The past few days Ive found myself playing with LSDJ again, and boy, let me tell ya. It's brought a couple things to my attention. Firstly I've once again deepened my respect for those who can actually use it. This is a no brainer if you've ever tried learning it, but if not just think about it. It's a tracker running on a god damned game boy. Between the limitations of the sound hardware (4 channels) and the limitations of the input scheme (dpad + 4buttons), not to mention the screen real estate (whopping 160x144 px), one would think only the most insane individuals would attempt to work with it (maybe this is case). Yet listening to some of the masterpieces no longer available on the 8bc, one easily forgets the insidious amount of awkward button combinations that had to be pressed in such a claustrophobic manner to produce the composition of our enjoyment.

Okay, perhaps I'm being a bit melodramatic. Because I know from experience once you get past the initial shock of the control scheme it's actually fairly easy to get into a groove. The controls are actually very easy to learn and after a dozen repetitions or so they become second nature. At this point, you're just working with any old tracker to control the 8bit's sound hardware. Which kinda leads to the other thing that was brought to my attention. I'm really comfortable using trackers now… I used to find them so difficult but now I kinda like having an alternate approach to sequencing. I need to spend more time in FamiTracker and ModPlug, I think it's a good addition to the sequencing and recording that I already practice.

So I guess I'll mention about the piece above, it started as an attempt to use 2 gameboys in sync. The BGB emulator has a network link cable emulation which makes it possible to synchronize two instances of LSDJ. Well, to a certain degree… I have yet to keep the connection alive for longer than a few seconds. So in lieu of hardware, I just took the lazy route and used one instance, editing the whole thing back together in Reaper. But maybe someday I'll get my hands on a couple flash carts and some prosound mods so I can link these babies up for real. The raw sound of the real hardware is just too hard to beat.