HANDBOY

What it is

Two pulses, a 32-step wave table you draw yourself, and a noise with a divider you can tune, all through a hardware sweep on the first pulse. It fit in a pocket and it still sounds like it: close, bright and a little hollow, the way it came out of its own speaker.

Draw the wave: 32 steps of four bits, from a sine to a saw to whatever
Hardware pitch sweep on pulse one for zaps, drops and risers
Noise with a seven-step mode that cracks instead of hisses
A koto, a wave bass and a lead from the same drawn table

Hear it

Pocket · 156 BPM · 6 tracks, every one on this chip. The app's own render, straight out of the engine; it ships in the app as a project you can open and pull apart.

The library

109 SOUNDS · 12 KITS

KEYS 27BASS 24LEADS 21EFFECTS 19PADS 12PLUCKS 4STRINGS 1BRASS 1

The kits

12 kits, every pad a voice of this chip, none of them a sample. The genre kits (trap, jungle, house, dusty, electro, factory, carnival) are written for the music people make now; the rest for the music the chip was born into.

POCKETBATTERYCARTRIDGEHEADPHONELINK UPPOCKET TRAPPOCKET JUNGLEPOCKET HOUSEPOCKET DUSTYPOCKET ELECTROPOCKET FACTORYPOCKET CARNIVAL

KEYS 27

wave organwave organ 5thwave bellwave glasswave music boxwave reedwave stairarp majorarp minorarp maj7arp min7arp sus4arp dimarp octavesarp powerarp wave majorarp wave minorwave gate stabhandheld autopan arphandheld underwatertwin stabcassette keyscrushed bellgate arphall belldub stabglass air

BASS 24

wave basswave subwave saw basswave square basswave reed basswave hollow basswave pluck basshandheld basshandheld subhandheld reed basshandheld drop basshandheld walk basshandheld knockwave acidwave squelchwave wobwave half wobwave 808wave knockwave reesewave dub subpulse 808stair acidspike growl

LEADS 21

handheld leadhandheld thinhandheld widehandheld pwmhandheld herohandheld softhandheld hardhandheld glidehandheld trillhandheld octavehandheld choirhandheld whistlewave spikewave twinhandheld sweep leadhandheld talkhandheld nasalhandheld hollow leadcomb leadhollow wahpocket radio

EFFECTS 19

wave combsweep upsweep downpower uppower downcoinjumplasersirenwarpnoise sweepnoise hitnoise windnoise metalnoise enginenoise rattlewave s&hring wavesweep zap

PADS 12

wave padwave pad widehandheld padhandheld dronehandheld swellwave dark padwave breathe padwave trance gatewalkman padtrance wavepump wavephase wave

PLUCKS 4

wave pluckwave harpwave kotowave thin pluck

STRINGS 1

wave strings

BRASS 1

wave brass

The other chips

MEGA 16FOUR-OPERATOR FM. THE CONSOLE THAT PUT BASS IN A CARTRIDGE.NE8TWO PULSES AND A TRIANGLE. THE ONE EVERYONE KNOWS.COMP 64THREE OSCILLATORS, RING MODULATION, AND A FILTER OF ITS OWN.ZX MICROTHREE SQUARES AND AN ENVELOPE YOU CAN PLAY AS AN OSCILLATOR.MOD 4FOUR EIGHT-BIT LOOPS, HARD LEFT AND RIGHT, AND THE TRACKER THAT DROVE THEM.DOS FMTWO OPERATORS AND FOUR WAVEFORMS. THE SOUND OF A PC GAME AT TWO IN THE MORNING.WAVE 6SIX WAVES YOU DRAW YOURSELF, IN STEREO, AND ONE CAN TURN INTO ANOTHER.BPC 60SIXTEEN PADS AND WHATEVER YOU FEED IT. CUT IT, SYNC IT, FLIP IT.PCM 16THE WAY IN. A MIC, A LINE, A DECK: SIXTEEN BITS OF WHATEVER YOU PLUG IN.