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This. IPS was the best upgrade I made to my DMG and it was very easy. Doing that and the prosound mod took me under an hour and I took my damn time because I didn't want a speck of dust to end up in the screen haha. I also used a custom shell and buttons for some flair.

Also pro-tip for the IPS if you decide to do it, darker screen colors and minimum brightness will give you the least background noise.

For live play you'd need a really good PA that cuts out background noise. This isn't really my forte so I can't say what the specs on the PA should be - all I know is I've played two live shows where the volume was up very high and couldn't hear anything when the track wasn't actively playing through my setup. It has something to do with whatever is built into the system to force it to produce no sound when the input levels are below a certain amount. I also use NES and DMG for my tracks so I'm not sure if it's a similar frequency or whatever but that would be your best bet for live shows.

For recording, you have a lot of control if you're willing to put in the time. After implementing every trick I know to cut back on artifact sounds (including mods, note overlaps - which unfortunately I don't think you can do with a tracker, etc), I record every channel on it's own, then go into each channel's spectrogram in my editing software and insert silences in place of all gaps between notes where the background noise can be heard. If you record all of your channels together then you won't be able to cut the background noise in the gaps between any notes on a given channel where another channel is playing a note (obviously, since you'd be cutting out that portion of whatever is playing on every other track) so I definitely recommend recording each channel separately, syncing them in your audio app, then polishing each one the way I described above. For quiet parts of the song where you can still hear it, you can try using a filter, taking a sample from a section of the track with just background noise to remove that same noise from a section with those quieter notes playing. However, this method should only be used in dire circumstances as it will usually leave that section of track sounding muddy.

It may seem excessive and a pain in the ass to do all this but the difference is night and day in the final track. Seriously, listen to this track where I did all of that and try to hear any background noise at all, even with headphones. I used both NES and DMG on that track (7 audio channels total in the recorded mix).

https://soundcloud.com/doctoroctoroc/wa … rrangement

One other hot tip I can offer is to record your noise channel at the same time as one other channel (on the NES I record it with the triangle, on the DMG I record it at the same time as the WAV channel sometimes, but I usually utilize the noise channel on the NES more than on the DMG so I don't often do this on DMG), then record the pulse channels each on their own. The reason for this, at least for me, is there are a TON of gaps between notes on my noise channel with all the hi hats, short snares, quick kicks, etc. Recording this channel on its own and silencing the nose between gaps would take ages (I mean, you can do it if you want) so recording it with the triangle or WAV means I only have to insert silences when neither channel is playing on the recorded track - which you wouldn't want to do with all the tracks as described above but for one of a few tracks, it's fine cause there will likely be enough volume overall throughout the track that you won't hear background noise at all. In terms of the NES it's also convenient because the noise, DPCM and triangle are all on the same audio out (with my prosound 'stereo' mod) so I actually record all three at once with the pulse channels unplugged because they create more noise in the background. I also tend to double up the noise with DPCM to make the samples punch a lot harder.

I hope this is somewhat helpful. I know this isn't really an answer to your original question, just general advice for recording chiptunes. And I haven't messed with the GBA yet but a lot of the principles should be the same. But I have heard that the GBA can be one of the noisiest of the Nintendo handhelds so as a last ditch effort you could get yourself an original brick and try that on for size!

I don't know with absolute certainty but I've researched every mod for the NES I could find and never came across this option. If it was possible, someone certainly would have done it by now, so I'm assuming analog RCA out is the best that can be done with the stereo separation pro-sound mod.

Although, there is this:

https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/APU_Mixer

Not a language I speak but looks like it might be possible?

Your line of thinking can be logistically sound but the law doesn't always make 'common' sense.

I don't know much about the demoscene but when we're talking about public domain (as in anyone can use the work for whatever purpose), unless the works were specifically released to be PD (either at time of creation or after the fact) or are over a certain number of years old (like 20-100 depending on the medium), they're protected by copyright simply by existing. If you believe any given works are PD then you should research them to be sure and need to be able to present positive proof that is the case, not claim you couldn't find evidence that they are. In other words, if you look around online and can't find whether or not a given work is copyrighted or in the PD, you shouldn't by any means assume it is or isn't. I did a Christmas album over a decade ago and made sure that every track was indeed public domain (hence I didn't cover any modern Christmas songs) so nothing could bite me in the ass later.

Again, I can't stress enough, It doesn't matter if it's 'standard' commercial music or some guy whacking on trash cans in his garage, any original work (or derivative work that doesn't legally infringe on an existing copyright) is inherently protected by copyright unless expressly determined otherwise by the original creator (or their representative). So if for any of the tracks you're covering, you can't find a registered copyright, it may still be copyrighted, just not registered, so litigation can still be pursued, they just won't likely sue you for millions (probably closer to tens of thousands, from what I've seen) if they chose to do so.

So you are correct that streaming services pay royalties for covers but that doesn't necessarily mean you're off the hook. I wouldn't take anyone's word for it if they're saying they stream through Spotify and don't have to pay royalties because the service does - they might be sorely mistaken themselves. Depending on the fine print, you may still have to pay royalties yourself, albeit a lower rate than if you were, say, selling digital downloads or physical copies of the album. Given, I don't stream music that I pay royalties on, but given that it's an option through ESL to license tracks for streaming, I wouldn't bet on it being free for you.

As far as YouTube, Bandcamp, etc. is concerned, treat each watch of the video or download of the album as if it were a physical copy sold (although at different rates, usually).

Bottom line, better safe than sorry is either to consult an actual copyright lawyer or just not do it.Otherwise, as I said before, weigh the risks for yourself and decide. But I don't think anyone here is going to give you tacit approval to do what you're talking about. It's good that you're asking the questions but we're not lawyers or experts on the matter. I just happen to have minimal experience being a contract artist for the last decade and running into these situations myself!

Yes, that cable will work for your needs. A bit of educational info to expand on why TRS...

TRS (tip, ring sleeve) refers to a stereo connection whereas TS (tip, sleeve) is a mono connection. So it also depends on whether or not the cable is split. If you have a single cable with one 1/8" end and one 1/4" end, you want it to be TRS on both ends so you get stereo separation on both ends. If you have a split cable (one 1/8" end to two 1/4" ends), the 1/4" ends should be TS and the 1/8" end should be TRS. If you have any doubts as to what kind of cable you have, look at the ends and see how many metal segments there are separated by plastic rings, including the tip. Three segments means it's TRS, two means it's TS. Just remember same number of segments, same number of letters in the name.

From a stock Gameboy to a laptop/PC directly, you'll most likely need a 1/8" male to 1/8" male cable. Search for that on Amazon and you'll find plenty of those (most people use them for playing music from their phones into a stereo with a 1/8" jack on the front).

Depending on your audio interface, since you mentioned that, the input might be a 1/4" in which case you would need a 1/8" male to 1/4" male. Also commonly found.

If your audio interface has a two separate red and white (or red and black) inputs then you want a 1/8" to RCA cable. This one has a single 1/8" male on one end and it splits off into two RCA type plugs - one will commonly be red (right channel) and the other white (left channel), although sometimes the left channel is black as well. Again, make sure all ends are male.

You can also get adapters between nearly any two types of audio connections. For example, I use RCA to 1/4" on my mixer so I can separate the stereo from my GB into separate channels instead of putting them both into one channel.

It's always something silly and simple, no need to feel embarrassed!

I had a similar issue when I first started recording from my DMG but I had just done the prosound mod so I thought I goofed up the mod and did loads of troubleshooting in vein on account of that. I finally realized that by just using a 1/8" to RCA R/L cable, everything was just fine.

I have a tiny 4-channel Mackie mixer so I have to use the RCA line in since the 1/4" jacks are taken up by my prosound NES I use in conjunction with the DMG. I use an Amazon Basic 1/8" to split L/R RCA cable, no need for anything fancy. I keep it simple with recording in Audacity and do very minor mastering after the fact. Basically, I only make adjustments that I can feasibly do live playing through a mixer so minor channel panning to create a bit of stereo separation on the NES and I pull the stereo back to center a bit on the GB input so it's not 100% in each channel (I go 70% R and L so panned notes are heard in both channels to some degree but everything center stays pretty much the same). But I adjust all the bass, mid and treble on the mixer while recording.

I will go back in to remove noticeable 'clicks' on slow tracks but I've actually found a way to compose by overlapping notes that removes the clicking artifacts in most instances. It can only be done when using external MIDI send with something like the Teensyboy+MGB but it's probably the best trick I've learned for composing with the DMG. I don't believe there's a way to do that with any step sequencers, however.