Alright.
The Freeboy.
The original Gameboy had four channels. Channel 1 and 2 are square/pulse channels.
Channel 3 is a wave channel.
Channel 4 was the noise channel.
The freeboy lets you choose a stereo option: Hard left, hard right, or centre, per channel.
The freeboy lets you control, master, left volume and right volume, treble volume and bass volume. This acts like a high-shelf and low-shelf. It's pretty simple.
Channel 1.
Is a square channel.
The sweep direction arrow (SwDir) controls whether pitch sweeps upwards or downwards. The VSwDir, volume sweep direction arrow, controls direction of volume sweep: Upward means the note sound doesn't stop on its own (unless SwDir is also up, in which case it stops beyond a point), whereas downward means the note starts high and fades out.
Has volume control, and a knob for
"length in each step in shift" (SSL). It essentially controls the length of each note as the pitch sweeps downwards. Other than 0, the lower you go, the more staccato it sounds. If you're sweeping downward. If sweeping upward there seems to be very little difference. Someone needs to verify this. I can't hear this one clearly, and my ears have been acting up these past few weeks.
A square wave may have a wave shape like this.
- Freeboy2- Rectangular wave.png (51.03 KiB) Viewed 19629 times
The ratio of the length of max to the total wavelength is called wave duty cycle. It here is called
wave pattern duty (WPD).
A perfect square wave has 50% as the max and min occupy equal amounts. (Presumably this is what "2" means, as in 1:2. Other way around? Can't tell.) Sorry. (It is possible this is in n:4, where n is whatever the value is. This is why 1 and 3 sound the same, as they are phase inverted. This certainly makes more sense. 2 would be 2:4. 1 would be 1:4.)
Sweep RtShift amount (SRS) seems to control number of pitch steps before reaching and staying at baseline frequency. 0 means it stays at the same pitch. Upon sweeping upward, it controls number of pitch steps, but upward pitch steps appear to be lesser in number. While, when sweeping pitch downward, it'll continue forever (I didn't hold more than a minute, but probably continues forever) or fade out (based on direction of volume sweep), in upward pitch sweep, it ends abruptly.
Sweep time is the amount of time taken to complete the (pitch) sweep (ie, all the pitch steps) and end up at last pitch step. If at 0 there are no pitch steps taken.
Channel 2.
Is a square channel.
Has volume control.
Here, the sweeps are volume sweeps, whereas in channel one they are pitch sweeps.
The SSL volume controls the length of each step in volume shift. Again, I can't hear a difference in upward mode. However, setting this to 0 means the note never fades out or stops unless the key is released.
WPD means the same thing as above. It modifies the oscillator wave only, it does not impart an LFO.
Channel 3.
Is the wave channel.
Has volume control.
Located below Channel 2 and Channel four visually.
You can draw the wave in.
- Freeboy1- Wave.png (134.48 KiB) Viewed 19629 times
It's pretty simple.
Channel 4.
Is the noise channel. It is located visually on the left of Channel 2 and above channel 3.]
Has volume control.
SSL seems to work the same as it does on Channel 2: Control volume. 0> never fade out. On downward, the lower the value the faster the fadeout.
I have no idea what Shift Register Width (SRW) does. It seems 7 gives a more regular-sounding noise, 15 gives a more irregular noise.
Now, in the original gameboy, all these four channels were capable of playing at once, but each channel could only produce one sound at a time.
This means you have four Freeboy instruments on your Song Editor. One is on Channel 1. One is on Channel 2. One is on Channel 3. The other is on Channel 4. Each channel can only play one note at a time. Notes may not overlap.
That's as much as is probably true.
If one can modify the parameters partway through
(see bold point of Disclaimer for explanation of conditional):
You can use several if you WANT, but if you want to stay true to the original you must use only one Channel-1 instrument at a time, only one channel-2 instrument at a time, etc.
It can be messy, as such, to have several channels enabled on one instrument.
If you do not use several instrument tracks for each channel but just one per, and want to modify the sound part of the way through, you may have to use automation on the knobs. However, you must take care to treat each channel as monophonic and ensure a channel is playing only a single sound at a time.
If you are using one instrument track with several channels, be very careful.
Disclaimer:
I need someone to verify the following information for me since I cannot find it myself:
I do not know what SSL does on Channel 2 and 4 with VSwDir set upwards. I do not know what SRW on the noise channel does. I do not know whether Channel 3's wave channel was possible to modify partyway through the track on an actual Gameboy.
I do not actually know if it is possible to modify any of the parameters partway through a track on the actual Gameboy.
Moreover, some of this information may be wrong and/or incomplete. I am trying to describe it as I hear it, a dangerously unreliable method for someone with ear issues.
Any suggestions, improvements, and corrections will be appreciated. Thanks!
This was nasty winding. At least I know how the gameboy works now? Thank you for posting this, OP. I've had some vague interest in finding the basics of the freeboy plugin and using it like authentic at some point, and you've gotten me to do this thing. Wow. How cool is that? [strikethrough]Now, to convince myself to write a tutorial on the NEScaline and figure it out. [; [/strikethrough]
musikbear, by the way, if you know anything more you can add about the gameboy/freeboy, or can help with some of the Disclaimer verification above, since you know more, I'd be very grateful. Thanks!