Retro Complex
single • May 26, 2023Available on these platforms:
+ Bandcamp release includes the LSDJ project file!
Retro Complex - Dev Talk
This is a track about thinking out of the box while inside the limitations of a box. It’s my first attempt at making a song using only a Nintendo Gameboy.
Concept
This song is heavily inspired by vocaloid and anime openings, the most important influence being “Bocchi The Rock!” . It’s an amazingly creative show about a socially anxious guitarist who dreams of playing in a band, which I can heavily relate to!
I used “Little Sound DJ” for the Gameboy to make the entire thing, it’s a surprisingly capable music tool despite being on such old and limited hardware. I’ve modded my Gameboy to have a better screen and sound quality so I could make music on the real console.
Playing with LSDJ is a lot of fun and you can get cool sounds from it with enough experimentation. The portability of the Gameboy made it easy to write music wherever I went, and I even brought it to work when I was bored…
Complex?
I’ve used FL Studio well over 6 years by now and I’ve gotten used to the almost infinite things you can do with it. You could make a project with a hundred instruments and FL would still work fine. That however made learning LSDJ quite a challenge, because it seemed like there was barely anything to work with! LSDJ only offers 4 sound channels and a tight memory limit. Whenever I made a new section in the song I would fear that I’d run out of memory before the song was finished. You could say I’ve developed a retro complex of sorts…
I want to thank @pouale and @defmech for giving feedback on the track, pointing things out I never would’ve thought of on my own! Please check them out, they’re Gameboy wizards.
Artwork
Written by @avolicis
Sunnexo’s reference pictures
Overall we’re pretty satisfied with how the cover turned out, and hope you like it too!
Artwork progress timelapse
22/04/2023 - 13/05/2023
Retro Complex
single • May 26, 2023Available on these platforms:
+ Bandcamp release includes the LSDJ project file!