all use the same 6581/8580 sidchip) is probly a bit more versitle than the sound chip in a gameboy but they are still both little 8bit gritblasters (apealing to the same nitch market).

thing that's nice about a gameboy with littlesounddj or nanoloop on it is that you've got your sequencer and synth all right there, perfect for portable composing. it's more than just a sound module and costs a hell of a lot less. also, if you wanna synch it up to your other gear with midi you can.

i used to use a qy-10 by yamaha for my portable sequencing needs but even that had shitty internal sounds and a backwards editing interface for doing electronic music.

i've seen that droid-3 but havn't heard it. yay, another fetishsynth

. yet another is based on a soundchip TI used ages ago: 76477 (basicaly a synth in a chip). and since i know ya'll can't get enough there's the Shifty Death Synth as well.

you may be able to tell i'm more into building synths than buying weird ones so i'm really on the edge of my seat waiting for the sidsyn diy kit to be released.

20:33 / 17.09.01

Nanoloop. It's obtuse. It can't be anything but.

That's not a criticism, it's an observation.

I do not have the skillz to build, but I am interested, especially in the more unusual/unique ones. Elektron are fairly impressive - the new Machinedrum looks very neat. Though too expensive.

But yeah, I know where you're coming from, no crossed wires intended.

Molly Shortcake

23:25 / 18.09.01

Check out Overclocked for more video game remix insanity. My fav track is The Killing Game Show by Mutagene.

That Gameboy music cart is the only reason I kept my Limited Edition, Pokemon Yellow, Game Boy Color. It's sucks - the yellow casing is too distracting, go for neutral or clear.

23:45 / 18.09.01

heh, i belive it'd be distracting. you can pick up new cases for like 10 bux if yer serious about it being that distracting

do you have any trax you used the gameboy in? i'd like to hear . . .

00:20 / 19.09.01

an off-topic aside: does anyone know where to get GameBoy "carts?"... those third-party programmable GB cartridges. I know Nintendo came down heavy on the manufacturers, but there's gotta be some somewhere....

(and Ice Honkey, did you ever play the Killing Game Show? wow, did it rock)

02:42 / 19.09.01

solid_state: not so off topic, as that's a good part of why i posted in the 1st place

UFO company seems to be the most reliable source for such things tho none of the cart manufacturers seem to retain a standard or stay in business for very long. the actuall page to order there stuff is http://202.60.224.104/. it's a hongkong company and shipping to the U.S. is quite a bit but the prices are low enough to make it competative.

06:50 / 19.09.01

Also in Hong Kong: Lik-Sang.

They sell lots of things like that, someone I know has the GBA flash-rom thingy, which is reportedly excellent.

Molly Shortcake

12:58 / 19.09.01

I don't own the cart yet. I sold my JP-8000 some months ago.

My only current synths are quicktime, Kobold and rebirth. To make matters worse I don't even have a MIDI controler. So kobold is almost useless and RB and QT are extreamly limited.

Never played KGS. My current obsession is Robotron 2084, MacMame.

05:41 / 13.12.01

y0h, know the post is dead but i wound up getting a cart and the littlesounddj program. only one song is done to date but if it's of any interest to folx i threw it online for preview:

http://broke.servergirl.net/preview/starpawz-come_back_home.mp3

the program is really fun but i have a feeling i'll probly get sick of using only 8 bit sounds. a long while ago i bought a program called madtracker (yes i love tracker interfaces) so i'm thinking about building a midi cable to synch LSDj to that (allowing me to have hi fi sample + effects as well as the 8bit crunch).

IHEMH: sorry to hear about your setup, sounds like things went down hill over there! to be perfectly honest: despite all my gear i most commonly make my tracks almost entirely in fruity loops (if only because it's easy to save all the synths, samples, and effects right with the song rather than making sure all the gear is set up just right before working on anything). If your mac is powerful enough you should check out cubase vst or logic, those 2 programs are awesome--the same save-everything-in-your-song deal as fruity loops but much more advanced and both are cross platform (pc/mac

.

tho a controler may be more important ... i'm drooling over a PRO 49C USB (http://www.evolution.co.uk/). besides being an over-all nice controler it also has 12 knobs (fer tweakin those soft synths)! additionaly, you don't have to buy a midi connecter for yer mac ... straight into usb, w00t.

ps. dunno if any of you knew this but nintendo copyrighted the term "gameboy music(ian)" so if you make music with your gameboy you better not call yourself a gameboy musician!

11:55 / 13.12.01

Can't get that file!!