nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden
egr wrote:

After reading over the Wikipedia page on that chip it really does seem like the perfect candidate.  Tiny, just enough features to be useful, has a DAC already in it.  \o/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YM2413

Actually, thinking about it further, other (surface mount) chips could be used as well, if you put them on a PCB and put that PCB on top of the CPU. There should probably be enough space there to accommodate the chips. However, this would require a small custom PCB and SMD soldering skills. Anyone who can hold a soldering iron should be able to install a YM2413 with a couple of wires, and put it in the right side pocket of the DMG case.

The bad aspect of the chip is that only lets you define one completely custom instrument at a time. (You also have 15 presets to choose from.)

Stevens wrote:
Stevens wrote:

Did any games make use of it?

?

It was used in Sega Master System, (in some games) and the NES VRC7 chip is a derivative of it. For inspiration:

Frostbyte wrote:

could this chip also act as a sampler?

No, not really.

Stevens
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nitro2k01 wrote:
Stevens wrote:

?

It was used in Sega Master System, (in some games) and the NES VRC7 chip is a derivative of it.

Ah! I really should have made myself clear - I meant if any Game Boy cartridges had used the Game Boy's ''fifth sound channel'', though I really like the Blake Stone MIDI music video you posted, hadn't seen/heard that before!

Also didn't know until this post that Lagrange Point wasn't the only game to include the VRC7, if Tiny Toon Adventures did too (despite not actually using it). Strange!

Zef
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See, now this is what I absolutely adore about the chip scene, still new discoveries and upgrades 20 years after the console is released! Haha.

So is the idea to run the chip's logic from the DMG's CPU somehow? If possible (and I'm sure most would agree) some sort of kludge integrating LSDJ as the tracker interface would certainly be preferable, even if it was another "page" to LSDJ which dealt with the additional chip. It'll take time, but I'm super interested in this. FM synthesis is a whole new ground for the gameboy to go haha.

ultramega
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Boston, MA

if we get a good conversation going concerning the capabilities / best use of the chip i will do some UI design in photoshop using the LSDJ / GB screen layout and we can figure out pre hardware / software if this idea rolled into LSDJ would make sense. from what I read on wikipedia really quick, 1 programmable instrument, the rest are hard coded, so i figured, another instrument type with its own variables, that would fall in line with the rest of the instruments (as far as being represented by a hex number) and nothing else in LSDJ has to change... thoughts?

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden
Stevens wrote:

Ah! I really should have made myself clear - I meant if any Game Boy cartridges had used the Game Boy's ''fifth sound channel'', though I really like the Blake Stone MIDI music video you posted, hadn't seen/heard that before!

Ah. No officially released titles ever used it. There was this cartridge, Pocket Voice, that may have used it. There's also one or two homebrew games that used it to create a square way with software by turning it on and off. This works only on some cartridges, where the external audio pin is tied to +5V through a resistor, which presents a constant voltage on that pin.

egr
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Abandoned on Fire
nordloef wrote:

Yes. Use pin 31.

Could somebody mark the exact location on the cart pic in the first post for me?

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

egr: Hint, in that picture, you can see a 1 and a 32 written in visible copper. wink

SKGB
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Godzilladelph

ya'll are fucking batshit insane and it's making my dick hard


continue.

egr
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Abandoned on Fire
nitro2k01 wrote:

egr: Hint, in that picture, you can see a 1 and a 32 written in visible copper. wink

Ha!  OK, got it.

Ermangaver
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Earth

Don't know if it's really worth considering, but anyway...
YMU757: 2OP FM, multitimbral capabilities (up to 4), low power consumption, integrated DAC, sequencer(!?), 20 pin TSSOP (manageable), serial interface.

Edit: Looking at the data sheet, it's really weird to control.

Last edited by Ermangaver (May 16, 2012 3:26 pm)

8bitweapon
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Los Angeles

Is there another chip that could be used besides the Ym or SID? Something with a new sound that hasn't been used so much before?

Last edited by 8bitweapon (May 16, 2012 10:00 pm)

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

What other chips are there? You have PSG, which is essentially square waves and similar simple sounds. You have YM* and similar FM chips. You have SID.
Maybe you could hook up trash80's sound generator and get another channel of LSDj-ish wav synth.

Aeros
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Savannah, Georgia

bets, anyone?

my guess is YM/SID+DMGs everywhere by the end of 2014

nordloef
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sweden
nitro2k01 wrote:


Maybe you could hook up trash80's sound generator and get another channel of LSDj-ish wav synth.

Hasnt he already done something similar? I recall talking about the VIN input with him on IRC, maybe a year ago or something and I think he said that he had tried it out with LSDJ MIDI and an arduino with synth and sample playback. But he wasn't really satisfied with it or something, cant remember.

Or maybe I remember all wrong.

Timbob
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I already have fm with my gameboy tongue
Using a FB-01 with an arduinoboy and midi-out.

But it's not using the Vin.

If the arduino could acces an FM chip or Sid directly, you'd skip a step there and could possibly built it all into a DMG. Also, you wouldn't have to write new software, you can just use the LSDj version with midi-out.

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

The chips arrived safely. However, there's a small cloud in the sky. The date code says 1040, which means week 40 of year (20)10. This means that these chips appear to be clone chips. little-scale has written about this topic. And here's a video showing what a clone chip might sound like:

My worries, in particular, is that the one voice that can use custom parameters is missing or crippled to the point that it just sounds crap. Maybe little-scale has some insights on that. For all we know, this might even be a player, playing back recorded samples, or something like that.

The chips I have should still work, and I will abstain from judging until I've tested the chip, but maybe this won't turn out to be the perfect candidate for a modification like this, at least not the clones (which is what is available in quantity.)