monokinetic

Hi all, to get an extra Midi in on my MB Sequencer I installed the remaining parts for my IIC module. FYI the 4 banksticks and the IIC Midi out work absolutely fine. I seemed to have most things working, except that after receiving 10 or 12 events the TX light on the IIC board stops flashing :( To do some testing I loaded up the loopback IIC test application and noticed in the readme: Note: the yellow LED will only flicker until the MIDI buffer of the MBHP_IIC_MIDI slave is full. This scenario can happen if the core cannot poll for the incoming data. This means in other words: this effect can be noticed, if the SC/SD lines are not connected correctly. I have traced the SD and SC lines from the core through the IIC module and to my 4X bankstick module and most things seems to be ok. The only things that seems a bit strange is that if I measure the resistance between SD and SC I get 2K. Is that right? TIA for any help! Dave mK

Hi, I noticed in the thread that the remaining GM5 chips will be sold tonight. I would like to ask: are there many spares? If yes, what do I need to do to have a chance of buying one of these? Thanks in advance Dave mK

@ stryd: Bingo that fixed it perfectly, I had forgotten to put the .hex extension after the name of the .asm file in Makefile.orig! I just compiled it with no problems at all. I do like make :) Thanks for the help D

Hi, I have been playing with this for the last two days and WOW, amazing work. The documentation is first class and the implementation is super, well done all ;D But, (there's always a but) I have a small question. Is it possible to adjust the make process to include a customised setupXXXX.asm? I ask because I have a different setup for my MBSEQ hardware to the supplied files. What I was hoping to do was just to have my own setupXXXXmyHW.asm file and then make. Just putting the file in the folder obviously didn't work so I tried adding my file to the Makefile.orig and it gave the following error: make: *** No rule to make target `setup_mbseq_v3_3b_dejfHW', needed by `all'. Stop. Is there any other way to do this? Or should I just replace the original setup_mbseq_v3.asm with my customised file using the same name and leave well alone? ::) Thanks in advance Dave mK

Hi, I have been following your posts here and over at electro music and I just realised that maybe I can help you with this request: I was wondering the same a while ago and somebody pointed me to the introspectiv group at yahoo. If you join up and check the files area the PCB layouts and schematics etc for the whole 9090 are there. From memory it's a double layered board, so in the end I made a few of this guys 909 kick: http://www.bionicdimension.de/_drummachine-909-bassdrum.html Which will soon be finished :-) Dave ps personally I'm not building any more modular drum stuff till the MPS is ready ;-)

I'm not sure how you envision the mixmap page. The name is a little confusing IMO. It's not something I've used a lot in my SEQ, but the way I understand it is as a static CC mixer. What I mean by this is that patterns can have CCs set in the mixmap that are sent out when the pattern is changed. This allows you to reset CC's before a SEQ tracks modifies the values. Also this can be used to automate volume changes etc (if anyone wants to correct me feel free!!) However, what I was originally hoping for in the mixmap page is a mode where I can use the encoders to send out the assigned CC's as I twiddle live. If this could be used in addition to a loopback channel then the 16 encoders could be used for tweaking tracks (for example assign the encoder to a CC that controls a tracks overall note length). As far as I can tell its doesn't work like this, yet :) I hope that clarifies it... Dave mK

Hi, I have had some strange redraw issues as well, I'm not by my sequencer at the moment but from memory it mainly happened when in the Utility page using functions like Copy/Move steps. I think I would hold down the move button, then use an encoder to move the step. When I let go of the move button the utility page would be redrawn as though everything had moved 50 percent to the left and scrambled! Once I left the utility page all was fine again. All other functions on the box are fine.... Oh and while we are talking about strange issues (without wanting to hijack) I have had some weirdness when I have selected more than one track and then changed the length (of the pattern i.e. number of steps). Again this is all from memory but I think what happened is that the pattern only played the 1st 16steps, even though the display said the pattern had 32 steps. I'm not sure if that makes sense, I can try to replicate the problem over the weekend if it helps... But, just in case you think I'm being critical, I still have to say that the SEQ is my absolute favourite tool in the studio these days (well that and the Capybara!!), TK you are the man :-) D ps I think I currently have mios 1.9e rather than 1.9f installed, not sure if that matters...

Hi Mike, indeed, I must agree. The MBSeq is the most remarkable Sequencer I have ever used! re: the heatsink, I found that running the 2 LCDs and the LEDs meant my regulator got so hot that it cut out after 10 minutes or so. After some forum suggestions, I mounted the reg. on a pretty thin heatsink and can sequence almost all night now :) HTH Dave mK

Hi all, I would like to ask if someone could open their MBFM to take some test measurements for me? You can find background information here: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=10139.0 Basically my board is behaving really strangely and it would help a lot to know what voltage I should expect to measure on the following pins: IC3 OP3 and OP4 IC5 OP3 and OP4 These pins are on the right hand side of the TL074, at the top and bottom. Anyone? TIA Dave mK

I stumbled accross some web images of someone who has built a OPL3 successfully: It looks like his board has quite a lot of tantulum caps (I'm guessing they are tantalums). I have used all ceramic caps for the non-polarised caps. I just double checked the reichelt orderlist and realised that in fact the 9 x 100nF caps are VIELSCHICHTKONDENSATOR. My German is not very good I'm afraid. Can anyone tell me exactly what this type of cap is please? In the meantime I will buy some tantulum's and experiment to see if it makes a difference. D

A further update and some more questions: I realised that I had got confused when taking measurements at OP4 and OP3, I was measuring on the wrong pins, sorry for the wrong info. Currently I measure: With IC3 and IC5 inserted: OP3 and OP4 IC3= -10.77 -1.04 IC5= -5.23 +5.72 Which I would guess is quite wrong! Without IC3 and IC5: OP3 and OP4 IC3= -0.02 -0.0 IC5= -0.17 -0.33 I haven't had time to get some new TL074s yet. I'm guessing that IC5 has some problems because of the negative voltages on the pins even when there is no chip plugged in. Any ideas? My current questions: is there anyway to test if the crystal is working correctly? is it ok to measure voltages on the YMF262 and the YAC512 chip pins? what are the expected voltages at the OP3 and OP4 pins? TIA for any suggestions... Dave mK

OK then something is quite wrong because I cant trigger anything over MIDI. I just get a low buzz, regardless of the app on the PIC. Of course smart mode is on when I'm uploading to the core :) I double checked the core functionality this evening using the interconnection app, each pin is going fine from the core to the OPL3 connectors. yes quite hot, and the IC3 and IC5 TL074s. The other TL074 seems fine. I tried swapping all TL074s around to be sure it's not chip related. I will still buy some more tomorrow to be double sure.... OK, just checking. Some more silly questions: I don't have things in a metal box at the moment, just on my work bench. I've not done much with things that make sound with AC based PSU's before. Would that make a difference? Plus, something that seems weird to me is that Duggles schematic and the original say that the non-live pin, where the AC comes in to the part which makes the DC power, is also where audio ground connects. That is correct isn't it? Best Dave mK

Hi Thorsten, As always thanks for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. I have spent some time over the weekend to try and narrow down what is causing this. I followed your suggestion of removing IC3 and testing audio outs 3 and 4. When I switch on there is no sound for approx 5 seconds, then there is a faint sound. I generated a 1khz test tone in software to compare with what I hear, it is pretty close but very very quiet. I tried to upload the MBFM1.1a app. after this, but it seems to output the same sound. I would guess that if everything was OK I would be able to upload the app and send MIDI to trigger some other sound? (by the way I have no bankstick attached at the moment, does the FM boot up with some initial sound or not?) Some other findings: one of the capacitors close to IC3 had got twisted and the legs were touching. I replaced it but no change. IC3 and IC5 both get rather hot after 2 minutes of running. Even with only one or the other plugged in, still they get very hot. Approx 1 time in 5, I switch on and when I measure the +12v line there is -0.74. I reset the power a few times and it comes back to +12v! I have tried another crystal oscillator this evening, no change. Oh yes and 1 question to clarify: When I measure the voltage on IC3 or IC5 pins O3 and O4 I have the negative sensor of my multimeter connected to the common ground point (as marked on Duggle's PSU schematic). That's correct isn't it? Tomorrow I'm planning on buying some other TL074's to eliminate them from the equation. Any other suggestions? Best Dave mK

Hello all, well after a few evenings of staring at the OPL3 circuit board I'm a bit stuck. Current setup is a CORE v2, OPL3 and duggle's AC wallwart to +/- 12v +5v PSU. Testing the OPL3 according to ucapps.de I ran without the TL074 first of all. +/-12V all seemed fine. PSU ran for 30 minutes without melting the house down so I unplugged and installed the TL074s. With all 3 plugged in the +12v line dropped to +0.74v. Worrying, so I pulled the power. Through a process of trial and error I have come to the conclusion that this only happen with IC3 plugged in, if I leave it out the board runs without problems. So I have traced every line from IC3, the positive and negative lines plus everything going to the YAC chip. All connectivity seems fine, no obvious shorts. I decided to risk running without IC3 and plugging in audio outs 3 and 4 (which run from the other YAC and TL074 combination) and I either get nothing from the audio outs or loads of static. Yes I'm 100 percent sure that MIOS is uploaded and the FMtesttone app as well. After reading this thread: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?action=post;quote=75407;topic=9997.0;num_replies=9;sesc=aa4be4696de2bbaaf6667995a59e2bcb I noticed that TK suggested reading the voltage at the following pins, I have listed my results: IC3, O4 = -0.84v IC3, O3 = -0.82v IC5, O4 = +2.52 IC5, O3 = +2.52 Now the million euro question, any ideas what is going on here!? TIA Dave mK

I had a feeling that would be the case, just wanted to be sure before frying anything :) so I will connect up the cables this evening with a bit more confidence, thanks. D

Hi all, I am following Duggle's power supply, as seen here, using a 12 V AC powerpack / wallwart. The problem is that the wallwart was supplied with bare cables and no markings what could be ground, so I can't work out what to connect to the ground of my breadboard of Duggle's circuit! I haven't done any AC stuff before so bear with me here: with a DC PSU I would measure across + and - and look at the polarity shown on my multimeter. I have an AC setting on the multimeter and I have used this to measure across both outputs on the wallwart, but connected either way the multimeter shows no polarity. Any suggestions? I presume it does matter which is negative and positive with such a wallwart? Thanks in advance for any help Dave mK

Hi, You probably know about this already, but just in case you don't: http://www.musicfromouterspace.com/analogsynth/SOUNDLABMINISYNTH/soundlab.html Must admit that I haven't built a whole one but I did adapt some of the building blocks on to stripboard and they worked well for what they are. Not sure if it will replace a classic Roland but it's one of the most built DIY analogue synths that I've seen (BTW I can't remember if it uses obscure tempco's, not much time to research I'm afraid!). Also Ray sells PCB's for it online, which would speed things up.... HTH D ps personally I don't need a synth, so I'm going to build another WSG :)

TK: sorry my reply is delayed, my machine is currentl burried in an exhibition piece (long story, midibox is invloved!) no hope to get the pic image just now. i should be able to get at it next week, just for your interest i will pm it.... apologies for the delay! d

TK: Thanks for your vigilence, as ever! I have a feeling I read the PIC into P18 before I flashed, I can PM it if you like? STRYD: I'm in Prague, the Czech Republic - Mike Germany somewhere. I don't imagine there would be too many security checks. In fact, they don't check at the Czech borders much :) [sorry couldn't resist it!] d

Hi, just to add my 2 Euro cents worth: 2 weeks ago I think I ran into exactly the same problem. I bought my new 18F4620 PIC from Mike pre-flashed. But because I've been MIDIboxing (yes its a verb now!!) for a while now I bought a PIC burner PCB, just in case.... With PIC 18F452 my MBSEq 2 was running fine, I regularly reflashed the box with MIDIO128 app, something I compiled myself and the shift register tester etc etc. When I put my preflashed PIC18F4620 from mike in exactly the same box (yes I added the extra resistor on the IIC bus before you ask!) I couldnt manage to get MIOS studio or MIDIOX to upload the software. MIOS studio gave me rpecisely the same error message as mjproc mentioned in their 1st post "unexpected upload request". The box constantly sent out the upload request but never seemed to give the first repsonse so MIOS studio abborted the upload. If I turned off smart feedback from the core the whole upload was sent but it never seemed to be programmed into the chip ie it still just sent out the upload request every 2 seconds. As I mentioned in this message: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=8673.msg61123#msg61123 after almost 1 week trying to upload MIOS and the app I decided to build my PIC burner. This worked perfectly first time, I then read in the preflashed PIC versus the correct bootloader hex file and P18 reported over 500 errors in the program and (from memory) 8 errors in the device id. I reflashed the PIC with the bootloader, put it into the same hardware, and voila, MIOS studio uploaded the software first time :D I then used the change ID app to set my device ID to work with the IIC Midi out put, it worked fine. The only problem I have at the moment seems to be connected to the IIC midi, I will save details of this for another post once I have investigated further (need to build my COREV3 PCB and do some fault finding!) My point is that I think we should double check with Mike re: testing one of his pre-burnt PICs because if I hadn't bought the PICBurner PCB, I would have been totally stuck. Especially as in a few places it is recommended for newbies to buy their PIC preflashed...... I hope you dont think I'm hijacking the thread, but I think there are enough similarities here to investigate further. Best Dave mK

ooooh i can reply to myself and try to get my post number up! I put the 18 pin PIC connector on the burner and tested the PIC16F88, it passed fine, 0 errors. So I set off tracing all the connections and it turns out that silly me didnt realise on the interconnection diagram that SC and SD cross when connected to the IIC :-[ quickly resoldered them and low and behold the TX LED lights up and I can upload apps via the IIC!!!! Whahooooooo :) only thing that seems a little weird is that even though I have reuploaded the IIC Loopback app via the IIC module itself when I send midi notes from MIOS Studio they still arent echoed back. But to be honest I'm off to finally play with this darn sequencer after years of soldering ;D best d

Ok now that I have my 18F4620 working properly I am having strange behaviour with the IIC Midi output. The board I'm using is from Mike, only stuffed with thep arts for MIDI output. The core is V2, yes I do have the 1K resistor on J4 :) I have sent the change device id to 0000 0000 0010 0000, it runs on the box and the screen displays the same Device ID number. Then I send the IIC loopback application, also uploads fine. The box reboots and displays this: S11 S12 S13 S14 - - - - From the ucapps page describing the IIC module it is difficult to tell if this display is correct. I would imagine that this screen would tell me if the IIC bus has something at ID's 10,11,12,13. Does my screen indicate the core isn't reading anything at these ID's on the IIC bus? I change over the MIDI cable to the output of the IIC module, send MIDI from MIOS studio and nothing is echoed back to the MIDI In monitor. Double checked schematic and boards for continuity between core and the input on IIC, all seems fine. Double checked for continuity between PIC socket pin 10 and the MIDI socket. The power LED comes on. Now I'm a bit stumped, any suggestions? Dave mK ps I'm off to buy another 18pin socket so I can solder it into the PIC burner. My suspicion is that the PIC16 from mike also isn't flashed properly......

Hi Wilba, Thanks for the reminder, to be honest I have given up with the JDM. I've had it for 3 years an never burnt a PIC successfully. I tried a variety of machines, O/S's etc - no joy. TO ALL: Luckily even though it says in various places on ucapps or the forum, just get a PIC from Mike with the bootloaders burnt in, my experience has shown that being able to burn my own PIC is essential. Originally I was using broccoli to burn all of my 18F452's, unfortunately it looks like devlopment of this application has stopped and they won't be supporting 18F4620. I tried all of the recommended software with both JDM and Broccoli hardware (P18,WinPIC800, broccoli software, PICpgm etc) but no joy. Built my PICBurner hardware which I bought just incase this sitaution arose, the hardware worked perfectly first time, hurrah! Before reflashing my 18f4620, which was ordered preloaded with bootloader1.2 from mike, I used P18 to compare the PIC contents with the bootloader file on ucapps. P18 reported 541 program errors, none in Device or config. So I removed the CP, erased the PIC and reflashed the bootloader, put the PIC into my MBSEQ et voila, booted first time :) My main point here is this: If you are tinkering with MidiBoxes I would personally recommend having a PICBurner handy. It is a couple of Euros and a nights soldering but then you are protected against weird problems like I encountered here. Best Dave mK

Hi all, I've had my MBSeqV2 up and running for a while, I tested today uploading apps via MIOS Studio latest version downloaded today using one of my standard PIC 18F452. No problems uploading a variety of apps so I'm pretty sure hardware is ok, MIDI cables etc tested just incase. Even checked my Java version, seems to not be beta. All I have done is swap the old 18F452 for the new 18F4620 and when I boot up the box I see the classic black bars on the LCD. However MIOSStudio is constantly receiving the F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7 every 2 seconds. From memory this means that MIOSBootstrap loader is burnt onto the pic, which is what Mike did for me. So I went through my usual procedure, trying to upload MIOS1.9d via the MISOStudio software. I have tried all of the ways, using feedback, smart mode etc and constantly get the same behaviour. MIOSStudio receives an upload request, it sends the first block of data then the window shows this: Error: Received unexpected Upload Request Sending block 00003100-000031FF Since then I have tried quite a few different things, reading the PIC in my JDM using the WINPIC800 software seems to say that its reading the PIC. When the read is finished the settings window remainswith FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF. I have tried reburning the bootloader and it won't work. Although I must say I have never had any joy burning a PIC with this JDM :) I usually use broccoli which now isnt compatible with 18F4620 :( Any ideas what to try next? I've got a MBHPBURNER PCB ready to build if the worst comes to the worst but its a bit weird don't you think? Could it be something connected to the ID or config bits? TIA For any suggestions Dave

hiya, I would recommend uploading the MIDI128 app to test DINS, its on the mios download page. Once you have it uploaded the screen shows you which shift register and which pin is being read. This process saved me hours of soldering debugging :) Best Dave