Gameboy Camera is loads of fun

It is. Seriously. Thing is, the Trippy-H step sequencer only holds 1 song at a time, so if you accidentally save one of the sample tunes, you lose your song. I found that out the hard way. Oh well, it doesn't take much time to make a tune in Trippy-H, I'll just do it again.

Maybe I should record that chiptune I finished about a week ago...

Anyways, tomorrow I'll be receiving a Gameboy Camera from one of my friends. It's great because he's giving it to me for free, and it has the neat little camera and Trippy-H, a step sequencer for songs. It'll be great to try working with other programs for chiptune; I'd get Nanoloop too, except it's too expensive.

Backwards Motion

It feels like as I've aged, instead of being desensitized to violence and stuff like that, I've actually become more sensitive to that material. It's strange. My empathy with others seems to have gotten stronger and stronger. I can't watch those videos of guys on skateboards trying to slide down a rail and hitting their groins on the rail all the way through without feeling...I guess it could be described as sick, but that's not really what it feels like.

I feel bad for the final fate of the bad guys in movies/comics/TV shows/etc. no matter what their prior actions were. Unless it's animated/drawn, I find it harder to look at blood or that sort of stuff for a period of time longer than a minute.

It's so weird. Before, I could have gone out in the backyard with my dad and shot some wild rabbits with a BB gun, but I'm not sure if I could do that now (besides the fact that my dad's successfully kept the rabbits out of our yard for a while now).

I think I'm either turning into a wimp or developing telepathy. I hope it's telepathy, because that would be really cool, but if it is I really hope that I can turn it on and off at my will.

I love it, but why's it gotta be so $$$? (another rant, more of a thought)

If you know me, you know that I love music. I love listening, playing, and creating music. But I've recently been flipping though various music store catalogs and I've come to realize that in music, there's almost a direct correlation between how much money you spend and how good the quality of your music is (I'm talking more about audio quality, not how good the band is). To be even just a garage band every member has to spend at least a couple hundred dollars for a good instrument, another couple hundred for decent amplifiers, and even more if you include microphones, cables, stands, and even a mixer if you're that serious about it. All in all, a basic band costs something like $1000-2000. And then once you get popular and want to record an album, that's another couple thousand dollars, depending on whether you buy equipment for a home studio or go out and rent a recording studio and an engineer. And if you don't spend that much money, you end up with poor-sounding performances and amateur recordings.

This is all assuming you're forming a rock band. Electronic music, on the other hand, can either be cheaper or even more expensive to compose, record and perform. On one hand, professional-quality software such as Ableton Live, Cubase, Traktor, etc. can be $500 or more, and if you are doing the type of music that involves lots of sequencers, samplers, etc. (like, say, Daft Punk) each module by itself is probably a couple hundred. On the other, tracker (and some sequencer) programs are either completely free or almost-free, and yet they have the capabilities to sound better than professional equipment and software.

I think the reason I like chiptune is that it's cheap: a Gameboy might cost you $50 on eBay, and LSDJ plus a flash cartridge won't be more than $40 (that is, if you get the cheapest, most basic flash cart). It's also easy to grasp, as long as you have some musical training. I remember reading an article a while back where a school ordered lots of Gameboys and LSDJ cartridges to give to students to teach music composition. (wait, have I mentioned this already? Eh, whatever.) I wouldn't call it brilliant, but it's pretty damn clever and cost-effective. Gameboys are pretty tough and can take a fair beating before ceasing to work (heck, most Nintendo products can, too); there's a Gameboy on display somewhere in New York that was caught in a bomb blast (not sure what kind it was), and although the outer case was melted and deformed, it was still able to play games. And if a student succeeds in bashing a Gameboy until it doesn't work, the cost of replacing it is even less than a textbook.

Oh also, single instruments don't count in this. Sure, you can get a harmonica for cheap, but it doesn't have the versatility that a full blues band has.


The backlight's arrived, so I'll be modding my DMG (and posting pictures of the process here) in a couple days, when my dad and I have time to do it. I hate final exams.

Yay! (Good news)

I think I've broken my writer's block, at least temporarily. Started working on a new chiptune yesterday, and so far it's looking pretty good. This one is gonna be a fast, dark, and intense song; perfect for a boss battle! I might post a WIP on my 8bc account, but I kinda want to wait until I finish it.

Also, my stuff from Nonfinite Electronics shipped! Should be here in a couple days. It's a good thing too; that crack in the screen I made (accidentally, of course) was starting to really bug me.

MadTracker, Take 2

Well, I downloaded MadTracker today. Again. This time I'm hoping to actually learn how to use it instead of just stare at the user interface and be all confused. Now that I've had experience with trackers like this and LSDJ, it shouldn't be as hard to start using MadTracker. Trackers in general have a fairly complex and intimidating user interface, unless you use Midget. But then, do I want power and options or simplicity?

MadTracker 2.61

Midget 3.51

                                       

Meh.

Meh.







Boooop.