This guy made a keytar instrument out of his Nintendo Entertainment System, and he is using it to rock out — oh, and it still plays games.
Greig Stewart has built a keytar using his old NES, the ’80s-era machine that revived the home-console market. This enables the Scotland-based programmer to play the system like a guitar while getting the digital-sounding notes that classic-gaming fans will instantly recognize. To get the NES fully working as a keytar, the mad musical scientist also combined the console with a controller from the music game Guitar Hero and a toy keyboard.
“The sound comes from the original RP2A03 sound chip in the NES, giving it that classic 8-bit sound,” Stewart wrote in his blog. “All of the available sound channels are utilized.”
Stewart also included the open-source miniature computer Raspberry Pi to get all of the components to work together.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
Once he finished the NES keytar, Stewart naturally started jamming away on his 8-bit remix version of the theme song for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Check it out for yourself in the video below:
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More