On CSDb, sid musician Fanta has posted an mp3 of his 4 voice MOD track PLUS two voices of sid coming off a real c64. The track itself is relatively unspectacular, but the scene reaction is interesting ranging from grudging respect, to feedback on everything from the style, the results, and the point of doing such a thing.
Listen to the track
2600 democrew Trilobit posted their new Atari demo on pouet. Check it out here:
From 8BC. TRASH80 sends an update on his midi hardware for gameboys:
GB (Midi for gameboy) has a interface now, with some neat live mode features such as multi-selection editing & user definable presets (each synth has 16 save slots)
It also has some help at the bottom of the screen which displays what the parameter on the cursor position and gives the corresponding MIDI CC value for your sequencer.
Arduinoboy was updated with some neato led fx when syncing or in mGB mode. (lights strobe to sync, different blinks to midi message on mGB)
I’m planning to add custom wave shaps in mGB as well as MIDI sync’d tables. But that might be added either tomorrow or next year depending on motivation
Grab it here
http://code.google.com/p/arduinoboy/
This is quickly becoming the best over all solution to sync your lsdj/nanoloops/papus to your modern midi workstation.
Retinascan keeps up with its crazy 3″ CD-r series, so I thought I’d do a rundown of whats been released so far.
8gb‘s release sounds very good, even though he just has previews online. The pounding and techy drum programing and glitchy pulsewaves are crackhead addictive, so this sounds like a no brainer of a purchase. So far “Viking Line” might be my favorite chip song to flay alive my helpless victims. And “61b” is hard enough for the toughest of Techno Vikings. 8GB shows that a savvy ear can push the genre far enough you forget all about what hardware is doing what and just fucking dance.
Another release is from Multifaros, the alter ego of young Swedish gameboy artist Bard Ericson. “Good Luck” is an mix of the Swedish hump style happy blip mania and really grungy almost rock like tones and how successful the blend came across was one of the biggest surprises for me. Following that with the mournful pause of “Legoman” and “Mr. Rai”, and closing out with the arcade funk of “Toffel” and the beautiful “Why Are You Floating” has added Ericson to my must listen list. Excellent stuff.
Finally is the first release in this series, Stu‘s “Atari Solo”. The release is simply a prolonged beat down of the Atari ST soundchip, especially the wife beating kick stomp of “Ready to Score” and the moaning lofi samples in “Fuck Machine”. Stu shows unwavering dedication to fucking shit up. The sound design alone would make this one of the top chip releases of the year, but Stu also has a number in tricks in store with amazing composition and intriguing mix choices. If you only get one (and hell they are cheap enough to get all three), you’d be hard pressed to ignore “Atari Solo”
I am unclear how many retinascan releases they intend to put out in this format, but this may be the hottest chip run of any label in years. Will be sure to keep an eye on it.
I always loved how new items where displayed on VORC, so I’ll ape that for a bit.
hard plAYer- is an 8 bit tunes hardware player, which allows you to listen to the same melodies you could listen to in some of the 80’s home computers and videogame consoles. In next versions It will also work as MIDI synthesizer. It’s audio sound generator porcessor is the General Instruments AY-3891X the same one that was used in vintage computers like the Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Spectrum ZX, MSX, Oric, or Colour Genie, and consoles like the Intellivision or Vectrex. The YM-2149 was a Yamaha’s licensed version of this processor.
I am really looking forward to the next update when it will support midi in. As it currently stands, you can play tracks off sd cards. In the meantime check out a overview of the player or this video of the interface.