Jidis

Well, you can at least. Mine doesn't even power up! ;D ;D Seriously though, much thanks for the tip on the hardware pref. I haven't gotten to the point where I'll be messing with the front end software and chip support yet. I got the board populated fully late last night, but I'm getting no power light and weird voltages on the regulator outs (that 7805 always supplies roughly 5V right?). I'll be checking for shorts next and may be swapping some parts. The 7805 wasn't new. I also had to use regular large size parts in whatever the flat "T0" package style is, rather than the rounded transistor style that the layout looks like. Also could only find one "HC" buffer here, so I've got HCT14's plugged in, but I don't guess that will be a problem until I start programming. :o I'm pretty sure all my LED orientation is correct. I was running an 18.x volt DC supply from a laptop, and it measures as such on the input. Other things I noticed in my layout: The 1K pullup on pin one of IC3 (R8 in the .brd) was free on the left (5V) end. I opened it in an older Eagle on my laptop, so I'm not sure if it's like that in all of them. and: The two 2-pin jumper's labels are reversed (I think the main power input is labeled as "JP2" in the board). Take Care, George PS- Guessing you're talking about having successfully blown a 16F84A with it right? - and congratulations on the victory :)

I noticed they became hard to get here in the US as well. :'( Digikey now lists them as non-stock, but I haven't tried to see what that means in this case. If anyone knows a US source, I'm interested. Thanks, George

Jaicen, This was the ground pour post- http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=7482.0 I guess that is the same spot you jumped. I'll do mine too. I'll do my best to round up what I need and take it with me tonight. It looks like I stopped soldering when I didn't have the 2.2k trim pot, but I'm sure I can scrape up something. - Got 16F84A's here as well. Does it burn anything else or is the 84 the only one you have on hand? Hope someone can offer some help. I too am curious about the English software support. George

I know that one board for his meter was (to me at least). IIRC, it may have been upwards of 100 USD :o. Not bad for the guts of one giant project, but sort of scary for those of us who are used to throwing a ten dollar PIC into whatever we've thrown together just for kicks.

Weird. ??? I posted a question about a whole "island" of pour on the PB+ that didn't look to be tied in anywhere, but never got an answer. I wonder if it's that same spot. I figured many were probably using that board and that it would have been noticed already, but maybe they're all on regular PB's. (or they tied it manually) BTW- Mine is only about 60% populated as I didn't have an immediate need for it. I may try to finish it up if I've got time, and see what it does. Good Luck, George

Uwe Beis likes those too- http://www.beis.de/Elektronik/Electronics.html I had (have) plans to do the DPLCM meter he designed, but I haven't been in contact for a while. I'm hoping he can still get me a board. :-\ -George

That switch is in the default Eagle library BTW. I've used it before. It looks like the "DT6" ITT Switch in the "switch-misc" library. You should be able to use either pin from the two pairs (they're tied together), just don't grab two from the same pair. :o ---- Just realized I had something next to me with them in it. :) Picture time- If you go with ones where the actual head is smaller than the main round body (12mm?), make sure your panel isn't so thick that they can't get through. Mine are like that. You get a little under 4mm on the top section, and you'll obviously need it to poke through the panel by some. My eighth inch aluminum was too thick, so it squashed the buttons in when they were mounted. I ended up having to shorten my standoffs and grind a recess into the back of the panel for the fat part of the button to sink into. This of course was after I assumed the square holes were too tight and were wedging the buttons down, so I proceeded to enlarge them first. >:( Hope that helps, George

Man, and I thought I had compatibility problems cause I insisted on using Opera. ;D Glad you got that working Kev. :) George PS- MIOSStudio is cool as s**t! Make sure you check out the "debug" section. It can send LCD messages to help setting up layouts and stuff, as well as triggering various MIOS calls (like resets). Remember it won't currently remember your MIDI port connections when you exit, so if you've just opened it, you'll need to connect to your ports or it won't actually be communicating with anything.

Hi, I think that link is unique to your computer. I got a "session expired" error, but browsing that site, I saw some of the Alps "snap-ins". I'm guessing they're just talking about those two outer pins (attached to the casing). They're the type that have that curved lump in them, so that they push through a hole and sort of lock themselves in place (like the tip contact inside a tip-ring-sleeve phone jack). Basically standard solder type pots with a couple anchors. I have a bunch here. Just make sure you get linear taper and non-detented (unless you want that). Someone please correct that if it's wrong. 8) George

I didn't know you guys did that with the SIDs. I had the same dilemma with hi/lopass EQ filters. Some of the ones I want to control have about 15 different curves. Sure would be nice (and expensive >:(). George

No, I knew you were joking. I was just afraid it sounded like 'I' was calling the machines slow. ;D Now the E-660, that !*&^@% thing is a snail. ;D ;D John- Looking around a bit at some Kurz info. It may not have been all that much of an 040 at all. Maybe a 25MHz or something?? Still good for back then, just sucks that they aren't socketed like all our other stuff. IIRC, it may not have been the exact same version of the 040 that was in a Mac. Motorola had all these weird 040LC's and stuff. It could've been a DSP optimized one or something (who knows). Doesn't mean all that much when you think about it anyway. The Universal Audio cards and those lovely plugs I like so much are running on a CPU which was made for some sort of antique PCI video card. :D George

No, it's just the 2500RS. Didn't mean to knock it like that. It's actually one of the most respected pieces of hardware I own. I've just been neglecting it lately. I've been slowly working on a workstation thing in the corner of my tracking room where it will end up. I'm hoping to get back to more musical stuff and thinking a dedicated sequence area with a bit of "real" hardware might help. ;) John- It turned out to be running version 3.02 of the OS. I still haven't checked an editor with it. I may try that tonight, but I'm sort of worried about the current MIDI interface out there (a MOTU parallel MicroExpress). They've been known to mangle many a SysEx message. Take Care, George

Kev, You have any luck with this yet? It sounds like typical file association junk. I think I've had jar files fail to associate properly on something here as well. If it helps, I just opened my MSbeta7.4 with wordpad. The beginning starts with PK and five "unprintable" block characters. In the seventh line, there's a bunch of blocks,etc. and you'll see "org/midibox/apps/miosstudio/MIOSStudio.class". Getting "properties" for the file under WindowsXP on a fat32 disk shows the size of the file as 1.53 MB (1,613,526 bytes) and size on disk as 1.53 MB (1,613,824 bytes). Just to make sure you're running the same file and the download didn't mess it up. It's type should be listed as an "Executable Jar File" in the properties box, and if you go into the Tools menu and do folder options/file types in one of your folders, there should be a "JAR" listing in there. In mine, if I select the JAR type, in the "details" section at the bottom, it says "Opens with: Java 2 Platform Standard Edition binary". I'm guessing that's one of the exe's in the Java folders in Program Files. Let me know if any of that doesn't match up with what you're seeing on your machine. Assuming JRE got installed correctly, maybe you'll need to go into the file types dialog and point it directly to the right exe (or do a right click "open with" on the file and change it). Hope that helps, George <EDIT> Just checked the stuff in the file types dialog, and tracked the exe. The application used to perform the "Open" action for mine is "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_07\bin\javaw.exe" -jar "%1" %* Should see something similar on yours, and if not, try right clicking and "Open With", then check "Always use the selected program" and point it to the "javaw.exe" file in the "bin" folder of whatever Java you installed.

A grand idea. ;) Don't worry, they probably won't go to waste. I was planning to do a couple oddballs with pinheaders or ribbons sticking off too. I've done a couple dual MIDI over CAT5's here before, but they terminate in a heatshrinked mess, which splits directly to two 3-conductor segments with DIN plugs on them. Never had any trouble with the data, but I'd like to get a standard pinning for this junk, so I can make other stuff to go with them later on, like if I wanted to stick an RJ45 jack on a Core board or a breadboard project, I could plug directly into it and get both my MIDI runs (and DC now that you mention it :)) on one lightweight connector. The twists always seem to be associated with a balanced pair, so they'll both get the same induced noise and it'll get knocked out by the electronics at the other end. Just wondering what the effect is of having a data line and either a ground (free at one end I guess) or that 5v current line thing twisted together for the run. Thanks, George

Hi again, I've been short on MIDI cables the past couple years and finally got a fat bag of cheap 5 PIN DIN plugs off eBay. :) I'm thinking that instead of trying to figure all the lengths I might want, I'll just make some "Y" adapters with two really short cables (terminated with MIDI plugs) hanging off an RJ45 female socket, and stick them on the end of network cables when I need them. I'm not looking for the highest quality lines here, and the common transmission will likely be short runs of less than six feet. If you did this, what would be the ideal pins of the 3 DIN lines to stick together in the twisted pairs? Or, would keeping them all separate be the least susceptible to noise (I should have 8 leads to use for the six wires)? Thanks and sorry if that's a dumb question, George

Key, Something may be mistaking it for a zip and saving it with that extension (AFAIK, it's a raw JAR file). See if you can knock of the zip extension and let Java run it correctly. Otherwise, it may be getting mangled during the save somehow. ??? Good Luck, George

John, I'll have to check on the OS, but it will likely be the latest (for the 2500RS). I'm not sure I did much SysEx after I got the 25. The 2K was right at the point I moved to ProTools (yuck >:() and wasn't needing as much sampler. I doubt the 25 is much faster with the big streams though. BTW- I seem to recall them sharing much of the SysEx code (I hope that's right). I think there were "2K only" editors which still worked on the 2500. Thanks for that SysEx zip too. I'm looking forward to reading through the files, though my C knowledge leaves a lot to be desired. :-[ Any particular areas you were looking for control of? I do remember using the LP/HP filters and some of the EQ blocks. Also, yes, I do remember the effects being a bit "gritty". When the 25 came out, there was an option for "real" built-in effects with a card or something, but I've had digital out and DAW stuff, so it wasn't worth that much. Never did get that DMTi either (seems sort of pointless now though). George PS- You want to see a s l o w screen refresh, you ought to check out the Roland E-660 parametric. Thing made me want to jump out a window. ;D It puts an actual friggin graphic curve on an LCD to represent the settings and comes from the late 80's or really early 90's (if you can imagine what that amounts to). Shame you can't overclock stuff like that, or better yet, upgrade the CPU. The one in the Kurzweil's probably worth about 50 cents now, and I think at the time, it was a couple notches above the one in the shipping Macs (Mac Quadras maybe).

Someone else was asking about those recently: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=7526.0 They may not all be like mine, but mine aren't 100% "laptop-like" in click feel. The click is a bit cheaper, sharper, and harder feeling than most laptop keys, but still tolerable. Of course YMMV. Take Care

John, I have a 2500 rack and had the 2000 rack before it, along with Opcode's Galaxy Plus Editors package with the K2000 module. Haven't needed the 2500 as much (thanks to the DAW), but I ran the older stuff a bit, along with many an old 68k Mac. I thought Unisyn and/or SoundDiver had full editors for the Kurz as well now. ??? Now for the bad news. :-\ Don't know if it was the old Mac hardware, the Kurzweil processor (coincidentally an 68040 I think), or just the MIDI bandwidth itself, but the one thing I do remember was that it updated like a slug. I'm guessing MIDI, as the Kurz itself was pretty tolerable in that regard using the panel controls. It was neat having a nice GUI and all, but the heavy streams of data really knocked the system on it's butt. I'd have to check into it again with an updated host (maybe PC), but I have a gut feeling it wasn't the host. I wish SMDI had covered that sort of stuff too. Kurzweil were one of the early adopters of it, and it really took the sample dump thing to the next level. Probably would've worked wonders for SysEx. Would be cool to see an external controller for it though. VAST is too deep for a handful of buttons and an LCD. ;) Take Care, George

John, Sorry you're not getting much action on this. I'd gladly help if I could, but I typically avoid encoder posts as I haven't been lucky enough to use any yet (I'm strictly "regular" MB64 so far). Hopefully, this thread is just waiting for the right person to read it. Good Luck, George

Robin (if you're around)- Just got stuck doing an HCl etch outside in some really nasty weather and it still did OK. Weather site says 41 degrees(F) and "feels like 33". Also raining of course. ;D I see what you're saying on the differences in board stock. I'm starting to notice that my extra thick double sided stuff doesn't usually give me as clean of an etch as the single sided I've got. I'm not sure if it's the overall quality, or just the thickness of the copper though. I think the double is heavier there (on each side). The other thing that sucks is that the substrate itself is so thick that most stuff has to be forced down tight, just for the pins to get good surface area through for soldering on the bottom. Then, some of the parts need to sit up just a little, to get decent access for any "top soldering". I really need to get hold of some of those conductive "rivet" insert things, but some better layout skills probably wouldn't kill me. Take Care, George

That's one way of putting it. ;D It's great once you get the hang of it. Some of the best apps out there were designed by aliens. Their documentation is definitely one of the "fiddly" areas. Most everything is in there, but it isn't laid out very well. Best route is to find some of the 3rd party tutorials and tips online. They're usually much better. http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/se-inoue/e_eagle.htm http://myhome.spu.edu/bolding/EE4211/EagleTutorial4.htm http://vulcan.ece.ucsb.edu/ece189/tutorials.html http://www.candleautomation.com/boarddesign/eagle/eagleboard/introduction.html http://www.candleautomation.com/boarddesign/eagle/eagleschematic/introduction.html and a handful here (you'll need to put "Eagle" in the search box): http://www.instructables.com/search hope that helps, George PS- A couple of the most frequent "hard to figure" procedures in there are probably the group and copy commands. Copy often involves the "cut" tool (won't actually delete the parts). With "group", you select the group item, drag/lasso around all the parts you want to group, then select move,cut, or whatever you're trying to do with them, then 'right' click somewhere within the group to activate the function. You'll also see the question come up of polygons and pours opening as "unfilled" outlines. Don't know if they've changed that, but "Ratsnest" will fill them back in properly.

Jaicen, That's actually freeware with size limitations. You can get it from http://www.cadsoft.de/freeware.htm You'll just need to figure out how to set your colors and turn off/on different layers before you print. Should all be in the view menu. The print dialog will also allow you to move the image around on the sheet, so you can conserve paper if you're using something fancy. Also, AFAIK, the MIDIBox boards seem to all be carefully laid out to be within the size limits of that free Eagle version. - Still wish they'd bump those sizes up and add other limitations for the 100% non-profit DIY crowd. :'( Take Care, George

dtx, Sorry no definitive answer here, but I did go through similar trouble with an eight knob MB64 I did a while back. It does sound like messy supply or ground lines. It seems when I was searching or asking about mine, there may have been mention of a value of bypass cap or something which could be added individually (per pot or something). I went through hell on mine, and did much unnecessary pot swapping and rewiring. This was a homemade "all on one board" PCB, which had already been through too much, and much of the noise was knocked out by rerouting new lines with jumper wire IIRC. You might try taking three clean new wires directly to an external pot from the AIN or whatever, and see if it still does it. FWIW- I think I may still even have one pot on there that jitters badly at one of the extreme ends of it's travel, but the box is just for testing, so it isn't hard to avoid. Hopefully someone else here can point you to some filtering or noise tracking & reduction if that sounds like the problem. Good Luck, George

Actually, MIDI-Ox can do that stuff too. I use it to check the MIDIMon's MTC display. The "clock" part is a panel called "MIDI Sync", then there's another for sending regular MTC. They've both got boxes where you can enter times, tempo,etc. If you're dealing with sequencing/DAW apps anyway, running a master clock from one of them is probably the ideal way to go, rather than trying to feed from something weird running behind them. Take Care