Gameboy | Fogelberg.com

GBAmp3 is an amplifier module for Nintendo Gameboy

Two GBAmp3, one new speaker and swedish coin for size.

I haven’t grown tired of making chip music on my two Gameboys yet but one thing I have come to dislike is how quiet they are. Like, how in the world could kids hear anything on these things back in the day. It’s close to impossible to sit on a train with headphones and try to make music on it when there are people around talking.

I searched the net for a solution and found this little wonderful amplifier made and sold by Anton Veretenenko on Tindie. Not only does it bump up the volume a lot, but it also cleans away the high pitch noise. I bought one for each Gameboy and one new speaker to the Gameboy Color. I haven’t installed them yet but I will try to get it done this weekend. Stay tuned for sound examples.

August 31st, 2016|Chip music, DIY, Gameboy|

One Nintendo Gameboy open and ready for modification

The inside of a Game boy

Today I got that special screwdriver I needed to be able to open up the Gameboy. The tool is called a Philips Triwing and it can be used to unscrew other Nintendo things as well. Alas my old original, yellowed Gameboy is now open and ready for some serious fixery.

I’m planning to do three things: Fixing the D-pad, fixing the dead pixels on the screen and soldering a new line-out to improve sound quality.

Update: The plastic thing under the D-pad was broken so I had to order replacement parts. While I wait for that to arrive from Hong Kong I decided to do the Prosound mod on my Gameboy Color instead. It was pretty simple and took maybe one hour and a half from start to finish. It sounds a bit better now so I will start to make some Nanoloop noises on it and upload to Soundcloud.

August 11th, 2016|Chip music, DIY, Gameboy|

Fixing my original Nintendo Gameboy

Gameboy Color and Gameboy DMG-01

I was digging through my crates with old electronics and found my two old Gameboys, the original grey (now yellow) DMG-01 from 1989 and the newer Gameboy Color from 1998. I used them about 10 years ago when I had my latest chip tune phase. I also found the cartridge with Nanoloop 1.2. It still works but the battery on it must be going bad as all the old presets are gone.

The reason I used the old original Gameboy for Nanoloop was that the sound quality on it is better. It has less noise than on the Gameboy Color and a bit fuller sound as well. The screen however is pretty crappy so I used to do the tunes/noises on the Gameboy Color, which has a better screen and then record them from the original Gameboy.

When I turned on the original Gameboy today, first it didn’t go past the Nintendo logo. After doing the old magic “blow into the cartridge slot” technique I could get Nanoloop to start. Next two problems are 1: Only parts of the screen is working and 2: The joystick up and right doesn’t work. Lets see what can be done about that. The screen is easily fixed and I think the joystick is as well. Should be fun.

I’m also thinking about installing backlight mods on both Gamboys, but thats a project for another rainy day.

August 4th, 2016|Chip music, DIY, Gameboy, Hardware|

Nanoloop Mono for Gameboy

Over 10 years ago I got this idea that I would make some new chip tunes, so I bought an old Nintendo Gameboy and a cartridge with an early version of Nanoloop.
(Had to look, it’s version 1.2.)

No new chip tunes were actually made but I did manage to use some of its crunchy sounds in a couple of my early dance music releases, like A brand new world. The noisy crunchy loop you hear in the intro was done on a Gameboy with Nanoloop 1.2, with some sampled congas put on top of it.

Anyhow, the latest version of that awesome little sequencer is now 2.7 and apparently there is another type of cartridge on the way called Nanoloop Mono.
It’s a three channel analog synthesizer cart for the original monochrome Gameboy models, and judging by the video it sounds pretty damn good. I might just get one of these and fire up the old beige boy one more time.

Hmm.. I should make a youtube video playing Nanoloop 1.2. There doesn’t seem to be many on the tube.

July 16th, 2016|Chip music, Gameboy, Music production, Retro, Synthesizer|