nexxyz – Gameboy chiptunes and general weirdness

A quite long time ago, a friend and I had a really nice series of parties called “Omega”…it must have been around seven parties or something we did, most of them quite big.

Of course we had a hymn. Of course we did a remake of that hymn for almost every party we had. This was the remake I wrote for an attempted restart of the series in 2001…sadly, the party series did not really take off, but the track turned out pretty nice! Check it out yourself!

A fine dreamy trance track for your ears only 😉

I love these headphones. They have an incredibly clear sound image. I just wish they were a little heavier on the bass, but they’re great for creating brilliant soundscapes because they are incredibly clear in the high frequency areas.

A midi-interface with, as can be expected from the name, 4 MIDI inputs and 4 MIDI outputs, which is hooked up to a MIDI patchbay, since without it they are not quite enough 😉

For now, it has enough ports…we’ll see about the future.

It runs with Windows or Mac OSX, and really well and easygoing in both.

This is a really mellow, chilly track, produced using a Commodore 64 and a Nintendo Gray Gameboy Classic, both played by Markus Schrodt, and a Roland MC505, played by myself. The reason for the name? Simple. By the time we were finished with this song, we were walking on the sand, on our gums, or for those people who understand German: Wir sind auf dem Zahnfleisch und auf dem Sand gegangen. Sounds painful, right? Well…it was.

Anyway, we are both quite fond of this track, and of the fact that it has lots of life in it, despite its really low BPM count. I am especially proud of the horn melody I put in there.

Well worth a listen, it is one of our diamonds!

A track I never finished. It is still quite a nice, hard two-step/breakbeat/whatever a la The Prodigy or Crystal Method. Bassy, boomy and dirty, with a haunting side-melody that’s almost taunting the listener and telling him to do all sorts of violent and sinful things…

Hey there!

I’ve decided to go with the following plan:

Each day, I will upload two songs and one equipment description. Maybe I won’t get to it each and every day, but I will try, so bear with me until all my tracks and tools are here, then we will get to some real new content, although some of the stuff I’ll be adding might include the odd new release! 😉 So keep your eyes peeled!

Aside from the obvious wordplay about the leaky lead synths, the “lead” in the title stands for its heavyness, and the “plumbing” for the rough style of this track. Hard, very, very bassy and dirty for a gameboy track, this is minimal Gameboy techno for fans. Chirpy and nasty. People were almost shocked at the sounds that came out of the little gray thing when I first performed it.

Turn up the bass and enjoy:
Gameboys can scratch your soul!

A fast, hard Drum and Bass track, playing around with stereo settings, screwing with your mind. Has a few interesting tempo changes and some sweet breaks in it, and is one of my songs with the most drive.

Complex, fast and driving.

The first matrix-display handheld gaming device that was released around the globe was a sensational hit. It got nintendo into the hearts of children and adults immediately. For the musician, it provides access to two pulse-channels, one noise channel, and one 4-bit sample channel. Accessible using LSDJ, lots of sounds and arrangemens can be produced that sound familiar, yet surprise most people: the little thing can actually provide nice basses and unusual sound, if treated right.

Lots of people use it for fun, and producing chip-tunes. dot.matrix and the Vienna Gameboy music club are two examples from the immediate neighborhood, but others like Bit Shifter and Nullsleep have a more global influence on the scene.

All in all, a great little thing for use as a musical notepad for melodies that hit you in the middle of work or the subway, and also capable of producing sweet little arrangements!

My dear 505, used by many, many artists (be sure to check out duo505 featuring dot.matrix‘s Herbert Weixelbaum).

Great for producing beats and basic arrangements!

I got it used, the LCD display lacks one vertical pixel row on the right, a bit annoying, but otherwise it’s in almost perfect condition.