Analogue Pocket: Nanoloop infused futuristic Game Boy opens preorders next week
Analogue Pocket · Source: Analogue
Analogue Pocket · Source: Analogue
Analogue Pocket · Source: Analogue
Stunningly futuristic portable games machine with built-in Nanoloop sequencer and synthesizer for making music is opening for preorders on the 3rd August.
Analogue Pocket
It’s a lovely looking box. A stylish and minimalist take on a classic Game Boy format that would be completely lost on kids these days. The 3.5″ screen is gorgeous. It’s made from Gorilla glass and has 10x the resolution of the original at 1600×1440. This is not an emulator or software version of a classic games machine, this is a cartridge video game system built on a pair of FPGAs. It will take all the cartridges from the Game Boy, Game Boy Colour and Game Boy Advance library and they have adapters to let it take games from Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Colour, Atari Lynx and more.
You can plug in wired or wireless controllers, you can plug it into your telly, you can connect up 4 Pockets for some multi-player action. This is one heck of a pocket games machine.
Nanoloop
So it’s a cool pocket gamer, so what? Well, the Analogue Pocket can run the Nanoloop sequencer and synthesizer developed for the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance by Oliver Wittchow. The marketing seems to suggest that Nanoloop is somehow built into the system although it’s not entirely clear. Nanoloop usually comes on a cartridge so maybe they are throwing that in the box or maybe it’s embedded. Either way it does say that Nanoloop is there “out of the box”.
Nanoloop consists of a step sequencer of 16 steps and 4 channels. The steps are displayed as a 4×4 grid and each step can hold information on pitch, volume, filter settings and so on. All sorts of modulation and interesting movement can be stacked into those steps.
There’s quite a bit of potential connectivity with MIDI over USB, a MIDI In adapter, an analog sync cable and a Pocket Link to other Pockets to run bigger sequences.
Music in your Pocket?
I’m trying my best to view it as a music-making machine and Analogue are certainly making a fuss about its potential with Nanoloop. But I wonder whether this is the sort of device you’d buy just for portable sequencing? You’d much rather buy it because you have a box of old Game Boy cartridges knocking around that you’d love to resurrect. But that’s interesting too!
The Analogue Pocket costs $199.99 and doesn’t ship until May next year. The lovely looking dock will cost another $99.99 and all the cables and cartridges are extra.
More information
- Analogue Pocket website.
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