Little Sound Dj v9.2.6 Operating Manual (summary)

The official manual of lsdj (79 pages, dated 9 May 2021) by johan-kotlinski. Chapter 1 covers the game-boy's four sound channels, keys and hex; chapter 2 walks through the nine screens (song, chain, phrase, instrument, table, groove, synth, wave, project, plus the hidden file, word and help screens); chapter 3 has advanced techniques (copy/paste, cloning, backups, mute/solo/pan, live mode, synthetic drums); chapter 4 is the command reference (A B C D E F G H K L M O P R S T V W Z); chapter 5 synchronisation (Game Boy link, MIDI, analog in/out, PS/2 keyboard); appendices list the sample kits, the 59 speech allophones and the SRAM memory map.

Key claims#

• The Game Boy sound chip has four 4-bit channels: pulse 1 (envelope + sweep), pulse 2 (envelope), wave (soft synth, sample playback, speech), noise (envelope + shape) — see game-boy-apu.
• Sequencing is a tree: song (four columns of chains) → chain (list of phrases, each with an optional transpose) → phrase (16 steps of note, instrument, command, value). Phrases and chains are shared between channels; a chain can be played on both pulse channels. See orderlist, tracker.
• Five instrument types: PULSE, WAVE, KIT (ROM samples, two kits as left/right note columns), NOISE (7-bit or 15-bit), SPEECH (instrument 40, 14 word slots built from allophones). Instrument types must match the channel.
• Instrument PITCH setting (FAST 360 Hz / TICK / STEP / DRUM) governs the P, L and V commands; CMD/RATE slows C and R (and P/V in TICK mode); TRANSP. opts an instrument out of chain/project transposes.
• Tables: six columns — amplitude envelope, transpose, two command/value pairs — run at one tick per step by default, started by the instrument or by Axx; loops with H, probabilistic hops with B. They are LSDj's instrument-tables.
• Grooves set ticks per step (default 6/6; at 125 BPM there are 50 ticks per second); 8/5 makes swing; A+UP/DOWN changes swing percentage at constant total; G selects a groove in phrases or tables (shuffle-funktempo).
• The wave channel's synth generates 16 sounds of 16 waves each from a signal (square/saw/triangle/custom), filter (LP/HP/BP/AP), distortion (CLIP/FOLD/WRAP), phase (PINCH/WARP/RESYNC), with start/end values for volume, cutoff, Q, vshift, limit and phase; WAVE instruments play them MANUAL/ONCE/LOOP/PINGPONG (wavetable-programming).
• Commands: C chord arps (C37 minor, C47 major, CC0 = 0, C, 0, C… octave alternation, C0C = 0, 0, C, C00 resets), V vibrato with a depth table in semitones, L slide to note over a duration, P pitch bend, R retrig/resync (RF4 = echo, R8x resync), S sweep/loop points/noise shape, E amplitude, F frame/finetune/sample offset, H hop (also waltz time: H00 on step C), B MayBe probability, Z randomize, T tempo (BPM formula for non-6-tick grooves), M master volume, O output, D delay, K kill, A table, G groove, W wave.
• Synthetic drum recipes: pulse bass drum (ENV C3/0/0, SWEEP 63, note C-6, TRANSP. OFF), noise snare (ENV F1/D3/0, note value ≈ 30), hi-hats (≈ 38), wave bass drum (PITCH DRUM, triangle, table P C0 then TSP 80 + L30).
• Workflow: clipboard (B+A cut, SELECT+A paste, SELECT+B block marks), deep vs slim cloning (SELECT+(B,A)), CLEAN SONG/INSTR DATA, up to 32 songs per cartridge in 512-byte blocks (BF blocks = 97,792 bytes), always back up because cartridge batteries die.
• Live mode (SELECT+LEFT) queues chain starts/stops per channel; sync modes LSDJ (link cable, LEAD/SYNC/WAIT, clipboard transfer between Game Boys), MIDI (needs a sync cable), ANALOG IN/OUT (spliced link cable + 3.5 mm, Volca/Monotribe), KEYBD (PS/2 keyboard as piano). Use 6-tick grooves when synced.

Practical takeaways#

Everything expressive in LSDj comes from three places: the instrument PITCH/ENV/TABLE settings, the six-column tables, and a small set of single-letter commands that double as table columns. Learn C V L P R S E H G first. Kits (TR-808/909/606/707/727, CR-78, LinnDrum, DMX, Drumulator…) cover drums; the synthetic-drum recipes free the wave channel for bass.

Notable quotes#

"Tables are sequences of transposes, commands and amplitude changes which can be run at any speed and applied to any channel."

"Some words of caution from many peoples hard-earned experience: When using a Game Boy cartridge, backup your songs!"

Relevance#

Primary reference for the Game Boy branch: fills the wanted pages lsdj, game-boy, game-boy-apu and adds an ### LSDj section to most technique pages.

Pages touched#

Created: lsdj, game-boy, game-boy-apu, johan-kotlinski, sync, retrigger, randomization-and-probability, stereo-panning. Updated: chord-arpeggio, vibrato, pitch-slide-and-portamento, pulse-width-modulation, shuffle-funktempo, fake-echo, detune, instrument-design, wavetable-programming, sidechain-pump, instrument-tables, orderlist, tracker, arrangement, rhythm-and-groove, adsr-envelope, octave-bass, multisampling, sample-offset, song-init-and-looping, sample-looping, semitone-math, chord-inversions, melody-writing, diatonic-chords.