Powerless Game Boy Doubles as Drum Machine

[Tom Goldman]

Powerless Game Boy Doubles as Drum Machine


You don't need power to make music with an original Game Boy.

Music made with a Game Boy or another classic machine, commonly known as the chiptune, is nothing new [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105837-Chiptune-Composer-Revives-Your-Childhood-For-Any-Price]. YouTube's MrSeberi, aka Sebastian Bender, may have wanted to join the chiptune scene, but probably couldn't find any batteries for his original Game Boy. Instead, he turned the device into a drum machine with no power at all.

Bender put together a song using various Game Boy-themed sounds. The simplest of the bunch include pressing the A and B buttons, pressing the D-pad, and flicking the front and back with his finger.

When he gets into it, the song uses flings of the Game Boy's battery springs, tosses of Game Boy cartridges, the removal of a Game Boy Camera, flipping the on/off switch, and scraping the Game Boy's ridged side. You wouldn't think all of those things mixed together would sound like anything coherent, but they do.

Okay, so the feedback from almost inserting a pair of headphones into the Game Boy's headphone jack might require some power, but it's still a pretty abstract technique in terms of musical composition. We can only hope Bender has a Virtual Boy song coming up next.

Source: GoNintendo [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpdYKamOjUo]

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[hecticpicnic]

*Inspired!*Thank you random guy on the internet.You made my day and got my creative juices flowing.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ha I bet this make you regret droping your Gameboy for the Daily Drop video. I got to admit that was very catchy.

 

[Veloxe]

Finally someone using a gameboy for purposes other then destroying it or pretending it's a bomb.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Are you sure that's the headphone jack? It looks like an AC adapter to me. Cool video, either way.

 

[JDKJ]

Not to take anything away from Mr. Bender (I'm a huge fan of circuit bending and his bend is very cool as is, too, his multi-tracked composition) but I'm not sure that the sounds he's getting from the A and B buttons and the D-pad aren't electronic (i.e., don't require a battery or some other power source). They sound awfully electronic to my ears. I don't think they're purely percussive.

 

[gamefreakbsp]

Just Want to Bang on the Game Boy All Day by The Internet. The new smash single.

 

[MazeMouse]

Also, the headphone jack is on the bottom. This is feedback from the adapter power (although I don't see how that would feedback)

 

[Ben Simon]

Reminds me of the musical jeep.

 

[JDKJ]

Also, the headphone jack is on the bottom. This is feedback from the adapter power (although I don't see how that would feedback)

That's what circuit benders do: they take circuits that would normally work in a given way and, by trial and experimentation, devise new ways in which those circuits can work in different ways, usually by joining two or more formerly independent circuits. If you route the DC power from the adapter input's circuity to one of the tone generating circuits, then I'd imagine it would be possible to cause the tone generating circuits to generate a noise-like tone. Once you've accomplished that, you can easily generate feedback by the usual means: send the noise generated to a loudspeaker, mike the noise generated by the loudspeaker, send the miked signal back to the same loudspeaker and, voilà, feedback loop. Or, more simply, send the noise generated to a feedback emulator (any cheap guitar feedback stomp-pedal will do the trick) and what comes out of the emulator is a feedback loop.