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Haha yeah I know it's "stable" but it's kind of all discordant and doesn't really give you notes you can play with, that's what I meant. It has some very nice textures to it, but it's never like.. a full octave of it. C will bleep, D will growl, E will murder a bunny and dance it its blood, F will be silent.. that's what I meant

I still have no idea what it does really. I mean, how the sounds are actually generated and why they sound the way they do so that's why I left this section nebulous a bit. But if I ever am wrong about something I say, or lack information you deem crucial, do tell me! I'll make changes. I figure I'll already have to make changes anyways as bugs are fixed or new options implemented so I fully expect to have to rewrite some of that later on

But don't diss your docs. They are very useful. Whereas my blog is more of an 'explanation' of what things do, your wiki acts as a great reference manual for when you already know something, but forgot how to actually use it. I still refer to it constantly even a year later

Really? You quoted his entire post and didn't read the youtube tags from the quote?

I've never opened a GB in my life, hell never even owned one, but I did study electronics for a bit. My guesses would be:
-ribbon controller is misaligned indeed.
-new hardware you put in is making a connection somewhere, somehow, but that is unlikely for a screen mod.
-case is a bit too tight with the new hardware, pcb bends when pressing something, making a connection
-a rogue piece of metal made it into the case when you closed it back...a staple, a bit of wire, a broadsword, a cement truck... etc

In order:
-Open it up again, look at everything and make sure it's all according to plan.
-Remove the ribbon, clean it with a cotton swap and a bit of alcohol (for the swab... not for you)
-Look in the ribbon socket see if there's anything in there that shouldn't be, and blow in it to make sure all the dust and gremlins are out.
-Clean the dpad/button top pcb with rubbing alcohol or circuit cleaner.
-Make sure everything is dry like bones first
-Insert the ribbon like you were performing brain surgery, make sure its perfectly aligned.
-Close it back up, and tighten the screw only as much as it needs to hold it together without rattle. Overscrewing can bend the case and what's in it sometimes.

If that doesn't work, try removing you mod if it's not too hard and then see if that fixes it. If it does, then at least you'll know the problem isn't with the GB itself but rather in the mod, or its installation process.

that made me chuckle quite a bit

That is also exactly where I come from. Quality productions are quality productions no matter if they strike your fancy at any particular moment. There are a buttload of examples throughout history, from classical composers that have complete knowledge of theory and whatnot, yet still produce sub-par material because they're phoning it in, to utter shit like the Sex Pistols who couldn't tell their asses from a D flat and produced one of the most memorable records in history. Personally, I call it "honesty". Honest music shines, whether its good or bad. There is a legion of musicians I don't care much for musically speaking, but have complete respect for because you can sense the work and the intent and the honesty and the [insert another stupid word here that can never really describe what I'm trying to say]. On the flipside, there are tons of songs I adore that were obviously thrown together at random. And yes I agree these fall into the "guilty pleasure" category more than anything. You know it's not very good, but you like it. That is the only place where subjectivity is relevant.

Well that is tantamount to asking me to start shit. But I will indulge. These are all example from what is on the frontpage as I am writing this.

this song for example is stuff that should be kept between friends. That was thrown together in an hour or so with little care. Whether it's a joke or not or whatever, its bad.

This thing here is about 87 ideas that don't fit together thrown into the same piece. There's no continuity a very little regard for harmony. Some parts are actually decent and could've been worked into a pretty good song, but to me it sounds more like at attempt. It's a sketch of different things put together but not yet made into a "song".

This is just 30 seconds. It's like "hey, I found three and a half notes that sorta kinda fit well together but I couldn't manage to build an actual song out of it". It's not freaking awful, but you can feel the composer giving up on it. Instead of doing the sensible thing and letting the song sit on the hard drive for 1, 2 or 232 days and come back to it when you find something worthwhile to add.. this is just thrown on the internet for want of being 'a musician' in the public eye. Good effort, you're going somewhere, but that wasn't meant for a release.

And for good measure, to balance it out. Here are some songs from the front page that I consider material worth releasing. Some didn't "hook" me at all, but I can still respect the artists because you can appreciate the work and musicianship behind it. It might be somebody's cup of tea, it might not be.. but these are what I like to hear when I sample new music. Maybe all, maybe none, maybe some would make it into my list of songs I want to listen again a few times, but at least none of these made me feel like I was losing my time listening to them:

This is great. It doesn't hook me particularly, but the guy who made this put in time, and thought in it. It might have taken him six weeks or six minutes, that is not the debate... Inspiration comes in spurts and sometimes songs just come out of you whereas other times you need to kick them out bit by bit. But the bottom line is that this is a song. There's a concept, a theme, an ambiance... a story.

This barely qualifies as chip music IMO, it's clearly processed in a DAW with quality filters and a side chain compressor etc etc. But my point is... there's music in there. Not my cup of tea at all, just another generic electro-house song to my ears, but you can see the composer knows where he's going with it, and the amount of effort put into it. There will be people for whom this song is the bomb and I totally respect that.

This is quite nice. There are different parts, harmony and again you can clearly hear the composer is going somewhere with it. Good sense of rythm and melody. Sounds were chosen for how they sound together to form a whole.

This was obviously recorded on half a potato in full mega ninja nuclear mono with rabies. But no matter...the song is fun. It's telling something. The composer has a grasp on the material and he's doing something with it.

And now I'm sure a lot of people think I'm a pretentious fuck because omigod I'm judging people's ART but meh.

Cons:
- I had to count beats to know where I was in the song, there's no "resolution" back to beat 1. At first the kick is placed on beat 1, but around 1:30 you push it further down the measure and it messes everything up
- Percussions a little lackluster. I don't really like the repeating low noise going tshhh tshhh tshhh at 0:35. Maybe if it was higher/smoother and more like a hihat like you do around 0:50.
- The melody and harmony don't fit any scale. Since there's no clear scale, there's no root note, so there's no resolution back to the home chord. You will have to give the listener this feeling of resolution somehow otherwise it's easy to get lost.
- It's very repetitive.

Pros:
- Arpeggio on 2nd and 4th beat is always good. It's a classic used in many styles of music and will support your snare.
- There's a structure, with attempts at making parts sound different.

Overall:
I think it needs a lot of work but as boomlinde said, don't let that put you off. If you're new to music in general, the pentatonic scale is a good place to start to make music that sounds good without having to understand too much theory. And if you want to learn more theory, there's a great little website that covers the basics pretty well.

Oh my. Turn around five minutes and drama everywhere. Okay then, let's pick at it.

First I haven't specifically talked about this website in terms of the music I have been exposed to. I have said 90% of all the chip music I have heard recently is forgettable noise, not "shit". Second, since there was already a thread with a similar general direction where discussions of limiting artist releases was starting to mix up the technical difficulty of maintaining such a huge archive with the fact that a lot of it might not be worth archiving I thought the "quality" discussion could be exported elsewhere and explored. Third, in three sentences you managed to say I attack all music here, then you say you defend all music here, then you say I attack 90% of it, then you defend only a portion of the music released here. You are more than welcomed to participate to the discussion, but momentary statistics that change to fit a volatile mood isn't going to be very constructive. Clearly you seem offended by my post. Such was not the intent. You are also picking one 1 line out of four paragraphs that are mostly open-ended and inviting for discussion, so if anybody is "trying to start shit", I don't think it's me.

Now onto the more constructive replies...

We're pretty much on the same wavelength there then. I appreciate music for its musical qualities. Interesting melodies, clever chord progressions, fun ways to reinvent classics, good overall cohesiveness and honesty in the writing. Whether the recording quality is good or bad is irrelevant to me unless, as you say, we're dealing with something that is just aberrant. Technique is interesting but by no means a necessity. Amazing songs have been writing on three basic guitar chords that are just as valid as virtuosos chaining 83 chords require 18 fingers each and jazzing a 8000 note solo in two bars. Both have their place and are enjoyable as long as the musical intent remains honest. I have a dislike for rock-bands-with-two-chips-sound-tacked-on-for-effect and overly generic electro/house material, but that is personal opinion and not a matter of quality.

Well that's what I'm doing in a way. I've identified a few artists I really like and try to find more music by them. But I find the popularity rating is a bit weird. If I'm not mistaken it's not calculated by votes but simply by the number of listens which I find is a system that tends to push the same material on top while sending releases by unknown artists to the bottom. People listen to songs that are popular because people have been listening to it because people have listened to it etc etc. So far almost half of the tracks I really liked were in the sub-20 listens. I want to comment on them, but seeing as nobody else seems to do it, would it even matter? And tracks that ask for criticism...I feel if I indeed criticise them, I'll be accused of starting shit again. It all seems like a pointless argument in the end and I'm starting to see why Forabrokenearth told me to give up and not get involved

Agreed. I don't like this "all musicians on this scene should be equal" philosophy. Healthy competition makes people want to get better. But maybe I am indeed looking at this from the wrong perspective and should focus more on the eps and albums rather than the single tracks.

Well, I come from the old Amiga scene so my list of classic probably greatly differs. I was just recently exposed to the chiptune "scene" and found it to be mostly gb/nes-centric. I even saw a documentary which, while it was entertaining as all hell, basically ignored most of the chiptune history from the Amiga/ST and early PC days. I might need to sit down and brush up on what's considered the "classics list" these days.

If it wasn't time to change my adult diaper and take a 6 hour nap on the couch, I would totally cane you on the head.