I got myself a gameboy DMG for LSDJ fun times. Got this one off ebay from japan, no batteries till tomorrow, but high hopes. It appears to be in good condition, even has the cover for the port, no corrosion seen etc.
Plan to mod this mainly for LSDJ use, so no pitch [CPU] mods planned, but if anyone else wants to post about their endeavors, feel free to post here too!
Warning: Appears to be inhabited by a ghost jellyfish.
Thats prolly fine, its part of the charm of old devices to have ghostly invertebrates.
(i did that to show the screen’s lack of a lot of scratches)
I have one as well - and getting it for free is partially to blame for me getting into this whole crazy hobby in the first place.
Mine is for sure fully functional, so I am pretty hesitant to modify it. I would be nice if there was a mod that could integrate it into a synth and yet keep it relatively intact. Wishful thinking perhaps.
There’s been inputs of MIDI, clock and audio. The sound is generated by the CPU so the only way the audio comes in is through a 5th channel that doesn’t interact with the other 4, just sums. In fact only one Nanoloop cartridge used this and none of the Nintendo games used this. This leaves MIDI and clock as the only ways to usefully mix synths with the Game Boy.
-Fumu / Esopus
That boy is clean! Hot damn
With an “arduinoboy” and LSDJ you can control synths with midi, and you can even use these thingiemajiggies to control the channels on the GB.
Im hoping i can use the arduinoboy to take lsdj tracks and feed back midi to my computer. Hoping to have a process to go from lsdj to a mod file.
I know there are compatibility concerns for that, but i can handle that. I can already handle midi to mod conversion pretty well. Still very limited, as i am still getting used to the limits (this is only an emulation at the moment). This arrangement does not have a lot of special codes since i want it to run with GBT Player, and not sure what is compatible at the moment.
I have finished modding the gb screen, buttons, shell and tempered glass lens.
Screen can customize colors, and has an emulated dot matrix with integer scale.
Been learning some LSDJ, and gotta say i have always liked the idea of trackers, but it never clicked until i used LSDJ.
Here’s mine in its custom shell…
Mods include a line out, no hiss internal amp, new power board, USB C rechargeable 2000mah battery and a RIPS v3 IPS screen and a custom printed shell. I have a plain grey one with a funny playing IPS kicking about too that I made for the missus.
I replaced the power regulator as well. Kinda has some issues with the screw posts though, they kinda got stripped immediately.
Need to find space for the pro sound next.
Re: the stripped posts, did you buy a cheap-o one from ebay/aliexpress or did you get an expensive ABS one? Turns out the expensive ABS ones are even more prone to stripping than the cheap buggers, it’s just a case of being super careful when you nip them up. They feel nicer though, so it’s a case of be careful and don’t overtighten.
You’ll have no problem fitting the prosound, at least not a mini jack one, just stick to the bottom left of the case above the regulator and you’ll be fine. They only seem to get tricky if you want to run a big jack or dual RCA’s for the output. Just make sure you get a socket with nice long threads on, I found that the first batch (the size I would use for a Eurorack panel) were too short. I ended up picking up an expensive pre-wired one from Deadpan Robot just to make sure the bugger would fit - although I can confirm that if you go down that route their socket fits a befaco bananut nicely.
I ordered through Handheld legends, and they actually said similar.
Its odd, because i know the trick with self-tapping screws is to reverse the direction to find the track. They are sending a replacement my way though, so you got to love that.
I did the pro-sound mod tonight. Oh yeah, now we are in business.
Recorded me some sample audio from Megaman 3.
Added some verb and stereo separation to experiment. Now i know why people do this.
Many years ago I was into LSDJ and Nanoloop - I had modded out 2 DMG’s - this was before I ever really knew much at all about modular synths or anything, like 2010 lol.
I backlit all of the buttons with full RGB capability (switches up on top), Backlit the screen, Bivert Mod, Prosound Mod, and I think that was it for the black one… lol
The other was just a couple basic mods, to conserve battery life lolol.
I have been considering venturing back into DMG’s now that I am actually into electronics. lol.
A couple of my favorite companies who made Products and such:
(Justin is awesome and was always willing to help!)
Great products for modding.
