GetLoFi Modified Game Boy At Experimental Sound Studio
The Nintendo Game Boy is now good for more than just stealth gaming at your work-desk when you're supposed to be writing video copy about circuit bent portable gaming consoles. Alex from GetLoFi.com shows us a Game Boy that he bent using a 555 Timer Circuit so that he'd be able to perform pitch bends. On the plus side, every new game he picks up is a different musical tool to work with.
Time to break out that copy of Nobunaga's Ambition. Daimyo Power Struggles, here I come!
[ALEX DYBA PERFORMING AN ELECTRONIC MUSIC JAM]
ALEX DYBA: Hello everyone. My name is Alex Dyba and I run gelofi.com.[ALEX DYBA PERFORMING AN ELECTRONIC MUSIC JAM]
ALEX DYBA: And this is the kind stuff that I do as a hobby. I try to sell things here and there but mainly it's to educate people. It's kind of my goal. I'd like to talk about something really new that I have right here. It's a Game Boy system, and what it is it's a pitch modification to a Game Boy done with a 555 timer circuit and placed inside of the Game Boy. So let me see if our levels are good, let me turn it on. Now, notice the tone is going to be a lot lower than it normally is.
[ALEX DYBA TESTS MODIFIED GAME BOY]
Right. Let me turn it up a little bit. Let's get to the screen. With the pitch mod on Game Boys, you have to use a chip to actually confuse the microprocessor in here into slowing down its computer functions, and what this thing is doing is it's feeding it a fake sort of clock signal, and with a twist of a knob, that clock signal gets slower and slower.
[ALEX DYBA DEMONSTRATES USE OF SPEED AND PITCH MODIFICATION ON GAME BOY]
Really, really slow it.
[ALEX DYBA DEMONSTRATES USE OF SPEED AND PITCH MODIFICATION ON GAME BOY]
It's quite controllable too.
[ALEX DYBA DEMONSTRATES USE OF SPEED AND PITCH MODIFICATION ON GAME BOY]
GRETCHEN HASSE: How long did it take you to do this?
ALEX DYBA: I put it together last -- No, 94 last so I knew it had to work and it does work so I was able to get it to work relatively quick. You can connect it into effects pedals and stuff like that. I meant the Game Boy as an instrument itself is all pretty much all it needs to be.
[ALEX DYBA DEMONSTRATES USE OF SPEED AND PITCH MODIFICATION ON GAME BOY]
Then you can drop it.
[ALEX DYBA DEMONSTRATES USE OF SPEED AND PITCH MODIFICATION ON GAME BOY]
And it plays the melody without crashing which is abnormal for this kind of device because usually, you know, it would just crash and you have to reset them, but this you can almost wiggle it and get the tones. It's that responsive.
GRETCHEN HASSE: It's awesome.
ALEX DYBA: So that's using a 555 timer kit, and they should be out on Get LoFi pretty soon along with instructions and this kind of stuff as well.
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