Pedal Idea: FX Boy

[MarilynMankey]

Hello everybody, first time poster and beginner stompbox modder/builder.

This might seem like a bit of an ambitious idea, but here goes.

While I was laying in bed watching YouTube videos, I saw a video from samuraiguitarist comparing various fuzz pedals. When he got to one in an old Game Boy shell, he mentioned the idea of being able to swap out cartridges in the Game Boy to be able to change the effect. In my head, gears started turning instantly and I had a very rough idea of what I would need. I would need some way to write ROMs for the Game Boy BIOS (or more possibly a custom BIOS) that would be able to hold the information necessary to simulate these effects and be able to flash them onto cartridges, and a bit more knowledge in petal building. I would also need to know if I could work with existing hardware inside of the Game Boy, or if I would have to make something from the ground up.

I can read schematics fairly well, and I do know some simple electronic work from doing simple projects as well as taking a robotics class. If anyone has ideas, recommendations, or a better title for this(!), I would be glad to hear them.

[diffeq]

Not sure if GB's processing power is enough for real time audio, not to mention memory constraints.

Saw something similar being done in a pedal format, using modern (and very powerful comparing to GB) DSP tech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBF5yu3c1dc

[jubal81]

[Sooner Boomer]

Pedal PI - Raspberry Pi ZERO Guitar Pedal

https://www.electrosmash.com/pedal-pi

make different ROMs with different effects programmed in.

[FUZZZZzzzz]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deviever/console-ii-cartridge-based-multi-fx-guitar-pedal

[FUZZZZzzzz]

Also, Line6 had the tonecore series pedals a couple of years back. They worked with removable cartridges and there was also a developer kit available which you could program yourself. It didnt really catch on, but that was over 15 years ago?

https://nl.line6.com/legacy/tcddk

[EBK]

As an alternative, one could simply use the cartridge and cartridge slot for its contacts and stick analog parts in the cartridge.  Plenty of contacts to breakout things like tone stack, clipping networks, transistor selection, etc.  And, if you are careful, there should be room inside the cartridges to hold quite a few parts, I would imagine.
R.G. had a very similar idea with his FX Bus. http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/fxbus/fxbus.htm

[marcelomd]

It is a neat idea. Lots of possible mojo, but I don't think its practical for one effect at a time. If you set-and-forget, there is no advantage vs a single normal pedal. If you like to change between songs, try not to lose the cartridges on stage.

I like this idea for multi-effects.

Korg had something like a modular pedal:

Biyang too:

It is not a new idea, I'm sure others had something like that.

Now, if we bring digital stuff to the table, there are a few great products. Example: https://www.moddevices.com/. You assemble your effects chain (you can program your effects, or get from the community) using a browser.

[willienillie]

If anyone has...a better title for this(!)

Did we tell you the name of the Game Boy?

[PRR]

If the idea is to "sell modules", modules are great.

But note that the cost of storage has gone down 10,000 to 1 in 20 years. Where we once put one game (or one effect) in a module, now we can store 10,000 of them, and build the module in.

If I was gonna hack a GameBoy like this, I'd put the dozens of programs IN the main board. Then jumper the pins on a lot of modules to give unique codes to the main brain to "change effect".