Princedmorn
Offline
Michigan

Hello everyone. This will be a little introduction to who I am until I actually get started in recording my own music, which is the point of this thread because I do need someone to show me the ropes on what I am doing since I have no idea myself.
My name is Clif, twenty-five year old musician from the Detroit-ish area of Michigan. Mostly a jazz guitarist, I fiddle around with piano and violin picking up on classical works as well (the works of Erik Satie should be listened by everyone. Seriously; listen to Gymnopedie No.1). About two years ago, after being depressed that no games have came out that caught my interest like the genius works of Final Fantasy VI, I decided to write my own game. A friend of mine who was moving to Maine gave me his computer that had RPGMaker VX, and I worked day and night learning how to use the program. Hard Drive failed, so all of my work was lost except for the pages of written staff-music that were used for ideas. A friend had showed me chiptunes, and how musicians are using gameboys and other video game consoles to make these songs. Now I am interested in transcribing my scores and recreating that feeling of hearing the wonderfully composed music that was so limited by what they could do.

Problem is, I have no idea what I am really doing and I hope there might be some of you who stumble upon this and would like to point me in the right direction. Any help would be greatly appreciated! What equipment I should get. How much stuff costs. Where to get everything. How to do mods. Literally, I am lost!

Here is what I have:
A teal gameboy color, that I tore apart because I found an Instrucable guide on mods. I also un-soldered the headphone jack, power plug and speaker. Why you might ask? Because I was hoping to install a 1/4" jack to plug directly into an amp (jokes on me because the jack doesn't fit /sadface) and also install a rechargeable DS battery so I don't have to worry about buying AA. Yeah... I messed up.

I also have a purple/clear gameboy color as well, that I didn't do anything to.

So yeah... any help would be very very much appreciated. And now I am having second thoughts on if I am posting this in the right forum category... ALSO; because I am a few years late to the party and didn't catch the burst of chiptune culture around my neighborhood from Piko Piko Detroit, are there any fellow musicians from the area that wouldn't mind showing me the ropes? Again, kinda new and would love to become a part of the community.

sandneil
Offline

you need to get a program called littlesound dj (lsdj) which costs two us dollars and can be got from littlesounddj.com

you then need a rewriteable gameboy cartridge ("flash cart", "cart") to put lsdj on

there's a lot to choose from actually which sit in various places on the cheap<-->good spectrum, search this forum for stuff like "everdrive GB" or "bennvenn" or "drag n derp" or "EMS cart" to read about a few different ones. or post your budget and what operating system you use and maybe someone else (not me) can tell you what'd be best for your needs

if you ask the person you buy the cart from to put LSDJ on there and show them your license they will probably do it for you otherwise you can put it on there by connecting the cart to your computer

then you stick it into the gameboy that isn't broken (btw you can get jacks that are on a cable thing so you could have the 1/4 jack hanging out of the gameboy if that would help you save your broken one) and make songs with it

not sure what the best lsdj tutorial is these days but there seems to be so many, written ones, video ones on youtube, forum posts here, etc, and also lsdj has got a really comprehensive tutorial

sorry this isn't mentorship i only just realised you are looking for someone local. well good luck anyway ** thumps up

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan

Heya and welcome to the community. There are quite a few of us here in the murder mitten (I myself am not a musician) and we all seem to be pretty friendly. Off the top of my head we have snesei and barbeque (cool dudes), the one electronic (a loveable teddy bear), several other michaels and coreys, boaconstructor (moving soon), and maybe Dream Fox (two awesome dudes in tights). I can't quite remember where they hailed from when they played in Royal oak. South-ish?

I won't answer your questions mostly because others will chime in soon and just answer them time and again with their own opinions, all good I am sure. Also because a lot of your learning will be done by your own searching and discovery.

I just hang out in GPP, working on hardware stuff. I could probably help you with some mods, but am pretty tired of the hum-drum life of gameboy moddin. Currently interested in 16-bit sounds/hardware.

If I suggest nothing else, I suggest looking farther than the gameboy. There are dozens of other vintage devices that have both incredible sounds and trackers. If a gameboy is what you have on hand then by all means. I love the thing. But if you have another vintage computer or gaming console, speak up. We can help you to make tunes with that too.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
Jazzmarazz wrote:

murder mitten

Any way we can make that nickname work with "Pure Michigan?"

Princedmorn
Offline
Michigan
sandneil wrote:

you need to get a program called littlesound dj (lsdj) which costs two us dollars and can be got from littlesounddj.com

you then need a rewriteable gameboy cartridge ("flash cart", "cart") to put lsdj on

there's a lot to choose from actually which sit in various places on the cheap<-->good spectrum, search this forum for stuff like "everdrive GB" or "bennvenn" or "drag n derp" or "EMS cart" to read about a few different ones. or post your budget and what operating system you use and maybe someone else (not me) can tell you what'd be best for your needs

if you ask the person you buy the cart from to put LSDJ on there and show them your license they will probably do it for you otherwise you can put it on there by connecting the cart to your computer

then you stick it into the gameboy that isn't broken (btw you can get jacks that are on a cable thing so you could have the 1/4 jack hanging out of the gameboy if that would help you save your broken one) and make songs with it

not sure what the best lsdj tutorial is these days but there seems to be so many, written ones, video ones on youtube, forum posts here, etc, and also lsdj has got a really comprehensive tutorial

sorry this isn't mentorship i only just realised you are looking for someone local. well good luck anyway ** thumps up

Thanks for the response! And don't worry, you helped a lot! I really don't have a 'budget'. I guess I should say that if I am going to get into this seriously or even as a hobby, than I should at least have some proper tools so everything works. What ever are the best for cost. I'm also running Windows 7 / OS 10.7 / and chromebook (I know the last one isn't a real operating system).

I was thinking about stripping the end of an instrument cable and soldering that to the port as a last effort. Didn't know if that would work.
Thank you again! And let me know if anything else comes to mind!

Princedmorn
Offline
Michigan
Jazzmarazz wrote:

If I suggest nothing else, I suggest looking farther than the gameboy. There are dozens of other vintage devices that have both incredible sounds and trackers. If a gameboy is what you have on hand then by all means. I love the thing. But if you have another vintage computer or gaming console, speak up. We can help you to make tunes with that too.

I would love to work with my Game Gear, but I always see everything with gameboys. I was always more of a Sega man anyways *quietly looks around waiting to be pounced on*

And thank you for the welcome and the response!

Last edited by Princedmorn (Feb 18, 2015 1:14 am)

infodrive
Offline
Michigan

Hey there! There are a ton of us scattered around. You should get into contact with Garrett(a.k.a. Stardriver/dolphin) for getting some mods done to your current gameboy(s). If you want to do it on your own there are extensive guides on how to "prosound" a gbc, though it seems you were on the right track.

I have to echo what others have said about lsdj. You should purchase a license as you can use it in most emulators to write without the limitations from cpu/power/screen size. Once you felt comfortable you could then invest in a flash cart (ems is what I use) and start composing on the GB itself. My suggestion for an emulator would be BGB as it has the most accurate wav channel reproduction out of most I've tried.

If you're technical enough to write on a staff, tracking on most systems( besides the callout codes for certain parameters) should come almost naturally.  My biggest suggestion is to get your hands dirty in a tracker that's free I.e.: famitracker, deflemask
It's always strange to get started out because it seems so different from the scroll or piano roll.

Another thing that helped me exponentially was going to shows around the area. That's how I met most of the guys that jazzmarazz mentioned. You'll end up having a ton of conversations about music and certain techniques for tracking.

Other than that, tutorials like LSDJ & You from Roboctopus are awesome as are the Stormblooper tutorials on YouTube.

It's going to take time, but it's all worth it. Trust me.

metatronaut
Offline
Chips & Dip :3
infodrive wrote:

Hey there! There are a ton of us scattered around. You should get into contact with Garrett(a.k.a. Stardriver/dolphin) for getting some mods done to your current gameboy(s).

^^ Def get mods from him, he's making a kickass GB for me now and repaired my others fast ^^

Princedmorn
Offline
Michigan
infodrive wrote:

My biggest suggestion is to get your hands dirty in a tracker that's free I.e.: famitracker, deflemask

Another thing that helped me exponentially was going to shows around the area. That's how I met most of the guys that jazzmarazz mentioned. You'll end up having a ton of conversations about music and certain techniques for tracking.

Thank you for the response! I scanned over the websites and they seem interesting enough for me to full around with. If I were to use them, do I still need lsdj? I know I'll need it for my gameboy, but could I just use z80 sounds from those programs directly?

I would love to go to shows too! But are there any going on around the Michigan region?

Princedmorn
Offline
Michigan
metatronaut wrote:
infodrive wrote:

Hey there! There are a ton of us scattered around. You should get into contact with Garrett(a.k.a. Stardriver/dolphin) for getting some mods done to your current gameboy(s).

^^ Def get mods from him, he's making a kickass GB for me now and repaired my others fast ^^

Highly thinking about it actually. If I happen to destroy my gameboy color any more without getting positive results, this will be a life saver. Does he also have pre-built handhelds as well?

metatronaut
Offline
Chips & Dip :3
Princedmorn wrote:
infodrive wrote:

My biggest suggestion is to get your hands dirty in a tracker that's free I.e.: famitracker, deflemask

Another thing that helped me exponentially was going to shows around the area. That's how I met most of the guys that jazzmarazz mentioned. You'll end up having a ton of conversations about music and certain techniques for tracking.

Thank you for the response! I scanned over the websites and they seem interesting enough for me to full around with. If I were to use them, do I still need lsdj? I know I'll need it for my gameboy, but could I just use z80 sounds from those programs directly?

I would love to go to shows too! But are there any going on around the Michigan region?

LSDJ is a separate tracker from Famitracker so you don't need LSDJ if you're going that route.

LSDJ is something I would totally recommend. People usually (from what I've seen) get turned off by the controls but once you get used to it it's really fun to work with

I personally don't know of any z80 trackers though, and you can't produce z80 sounds from Fami and LSDJ. Famitracker uses chips like VRC6 and LSDJ uses the GB soundchip.

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US
metatronaut wrote:
Princedmorn wrote:

Thank you for the response! I scanned over the websites and they seem interesting enough for me to full around with. If I were to use them, do I still need lsdj? I know I'll need it for my gameboy, but could I just use z80 sounds from those programs directly?

I would love to go to shows too! But are there any going on around the Michigan region?

LSDJ is a separate tracker from Famitracker so you don't need LSDJ if you're going that route.

LSDJ is something I would totally recommend. People usually (from what I've seen) get turned off by the controls but once you get used to it it's really fun to work with

I personally don't know of any z80 trackers though, and you can't produce z80 sounds from Fami and LSDJ. Famitracker uses chips like VRC6 and LSDJ uses the GB soundchip.

vr6 is just one of the expansion NES chips.. in most cases, (ie original music on NES carts besides the ones with expansion chips built into the carts) all of the sound comes from the 2a03

bitjacker
Offline
Alive and well in fucksville

Dont mod anything starting out (you can take hiss out of recordings with audacity really easily)... get an ems cart from kitsch bent, donate some $'s to lsdj, get some rechargable aa, and get to work. i cant wait to hear some of your tunes. your atomic purple gbc will be a good tool.

Last edited by bitjacker (Feb 18, 2015 2:41 pm)

snesei
Offline
Detroit, Michigan
Princedmorn wrote:
infodrive wrote:

My biggest suggestion is to get your hands dirty in a tracker that's free I.e.: famitracker, deflemask

Another thing that helped me exponentially was going to shows around the area. That's how I met most of the guys that jazzmarazz mentioned. You'll end up having a ton of conversations about music and certain techniques for tracking.

Thank you for the response! I scanned over the websites and they seem interesting enough for me to full around with. If I were to use them, do I still need lsdj? I know I'll need it for my gameboy, but could I just use z80 sounds from those programs directly?

I would love to go to shows too! But are there any going on around the Michigan region?

There's actually a really cool house show in Ypsilanti going down this Friday with Bubblegum Octopus, Watabou, and Volcano Themed Bathroom

https://www.facebook.com/events/1059852407373733/

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US
bitjacker wrote:

Dont mod anything starting out (you can take hiss out of recordings with audacity really easily)... get an ems cart from kitsch bent, donate some $'s to lsdj, get some rechargable aa, and get to work. i cant wait to hear some of your tunes. your atomic purple gbc will be a good tool.

i also totally agree with this statement... mods are not necessary by any means, especially if you take a little time learning the in and outs of audacity and/or your daw of choice... noise reduction done properly in software is way better than what just recording with a prosund modded game boy can do... hell, even with prosound modded game boys, i still run 1-2 passes of noise reduction on any game boy recordings

Dire Hit
Offline
Seattle, WA

Satie fan? You'll fit in just fine.