Game Boy Sound System
Encyclopedia
The Game Boy Sound System (or GBS) for the Game Boy
is akin to the sound system of the Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES), the difference being that GBS has a higher pitch
than NES sound format. The GBS has two pulse wave
s, an arbitrary 4-bit wave channel (a little like the NES DPCM
channel, but with 32 repeating samples) and a noise
channel; however, the triangle/DPCM channels are not separated as in the NES.
GBS music files can be ripped and played with special players or Game Boy emulators.
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
is akin to the sound system of the Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
(NES), the difference being that GBS has a higher pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
than NES sound format. The GBS has two pulse wave
Pulse (music)
In music and music theory, the pulse or tactus consists of beats in a series of identical yet distinct periodic short-duration stimuli perceived as points in time occurring at the mensural level...
s, an arbitrary 4-bit wave channel (a little like the NES DPCM
DPCM
Differential pulse-code modulation is a signal encoder that uses the baseline of pulse-code modulation but adds some functionalities based on the prediction of the samples of the signal...
channel, but with 32 repeating samples) and a noise
Noise
In common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is random unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the acoustic noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission with significant electrical noise...
channel; however, the triangle/DPCM channels are not separated as in the NES.
GBS music files can be ripped and played with special players or Game Boy emulators.
Players
- Kobarin Media Player - Includes a front end, supports GBS and many chiptune formats natively, has a winamp plugin converter. mirror
- Audacious *nix player that accepts GBS.
- Chipamp - Winamp plug-in bundle compiled by OverClocked ReMixOverClocked ReMixOverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs with new technology and software, as well as by various traditional means...
allowing playback of over 40 chiptune and tracker formats - gbsplay - Linux player (and XMMS plugin in older versions)
- NEZPlug++ - Winamp plug-in that currently supports the most up-to-date implementation of the GBS format.
- MoonShellMoonShellMoonShell is a homebrew multimedia player for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS lite, Nintendo DSi, and Nintendo 3DS. It is a well known, popular piece of Nintendo DS homebrew software,...
- A media player for the Nintendo DSNintendo DSThe is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
(usable via a homebrew booting card) - Audio Overload - A media player capable of playing a variety of audio formats from vintage consoles and computers.
- Noise Entertainment System - a NSF/e, GBS, VGM and SPC player for the iPhone and iPod touch.