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ChipMusic.org / Forums / Posts by rumpelfilter
Stupid question: what's the appeal of running piggy on a pi? I'm seriously wondering if there's an advantage over say a PSP or something. Is it just the ability to easily do midi stuff?
It might be good for ergonomics. We're sitting bent over small screens way too much already, it's probably good to take a break from it when making music.
I've been thinking about getting a small-ish HDMI screen for the rpi for some time.
Yeah, this really looks like something!
i highly doubt nitro or trash want to make this a social network.
This is one of the reasons I keep coming back here. Even if I'm more kind of a lurker.
I thought adding a MIDI to CV interface would make the system accessible to everyone, but keep it completely patchable.
I do think that it's a totally viable solution. My point was more "it would be cool if", but I do think it would be a great thing even without the sequencing part.
"Where" do we draw the line between authentic and analog? If we keep the noise generator authentic, how come we wouldn't want the pulse channels authentic too?
that's a totally valid concern, though I have the feeling that what we consider "authentic" is just a cultural product. I think the music made with the Gameboy defines what is "authentic" much more than the device itself. After all, nobody at Nintendo had designed the device with the chiptune scene in mind I guess...
I would not focus too much on the technical aspects but more on the sound and the workflow. How do you make a modular or semi-modular instrument which does capture the sound of the Gameboy, and how do y ou design a workflow, which feels close to a chipmusic one? Chipmusic has always been a lot about making things with very limited tools, mosly in-the-box, where the box was some form of vintage computer or console. It's always been about working with the chips, trying to find the sweet spots, the bugs, the idiosyncrasies and using those as creative tools.
Keep in mind that most of the things you mention above exist already, and in multiple variations. No need to reinvent the wheel. The only thing missing is probably the sound generation. If you want to stick to a more modular approach why not just create a quad sound generation module that does square, noise and samples with a distinct DMG flavour?
Once in a while I try to build a modular that could work as a chiptune system. I've gotten a few chiptune-ish things in my rack over the years: SID Guts, Edges, some Atari Punk Console things, Equation Composer and the VCNoiz/VCNO.
I do like your idea quite a lot.
I want to hear what everyone thinks, whether you have played with a modular or not.
I do have quite some:
One of the beauties of working with something like a Gameboy is that it's a closed, self-sufficent ecosystem, quite unlike the modular, which is never really closed. I think that what you described above would make more sense as a semi-modular desktop unit. The patchability would be most interesting for self-patching, but would also open it up to talk with other modular and semi-modular instruments.
Self-patching is quite an important aspect here I think, and this would make this quite different from the Gameboy experience.
Also, this is a central point IMHO. Don't try too hard to emulate the Gameboy, since this would be a completely different thing anyway.
You'll also need a mixer and it would be interesting to also have some LFOs and a S&H.
The EG/VCA could be its own block. Maybe a 4ch AD/AR envelope with VCA. I find the way they did it on the Moog Mother 32 quite well done. It's an AD/AR where you toggle between the two behaviours by enabling/disabling sustain.
I would try to add as much CV as possible and add CV outputs to modulation blocks.
A central question here is of course sequencing. Should it be on-board of rely on external gear? Both approaches are possible, but perhaps the latter would make more sense. Even though having an onboard sequencer would make this more standalone. More like an instrument.
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to reply to some of your questions:
fixed to 4 widths or analog?
Not a huge DMG expert, but I'd say analog. I don't see the huge benefit in keeping this true to the original.
SD card with samples?
Absolutely! You'll want to make it really easy for people to add they own samples and I guess adding an SD slot is easiest to do.
Analog or psuedo random number?
I'd be in favour of peudo random, mostly because it's one of those things that define the chip sound.
Great tracks! I really like them (as most others, the first one is the one I liked most, but I also like This Is Not Paula a lot). Everything sounds very tight and groovy! So, no, you definitely shouldn't quit. Keep going!
No idea. It does say that it's based on Soundbox, but I've never used one or the other so I can't say. I recently got a bit hooked on ORCA by the same developer (https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/orca) which I can totally recemmend!
While browsing their repos I found this and thought it might be of intertest to the tracker-loving community here.
Just found this on the web, figures some of your might find it interesting:
https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Marabu
binaries here:
https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/marabu
They also make a generative music environment called ORCA, which seems pretty interesting.
https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/orca
Likewise!! who knew. I think a lot of us chipheads got stuck into eurorack for some reason.
Well in my case it's all Mutable's fault! 
, which also kind of comes from a chipmusic background, at least in part.
I didn't know you were in to chipmusic! Interesting to hear these knowing your more acoustic work!
maybe this is useful?
Edit: Ah, LittleGPTracker. Can't find anything in relation to Odroid Go. Don't know how to flash it...
After digging into the matter a bit more: not sure you actually can. The Go runs its own emulator thing and is mostly intended to let you play games. Somebody would have to compile a specific version of LGPT for the Go to make it work.
The shafts look knurled, so Im sure you could add some knobs of your choice.
Of course one could add knob. But the shafts seem very close to one another, so that would likely reduce the fingerspace between them.
Now, it's not like this is a huge dealbreaker, just a minor annoyance I guess.
Twisted Electrons just announced their TherapSid successor. This one intended to work without a SID and sounds more like a reinterpretation than a clone, which I like.
Also, this one will not make people rip the guts out of poor, perhaps even perfectly working c64s.
Here's their walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR2hT7i8UMU
As much as one can hear that through a youtube video played over not-so-great desktop speaker, it does sound kinda clean. Whch might be good or bad.
I'd rather had some proper knobs on this thing, but I guess we all like our Volcas, don't we? And this might fit nicely next to one.
Renoise? https://www.renoise.com/
Though I guess it might be overkill if you only want to use the MS Wavetable synth
Cool! What are you trying to get working on it? Piggy or just run Gameboy stuff in the emulator it comes with?
ChipMusic.org / Forums / Posts by rumpelfilter