Retro Song Bird

video upload by Bird Cartel

via the developer:

"Hi! I’m a solo developer working on Retro Song Bird - a music player for your Game Boy games.

Plug in any Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge and the music starts playing, just like a cassette or CD. In addition to music playback, Retro Song Bird can back-up and write ROMs and save files, can be used as a USB webcam with a Game Boy Camera, and can even wake you up every day as your alarm.

I’m excited to get Retro Song Bird in the hands of musicians and chiptune artists. For the first time ever, they can plug a physical cartridge in and get stereo line-out as well as USB Audio with each of the Game Boys four instruments broken out as separate tracks. Using MIDI, they can control playback, track selection, and even tempo so they can beat match two cartridges and perform a DJ set. Here’s a video of me, a non-musician, remixing the chorus of Tetris with the drums of everyone’s favorite Japan-exclusive fish finder, Bandai Pocket Sonar: [video below]

I’m launching a Kickstarter 11/15 to raise funds to turn the prototype into a real production run: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/birdcartel/retro-song-bird"

I did not expect Tetris × Pocket Sonar to produce such a banger 🤘

video upload by Bird Cartel

Retro Song Bird supports Game Boy® or Game Boy Color® cartridges. Once inserted, their soundtracks begin to play.

SUPPORTS

Supports 1,900+ games. Plug in your favorite and let the soundtrack teleport you back in time.

Every track, plus sound effects

Physical controls for next, previous and volume

Stereo line out for your hi-fi

Accurate, register-level sound emulation


Plays homebrew game soundtracks made with GB Studio

Support for more games can be added over time

ARCHIVING

Because art belongs in a museum, Retro Song Bird helps you preserve the carts that matter to you.

Back up and restore save files

Back up ROMs

Flash writable carts

Export any soundtrack or sound effect as WAV

CHIPTUNES

Dig through the clearance bin: every cart is a gem when you can remix its original stems.

Each of the four sound channels (two square, wave, noise) as its own USB audio stream, ready for your DAW

Plug in an LSDj cart to play back your saved songs

Sync two Retro Song Birds and set the tempo to beat match and do DJ set with carts instead of records

Releasing an album? GBAlbum turns it into a ROM that plays on real hardware and Retro Song Bird

USB WEBCAM

Plug in a Game Boy Camera® and Retro Song Bird becomes a USB webcam. Join your next meeting in beautiful 0.014 megapixels.

128×112 pixels

Four shades, classic dither

~5 frames per second? Look, it's a bonus feature.

AND MORE

Alarm Mode wakes you with any cartridge. Press the button to snooze, or pull the cart to stop

Play (and cheat) in your browser, with Game Genie and GameShark codes

Build Mixtapes from across your collection and flash them to writable carts to woo your crush, '80s style

A history of every cart you've ever plugged in

An open API for developers: read, flash and back up carts, grab Game Boy Camera® frames, and more, all via web requests

Over-the-air updates add features and supported carts, so it keeps getting better