Categories
All Blogs

Testing Facebook (Tell us your secret plans)

Hello! I’m just tying up the loose ends for launch and seeing if you are getting these blogs on Facebook. Are you? Brilliant! What projects are you guys working on at the moment? Art! Design! Electronics! Music! Record Store Day seemed to pass by without a peep. Talk to me you lovely people. Either in the Facebook comments below, or back on our Facebook page. If you liked us yesterday, thangyeverymuch. We’re super pleased about the sort of things we have coming up.

Categories
All Mods

Minecraft on the Gameboy

OK, so I’m lying. It really isn’t. We’re talking about housing a Pi in a Gameboy. While it’s already been done, I’m looking to create a controllable game of Minecraft with the Gameboy in the left hand, and a wireless mouse in the other. The Pi can be utilised with an emulator so that traditional DMG/GBC/NES games can be played also with the front panel, (as well as a little bit of LSDJ/nanoloop  fun)

So I’ve been hankering after a Raspberry Pi for a while and I just couldn’t justify buying one for the hell of it. My initial desire was the interest in some basic coding skills in linux because I work as a Cross-Platform analyst and the truimvirate of Mac and Windows and  Linux is desirable to me. Mainly because I’m such a fussy completionist.

20140428_214428

So when I saw that such a thing as Minecraft Pi exists, I immediately splashed cash on a Pi for next day delivery, convincing myself that I’ll have my own Pi-Pirate broadcast network in my neighbourhood and build an intelligent thermometer to control the water boiler in the flat.

But fuck all that, because making something simple that works is a lot more rewarding that an experiment that fails right? Probably not. But that’s my ballsy arrogant mantra for the project and if it gets the job done, then let’s do ‘er.

So it’s not Minecraft on a Gameboy. It’s Minecraft Pi, on a Raspberry Pi in a Gameboy shell, with a working set of buttons on the front. The D-pad will control Steve’s footwork and a wireless mouse will help him look.

What is Minecraft Pi then?

Let’s talk about what this thing isn’t going to do first. It isn’t the guts of the Gameboy anymore. We’re putting a computer into it and emulating the Gameboy part. Minecraft Pi is also not even the full Minecraft experience. It’s a very stripped down version of the full fat release. It doesn’t have sound. It isn’t online. It’s essentially free and offline. It works smoothly and it’s still the building-block part of Minecraft. It also has a Python API for real time hacking and coding, which is the exciting bit.

I’m trying to make a fun machine that sits alongside your other older Gameboys. Essentially, the iconography of the classic shell, mixed with the inner workings of the most modern micro computer available. Not only this, I’m going to show you the easiest way to do it and lay out your options as I go.

 

 

 

 

Categories
All Mods Music

Alley Beach – CMOY 1.0 and 1.1 – micro amplifier, massive sound

I recently received a parcel through the post with a California post stamp on it. I was super-pumped, because Scott was sending me one of his CMOYs: a tiny, symetrical board, mini-jack in and out, potentiometer and LEDs that amplifies anything you plug into it to the max. It was mounted, fairly neatly in a Tazo tin. Sadly, the California customs decided that even though it was leaving the country, it needed its face smashed in, even if it didn’t  have one. It arrived broken with a few leads snapped. It must have been used as a football.

Brilliantly though, its a kit that you put together yourself, so I just fixed it under his instructions with a couple of solder spots and it was up and running.

Because I wanted to paint the Tazo tin, I got viciously annoyed with the amount of adhesive on the tin and set up a tiny replacement box instead while I wait to get some paint thiner. The replacement box originally came with a foam insert for the mouse. I ditched that. The beauty of this tin is that you can see inside the board and LED.

CMOY Tin 1
CMOY in tin – Front
CMOY Tin 2
CMOY in tin – Top

The sound that you get out of this thing is MASSIVE. Why would you need such a thing? It’s a fun piece of kit to have around. It’s small. It’s fun and simple to make and it can amplify a hell of a lot in such a tiny box. Perfect for amping up Gameboys, Toy pianos, Speak and Spells. There’s a revision coming shortly and we’ll make these available. With the kit placed at about ten dollars, it’s hella cheap and hella fun.

Categories
All Music

Twisted Wave – Clouded sound editing

With the advent of smaller, lighter software and clouded services and hardware such as the Chromebook, redundancy as access to files on the fly has never been more important. On travelling to the states to perform music to my friends, I found my LSDJ had corrupted. That wasn’t a problem, of course because I’d wisely backed up my tracks, but I couldn’t access them if I’d have left them on my computer at home.

Fortunately, I’d been wise enough to zip everything and upload it to Google Drive, so I quickly downloaded them and got to work loading them onto my spare cart. With instant access to the files that matter in an emergency, I was graetful that the contents of my files went with me.

Twisted Wave is an online editing package that allows you to import music from your Google Drive. You simply need to grant access from your Google Account and a currently free service is truncated 30 second clips. If you spend a further 30 seconds signing up, you can edit full content. During the beta period, purchasing is disabled and the limits are 20 minute documents / 10 hours storage. The software comes with a variety of basic features such as cutting, marking, looping, copying and pasting, and goes further to adding in VST effects of the standard variety. As a tool, it is clean and concise and allows to to export to your Soundcloud account.

Twisted Wave Example

Twisted Wave isn’t even a replacement to Audacity despite being just like it, but….. it is a free beta, compact, use anywhere, browser-based ‘awwwww shiiit’ reducing tool when you’re in a jam. Give it a try.

Categories
All Blogs Mods

Hear the drama get Wiki’d

In an effort to start filling in our Wiki here, I’ve began pasting in details I can scrounge from the internet. The chip and micro music scene is made up of a lot of old mardy men who act like wounded soldiers. We’re just trying to make a factual wiki to make up for the loss of a unified source for these things. If you feel you aren’t getting the credit you deserve, contact us and we will rec-rec-recognise. Also, it allows us to check on the available information and improve it with the help of the original authors. If you’re reading this and you want to help, there are quite a lot of areas we need covering. For the time being, let me list a few areas we need assistance in:

  • Gameboy Carts, types, software (both homebrew and commercially made, released to public)
  • Gameboy Advance series Prosounding
  • GB Pitchbending
  • Screenlighting methods
  • Case and button lighting methods

 

 

Categories
All Blogs Mods

Kano: An educational way to start with Pi

kano-computer

A Kickstarter opened on the 19th of November encourages people to start creating games, play with coding, make a server or just generally goof around with it with Kano. This is entry level stuff, but in terms of putting a Pi in the palms of the public, this is something that there should be more of. Pre-bundled kits for the school, colleges and it’s a toy for seasoned hackers. You can buy into the Kano Keyboard at around 60 dollars and get a full git for just over 100 dollars. It’ll tear your heart out not to grab a hold of one. (We’re told it’s actually named after its creator, Kano Jigoro, a lifelong schoolteacher)

Categories
All Blogs

We’re open! (sort of)

Hi Guys,

This is an initial test post to show how the theme looks. It’s a bit bland and colourless at the moment, but we can fix that with some art, logos etc.

I wanted to make a very slick, professional and modern theme.

I’d like to get rid of the blurb, so it looks less ….bloggy, but this isn’t bad for an hours work.

😀