At last I have named one of unnamed old grey gameboys. So I introduce to you: Slopoke.
Its processor runs at less than half of the normal speed of other old greys, because I replaced the 4.194304MHz crystal clock with a 2.00MHz one. The normal crystal is a very low profile one, but the new one is quite tall. So it has to kind of sit bent over the board. That is why the gameboy has been taped up, because when I screwed it back together tightly, it would not go.
Anyway, the result is that it plays everything much slower and lower in pitch than usual. This is great for lsdj sample playback etc. I also swapped the red power LED with an orange one. Listen to a short snippet here. Note that the music has not had any eq or speed changes applied to it- this is exactly what the gameboy sounds like now. There are also some nice glitchy moments in this playback- listen to when the noise channel kicks in, and the wave channel has difficulty playing back some samples, resulting in some clicky clicks.
Thanks to the LSDJ list and Gijs Gieskes' tutorial.
4 comments:
Hey that's a great piece Lauren, very glitchy. I think I may even like the sound of the slower clocked gb's more than the normal clocked ones.
Hi Tyrell,
Yes the underclocked gbs sound very nice indeedy. Thanks for the comment.
BTW, it is Seb here.
really like, yes do. very good.go the glitch!.. but do wonder why you choose to swap LED colour, is it cos it's slopoke, and go faster red seemed inappropriate, or just for fun?
thanks for the comment mik. the swapping of the led is to differentiate between the slowness of slopoke and a gameboy without such a lobotomy. so yes, maybe go faster red seemed inappropriate. but is just fun also!
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