midiNES mini-review...

So I got a midiNES cartridge today, as part of my long-range plan to force Peter Kirn to give me his Nintendo DS. First impressions are generally favorable. If you’re not in the know, the midiNES, made by .:wayfar:. is a Nintendo cartridge that gives a normal run-of-the-mill NES a MIDI input, so you can play the synth portion of the CPU directly from any MIDI source.

What surprised me on first listen was how clean it was. If you don’t plug it in to a TV at all, and run it in its MODE 1, the noise floor is much lower than other methods for making chip music. It’s actually lower than other (much more expensive) synths I have, interestingly enough. You can play two pulse channels, a triangle channel, a noise channel, and the sample channel simultaneously, and each is addressed from a different MIDI channel.

It is entirely programmed via MIDI CC messages, so I’m in the process of making a device map for Nuendo/Cubase, so I can just grab a knob rather than having to go through the whole process of sending it a CC through other means. I’ll provide this map to anyone that wants it once I have it done.

So, full review and sound samples coming. But at first glance, it is a nice piece of kit. I need to get a Par-Metal 1U rack and a couple switches from Mouser, then I’m gonna rack-mount this bitch and it’ll be on.