Square Gear is a Master System homebrew application that allows you to control the programmable sound generator in real-time without the need of any pre-tracking or external MIDI interfaces. Just load up the ROM into your Master System, Game Gear, or Genesis and fire away! Right now, Square Gear is little more than a proof-of-concept, locking you in C Major. Note selection is done on the D-Pad as follows:
G
F | A
E - + - B
D | C (8va)
C
Needless to say, the program has a long way to go before it becomes the versatile live performance tool I'm hoping it'll one day grow into. The reason I'm releasing what in essence is a beta is two-fold:
-If there are any nasty bugs on hardware, I want to get ahead of them before the code becomes too convoluted. I've tested on my Genesis Model 2 but not on a Master System or a Game Gear (which is ironic considering the Game Gear is the real target platform hence the name).
-I want to know what you guys want! I have a to-do list for Square Gear but I want to implement the most-wanted features first because I have a feeling the program is gonna need a few total rewrites by the final release, and I also wanna make sure I'm not missing obvious features or going overkill on things that will never get used.
PLANNED FEATURES
-Select different tonic notes and at the very least a natural minor mode. Would you guys want the full church-mode spread or is just minor fine?
-Use 1 and 2 to alter pitch- 1 by a half-step, 2 by an octave. User can choose between #/8va and b/8vb.
-Choice between soft or hard note attack and release.
-"Periodic Noise" Mode. Would people also be interested in pitched white-noise mode?
-Power chord mode to mimic arpeggiation.
-Other waveforms. Some of the stuff I saw on here and elsewhere to mimic other waveforms sounded really cool when I tried it in SnevenTracker, like two notes that are the same but slightly detuned, or playing in octaves with different volumes. Any specific techniques you want me to implement?
-Allow all of the above to be controlled in a menu accessed by the Pause button.
-Cooler-looking interface
Square Gear will likely never be polyphonic, both due to the limitations of the joypad and the fact that I want all the channels free for additive synthesis. It will also likely never feature triad arpeggiation due to the challenge of calculating the chord quality and then building it on the fly. Who knows what the future will bring, though? I'm also aware of how difficult it can be to articulate D, F, A, and high C without getting blips of adjacent notes, at least on a Genesis pad or a computer keyboard. That might just be a reality of a D-Pad based note-selection scheme, but trying to find a solution is definitely on my todo list.
The code started as the enhanced version of Maxim's Hello World tutorial over at SMSPower. That site is such a wealth of information and passion, go check it out. Square Gear as it is right now is a very simple program, but I will keep working on it and hopefully the future will be full of crazy Master System solos and Game Gear choirs.
Yes, Square Gear was the coolest name I could think of. Sorry.
