Gameboy oscillator documentation

It helps quite allot actually, I’m more of a visual learner so seeing the work in the flesh is super helpful, i want to make a triple oscillator so would i just make 3 more on the same panel and then wire in the pots to all 3 to do all the cc stuff? I assume its just make 3 and then sandwich them together. If you can draw up the circuit that would be awesome but don’t sweat it if its a pain.

Are the 4 knobs on the left the cc injection stuff? what do the jack sockets do beside those, i saw them on Sam’s diagram but i couldn’t read the label beside it. :frowning:

Im guessing the switch with the 0 above it is power, mute obv muting it and the cpu mod switch doing its thing, i assume the knob on the far right affects the cv of the cpu mod? What does the knob on the gameboy do, is that the pro sound mod or something to do with the cpu mod also?

I cant thank you enough for all this, ive been wanting to build one forever and hopefully this is all the missing pieces i need :purple_heart:

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The “DMG button” magenta was the best choice of color for this module.

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LTC1799’s are on their way! :slight_smile:

…still no gameboys though :frowning:

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Coming back to this, sorry for the delay :wink:

Yeah, the four pots are for cc. The jacks left to them are cv control for those. Those are switches sockets, so as soon as you plug in jack, the pot will act as a attenuator for the cv signal. I will draw that out when I got the time, but you can check the mega nes Video, I think…

Yes, the knob next to the cpu cv is an attenuator for the cv for the cpu clock. The knob on the Gameboy itself does control the cpu clock directly. Its value and the external cv are added together. It’s the tune knob on Sam’s diagram on the third post of this thread. There you can also see the attenuator (I made only one cv and only one attenuator, different to the drawing).

If you want three gameboys, you need to make a triple ltc, board, but only need a single Arduinoboy. You can connect three gameboys to one if they should play the same note. If you want them to be able to play different notes (more than 3 fold polyphony e.g) you would need more arduinoboys. I think that Sam mentioned that for the mega machine he had to use mosfets to connect all the gameboys, but three should be possible with a single Arduino.

So far! I will make a drawing eventually, but I don’t know when I will have the time :slight_smile: just ask if more is unclear

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Yeah, it was totally intended! No way it was just that my black spray can was empty and this one was the first one I found!! :wink:

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No problem for the break, I havent had much time to do anything myself either, Ill probably go for the single arduino boy set-up as i just wanna make a phat sounding triple oscillator with them all playing the same note, no sweat about the drawing, i wont be building it for a while as the gameboys and programmable carts are more expensive than i first expected, however it would still be very usefull, again thanks for your help.

Gotta go search up attenuator as im still unsure on the meaning lol.

EDIT sorry i’ve just seen “lol” surely you know what is it

i know now, sounds like its almost a “limiter” without touching any waveforms or whatever

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I could of sworn Sam said he was going to try and make a pcb project of this? I totally understand if hes busy, just curious if its still in the works, would be cool as i cant find the stripboard layout or much documentation on the tripple version with the midi injector that my simple mind understands lol

Sorry, I forgot about this again!

This is the overview. One arduinoboy, 3 gameboys, 3 ltc chips. This way you can have 3 note polyphony and each note is played by three gameboys.
Did you have to use mosfets or anything for 3 gameboys, @lookmumnocomputer ? Or only for more than 3?

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Thats alright, the picture makes it a heck of alot more simple to visualise. im guessing switches just need to be added? and im guessing its just a bog standard arduinoboy that interfaces with the gameboy plug on the side?

And in terms of the audio out is that basically a pro sound mod behind a panel with the separate left and right outs?

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What I don’t understand is these setups say three note poly with three Gameboys, but each gb has two pulse channels and a wav channel you could use.

I only have the one gb in my setup, but I didn’t need to cpu mod them and I still get three note poly.

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Oh, sure, you don’t need the cpu mod(ltc chip) for polyphony. That is only to have external cv over pitch. With three gameboys the cpu mod enables you to slight detune the gameboys which makes for a phatter sound :wink:

With three gameboys you can have 9 note polyphony, but then you need 3 arduinoboys or modify the code for a single one significantly:)

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Oh, I forgot the switches, I will make another drawing.
I did not use the plug, but soldered the wires directly to the pcb.
And pro sound is also only soldering wires to the pcb :slight_smile: there were some pictures by Sam where to solder but I can also take it out again and make photos

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awsome awsome thank you so much, i also want to build the midi injection thing too, would that replace the original arduinoboy or do the two work in tandem?

there are a few ways to do the pro sound mod, but the essentials are either doing it “pre-pot” or “post pot”. The difference is whether you want the output affected by volume knob or not.

is that the main original volume knob on the gameboy itself? im running them into a filter with volume control anyway so its no big deal to me

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Here is a great video by Joe Bleeps about the mod. You should have all the info you need once you watch it!

This method covers using the existing jack for prosound, if you want a separate jack without cutting wires and removing headset functions you would do it differently.

This is the process i used:

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:0 9 note sounds fun as hell, would that mean i need 3 midi in’s or can i just chain one? im probably gonna use an ltc chip anyway cause it looks fun and i kinda wanna see how it sounds if they are slightly out of tune

Thank you caustic :slight_smile: ive been suck on this for ages with the gameboys looking sad on the shelf XD

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