r0lemusic
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I had been always tickled by the fact that sometimes seems to be a "need to" buy a DMG to make chiptune with portable nintendo devices, the only reason given is "it has more bass"

so I made a comparison merely for fun some weeks ago trying to be objetive to find out what's happening with those machines

On the pictures on the top is always  the Pocket Game Boy as is, and in the bottom the prosounded Game Boy Color (the ones i have btw)(i have no clue on how prosound affects PGB but boths seems the same machine)

Sawtooth bass on WAV

Both eat the bass harmonics really hard, seems color has a little more width but nothing you can't do with EQ. On a spectrum analysis PGB has more frecuencies around <40hz, might be noise because its under the fundamental

When you draw in the wav channel the output signal is inversed, so i actually drew a ramp /|/| up and the result is a sawthooth |\|\, the ground is on the top of the lsdj wave drawing tool, that doesnt affect the sound as our brain only understand harmonics

Triwave and Sine on WAV

Say Goodbye to bass frecuencies, seems again color has a little more bass frequencies but none to care, on the fun side triangular seems like a pulse and sine as a triangular


Pulse

I cant spot difference

Noise

Not the same at all, or may be my the randomness that make my soundcard capture differents samples, anyway both sound the same to me, is clearly obvious that both are precalculated and follow the same algorithms

Mix of PU1-PU2-WAV

Not the same, but I can't tell by ear what's better (despite the pocket hiss noise)

Mix of four channels

Not the same, but I can't tell by ear what's better (despite the pocket hiss noise)

Musical Context
http://culturachip.org/compos/test/imag … pocket.wav
http://culturachip.org/compos/test/imag … -color.wav
A small saturation on the mix, but that is what happen always when your waveforms are pulses. Is possible to reach a clean melodic bass to make the sound clearer. Both are really great machines to classic chiptune sound, with a sharp and precise a tone. ( as i mentioned I'm not sure how the prosound affects the pocket, in the audio example the pocket is obviously noiser).

For a dance with kicks or a d&b, I dint like the ones I've tried

Spectrum

At mentioned on waveforms seems that color had more bass fundamental frecuencies, although not a difference you cant solve (or not solve) with EQ, the spectra is really the same. Color->Blue, Pocket->red

Machine Noise

Pocket has a high fiiii and some fluctuation on the bass frecuencies, the fiiiiii really makes the sound worse if you want to sharpen your ear as a hi-fi listener, on CGB all the noise was also present but totally removed with prosound. Note in this graphs the amplitude scale is zoomed hard.

Conclusions , (1) Both are the same thing?,(2) Excellent ratio signal/noise on GBC , (3) No enough bass harmonics (4) Prosound really works

Personal opinion: For a classic chiptune genre they are really nice. For making great leads are also good machines. To make dance music I wont bet for them. The sounds is very sharp and with a really warm digital tone. I think they are a bit bullied and underrated because its inefficacy to reach basses.

Best bass I've found for the kind of music I do is drawing a mountain like a narrow gauss bell, that gives a tone that doesn't dirty the mix on the pulse range and has a good presence at bass frecuencies. It does look somehow similar to what a electric bass produces near the attack zone.(again is inverted ground in the lsdj draw tool)

http://culturachip.org/compos/test/imag … ontana.wav

Sound tests
http://culturachip.org/compos/test/imagenes/pocket.wav
http://culturachip.org/compos/test/imagenes/color.wav

_________________
Ok, Ok, thats was for fun, although is trying to objective is obviously not a serious analysis because no prosounded pocket, no dmg, no enough measurements on the scientific standards..... but as I did on a bored Sunday weeks ago I thought that might be fun to share here

up the GBColors!!!, and remember electric guitar has no bass and remains the most overrated instrument in the last century smile

Last edited by r0lemusic (May 18, 2014 9:34 am)

DogTag
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Murcia, Spain

Interesting analysis. However, I'd have liked to see more of the spectrum, rather than the signals in the time domain (not really meaningful).

egr
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Abandoned on Fire

Nicely done!  I prefer and use CGB almost exclusively since the extra processing power gives you much more freedom to really push the effects and table usage.  As you say, a touch of eq can make pretty much any model sound like any other model so the "bassiness" of the output isn't really an issue.  Any live venue is going to have processing on the PA system in some way regardless and recorded tracks can obviously be tweaked any way you like.

EDIT:  I say "extra processing power" but wasn't LSDJ initially developed FOR gameboy color?  So really it's "lack of processing power" on the dmg's part.  wink

Last edited by egr (May 18, 2014 11:30 am)

r0lemusic
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well the EQ thing in the comparison is between those two models, but I believe (hadnt tried though) they really eat the bass at a level you cant fix when compared with the DMG, if a frecuency its eaten mean is not there even you EQ hard

Last edited by r0lemusic (May 18, 2014 12:05 pm)

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
r0lemusic wrote:

well the EQ thing in the comparison is between those two models, but I believe (hadnt tried though) they really eat the bass at a level you cant fix when compared with the DMG, if a frecuency its eaten mean is not there even you EQ hard

It's possible!  Need some spectrum comparisons to find out.

DogTag
Offline
Murcia, Spain
egr wrote:
r0lemusic wrote:

well the EQ thing in the comparison is between those two models, but I believe (hadnt tried though) they really eat the bass at a level you cant fix when compared with the DMG, if a frecuency its eaten mean is not there even you EQ hard

It's possible!  Need some spectrum comparisons to find out.

That's what I meant in my post.