Arduinoboy mGB from trash80 on Vimeo.

Lovers of the sound of the original Nintendo Game Boy, the Minimoog of game systems with its distinctive, rich 8-bit sound, this may be the best solution for integrating it with other music gear.

Our friend trash80, aka Timothy, has completed a project with open-source code for the affordable, easily-programmable Arduino electronics platform. To make it work, he’s built his own custom cartridge, adding standard MIDI communication with other devices. An 1/8” minijack plugs into your Game Boy cart, but you get standard MIDI DIN on the other end for connecting to keyboards, computers, and the like. With all the code available, you should not only be able to build your own MIDI Game Boy, but apply some of trash80’s techniques to other MIDI hardware projects, as well.

Full documentation:

Flickr set

Code, project detail, and docs at Google Code

That’s the full Arduinoboy shield below:

Updated: As Smithers notes in comments, this is similar to the Pushpin project. Pushpin is actually quite a lot more compact, using only a MIDI cable. The downside: Pushpin requires a Game Boy Color, while this project works with the other Game Boy models. Also, the Arduino aspect may make this project a bit more accessible. Worth looking at both, of course.

The appeal of newer music apps for phones, current-generation mobile game systems, and PDAs is portability first. But for the Game Boy music scene, it’s as much about a distinctive sound, and acquiring Game Boys as a kind of unique synthesizer. Our friend and mobile game musician Peter Swimm points us to the new documentary Reformat the Planet. It’s available for a week free on pitchfork.tv, with screenings to follow. It’s a pretty nice survey of the New York corner of the scene, at least. I’m personally getting increasingly interested in tools like PSPSEQ, which have a distinctive sound all their own — think string modeling rather than vintage game glitches — but that puts this in additional perspective.

Reformat the Planet [available this week only, pitchfork.tv]

Cinematographer Asid Siddiky writes:

Homebrewed game music has an uneasy relationship with the mainstream game industry. Running or developing DIY music software isn’t possible on the Nintendo DS without special hardware – hardware that’s also favored by pirates. Nintendo is now suing the makers and sellers of that hardware, because they (correctly) point out it’s being used to pirate — but that could impact the homebrew music software scene, as well. And against that debate, we have a major leak of the Korg DS-10 cartridge, the one cartridge that is official and runs like a normal DS game. The twist: the "pirate" DS-10 music mix sounds fantastic, and should be a terrific argument to go buy a legitimate copy, right now. In fact, this should be a golden age for game music, provided the interests of developers large and small can be balanced. And, ahem, provided we all go buy that DS-10 cartridge so it isn’t the last legit game synth we ever see.

Nintendo Goes After Flash Loaders

For lovers of 8-bit music and mobile music, Nintendo DS flash cart loader hardware is all about the ability to run homebrew music software – seriously. Despite the snarky comments you might see on tech blogs, there really is an audience for whom running and/or developing home-built software, not piracy, is the primary reason to buy these gadgets. An entire music scene uses portable game systems exclusively, dating back ten years ago to the emergence of Nanoloop (and later LSDJ) on the original, 8-bit Game Boy. And it’s not just about piracy: because of the stringent requirements for developing for a game console, there’s simply no other way to write or run oddball music apps on the DS.

The appetite is certainly there. Running homebrew software on the DS is arguably more challenging than on any other mobile device, but paradoxically the DS has become the richest mobile platform for unusual, home-built music software. The DS is blessed with trackers, step sequencers, hacked hardware MIDI support, wireless communication with computers and other game systems, cellular automata synths, stylus scratching, and many other tools. All of this is possible because of the ready availability of flash loaders. The hardware tricks the DS into running homebrewed software by exploiting backwards compatibility features integrated with the device.

8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.

Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the HOPE conference, aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a doomed NYC landmark hotel with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, all in one place.)

Facebook event page; also on Going.com

Here’s a look at the performers and projects. If you can’t be in New York, this should give you a little taste of the range of work people are doing here and in our community in general, and I hope to have more coverage after the event.

Michael Una performing at SYNC Fest 08 from Michael Una on Vimeo.
Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Michael Una’s live-looping, robot-drumming, circuit-bending experience

CDM contributor, Circuit Bending Challenge coordinator and sage of all things DIY and sound art Michael joins the ensemble with robotic assistance:

I will be using custom-built interface devices, acoustic and circuit-bent instruments, and a robot drummer to create a rhythmic, textured and melodic sonic experience on the fly.

http://una-love.com

(Hey, does anyone know why Renee and Michael’s site is being blocked by Google? Was it the beat bike or the prayer wheel? What gives?)

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A reminder to those in the NYC area: CDM again joins up with Etsy.com and Make Magazine for Handmade Music night, a relaxed meet-and-greet of music technologists and people who make noise with things they’ve made. Currently expected:

• Chiptune / game music stuff, including Peter Swimm’s littlepiggytracker setup, Harsid4U SID (a la Commodore 64) synth
• Wii control (I’m bringing a Balance Board)
• Gian Pablo Villamil’s DIY synths, including the brand-new Mutation Synth. (See the previous Rhythmic Synth causing all manner of havoc with Nancy Garcia at the helm, playing with Thurstom Moore at NY’s No Fun Festival. An instrument that may actually inspire fear.)
• New handmade instruments from Ranjit, maker of all kinds of wonderfulness (like robotic Theremins and ironing board instruments, in past episodes of this event)
• A new addition – Roger TSAI and team’s “Groovy Hands” gestural glove for DJing, seen in videos here!

Come join us on the Facebook event page, and drop an rsvp@etsy.com email, but the event is free:

Handmade Music @ Facebook

Gestural DJing Preview

Designer/DJ Roger has created a set of interactive gloves for DJing that I really enjoy, not least because they have a great sense of humor. He built them as part of an NYU ITP class project in collaboration with Tommy TSENG and Eric Chiu.

Groovy Hand Project Site

Here are some videos of the gestures he can produce: