Jidis

That's what I was going to suggest going after next (the path to the analog ins), but I guess you've ruled that out. I feel your pain on it though. I did a box a while back with a single, double sided board holding 8 pots, 24 buttons, and 32 lights, and the pots almost made me throw it off a bridge. I did the same thing with jumping additional new wires to ground and 5v points, as well as replacing a couple pots which were probably OK. Works fine now, with the exception of one pot that will throw out a jittery 127 sometimes at minimum (zero). Seems like basic "continuity" checks don't always cut it with some stuff. Are all your prefs in the app set right too (AIN mux/unmux, no. of pots,etc.)? Hope you get it fixed, George

Thanks! - not too sure that naming a VST plug-in "H2O" is such a great idea in this industry though. 8)

Thanks Wilba, I can try that tomorrow night. I did however see it happen tonight without opening MS. No biggie either way. George

Another weird one... ??? MIOSStudio (7.5) seems to trigger some junk on my 98SE machine where the start menu and a bunch of the taskbar graphics get mangled. Anybody seen that or have an idea of what to try to reinstall (Java,DX,video card driver,etc.)? Thanks! George

Hey Stryd, I actually took another box over there cause I wanted to play with some pot stuff, and there weren't any on that problem board. So now, two boxes don't do it, and one does. I'm still wondering what it's about. I can try swapping chips maybe tomorrow night, along with looking over the DIN/DOUT board. It just seems weird that it works fine for other stuff. Take Care, George

Hi again, I've been playing around with some basic loop/counter junk in the SDCC skeleton and have hit a couple weird bumps. Strange part is, there's a board of similar configuration here at home, which doesn't exhibit the same behavior. As a couple examples: This (thrown into "NotifyToggle")- if(!pin_value){ //ignore release for(count=0 ; count <= 0x0F ; count++) MIOS_DOUT_PinSet1(count), MIOS_Delay(75), MIOS_DOUT_PinSet0(count), MIOS_Delay(75); } somehow manages to reset the "count" variable when it hits the 16th LED, and loops indefinitely. Another confusing find was that a routine (also in "Toggle") set to increment a counter and trigger incrementing DOUT pins with each subsequent toggle call would trigger 1,2,...7,8/9,10,11 with pins 8&9 being triggered back-to-back automatically from a single button press. Additional notes: That first LED sequence somehow works fine if called from elsewhere (like in NotifyReceivedEvent). Limiting the counter range doesn't help either. It just loops less lights indefinitely. The home board and the problem board are both running 18F452 variants and MIOS 1.9c. The problem board has two DOUT ICs and one DIN. The home one has two DOUTs and four DINs, but the apps are always set for SRIO_NumberSet(2). I'm pretty sure all my pullups and termination on the DIN chain is OK, but I can remove the board and check if that could be involved. Much Thanks, George

James, I think it can all be sent via the "SysEx" window (poor naming I guess). If you pull down SysEx from the view menu, it opens a scratchpad window where you can type in note messages like that too and then select "send SysEx" from the Command Window menu. The output menu seems to display a SysEx header for the outgoing crap or something, but it looks to still send a regular 3 byte MIDI note (a MIDIO128 just picked it up here and lit an LED :)). Hope that helps, George PS- Can MIOSStudio's keyboard not send what you need?

kokiPsiho (if you're here)- Thanks again for that recommendation. I've had it a few days now and it looks great. -> mint condition hardcover too, and cost me about three dollars :) Not to knock the K&R book. I'm still carrying that too, but it seems like a better text for classroom, where you'd have an instructor commenting on everything, or a ref manual after you've already learned a bunch of it. Take Care, George BTW- The recommended book is "Beginning C: From Novice to Professional, Fourth Edition" by Ivor Horton (...not that people can't follow the link ;D)

Toby, The diagram looks fine to me. :) I've got a bag of those switches too. If you go with any of the ones where the button head is smaller than the total diameter of the button, be careful with your panel thickness and mounting. The travel on them isn't all that far. I used some of the square cap ones with an eighth inch aluminum panel and had to recess the back of the panel to get them far enough through the face. You also want them to sit back far enough so that the back of the panel doesn't end up pressing the button in on it's own. :-X Of course the easier solution is just to buy the ones with the larger square or round heads, but I got a deal on those. ;) Good Luck, George PS- BTW, Eagle has a library model of those switches. Even if you don't choose to etch, you may be able to use it's bitmap export to get a panel hole layout or something you can use in a CAD app.

Toby, They're probably one of the "easier" components to make a board for if you go that route. Matthias' suggestion sounds simple enough, and would avoid any drilling. If you don't mind trying an etch or some drilling, and can arrange your buttons on their own PCB (or PCBs), they're the sort of thing that you may even be able to achieve decent results with just the Sharpie marker "hand drawn traces" method. The ground side of all the switches will be chained together and will be pretty much just a straight line, and the pins at the other side will have plenty of surrounding space to do whatever you need. Re: The selection- There are plenty of exceptions, but with all the stuff I've got here, it seems most of the snap-in or bolt-on panel mount switches I've got here are more rugged, and also require a bit more force to depress. For quicker, frequent use, something that just takes a light "finger tip" tap is usually best IMHO, and that's where you'll usually find the board mount types. George

I've actually bitched about the same thing to Steinberg. Nuendo channel strips from v.2 on are modular, but the bottom (fader) component is always visible. It supports multiple simultaneous mixer views, so a bank of meters for ref on a second display would be perfect, but you can't do it (not sure if that changed in v.4). I like the 2 or 3U meter box idea too. I think an eight (or 16) channel box with an ADAT in and thru would be awesome, but I usually work at 44/48k rates. I suggested it to Uwe Beis (who does an awesome S/PDIF meter at www.beis.de/Elektronik/Electronics.html ), but I don't think he has any need for ADAT. :'( George

Fall_X, (not Sasha but I'll try 8)....) "Trying" the desoldering on junk as you say is indeed a good idea. Getting components off intact is a black art. Different techniques for different stuff. Your real concern will be making a mess and overheating things while you try to free all the pins. The desolder bulbs work, but the spring loaded pump type syringe thing might be better, and you may need some of the desoldering braid to clean things up as well. On the pots/faders, you should first try to look for a label printed on them. "B" *should* indicate linear (or A for log/audio), along with their resistance value (B10K for example). Beyond that, I guess you'd have to check the resistance with the pot set at different points to figure out if it's close to a 1:1 linear curve or not. On the LCD, again, some of the IC labeling would probably tell someone here what they were (if they're anything common) along with the number of connections. Hope that helps, George (owner of a fancy rework station/desoldering iron that he can no longer get tips for >:( >:( >:()

Not 100% certain, but I seem to remember Thorsten's activity lights using a brief delay timer or something in the software. If so, maybe the "on time" of MIDI activity alone isn't long enough to produce any adequate "visuals". :'( I'd guess someone in here could probably figure a passive component or two you could toss in to get it happening though. ;) George <edit> Plus, I guess it stays high too, so you'd have to flip that somehow to keep it from just staying "on". ???

Me too :) It's got that "BattleZone" look to it, or like the old green monochrome displays. Best part is that "value bar" thing. I'd like to have a whole stack of those assigned to different controls for reference. Thanks for the link!, George

kokiPsiho, Thanks! It's on the way now via Amazon. :D Take Care, George

Thanks from me too! :) I've moved out of my studio recently and finally have some free time to get back to learning some of this. I like that tutorial, as well as the "Learning to C" one here: http://members.cox.net/midian/articles/ansic1.htm I was (am) using the actual Kernighan & Ritchie "C Programming Language" book for a while, but it sucks compared to some of these web tutorials. K&R cover so much ground in such a short time, that with each new concept they add, they'll throw an example snippet at you that includes the new thing, surrounded by twelve "worst case scenario" concepts they previously covered, which you may or may not yet have a solid understanding of. That's OK with people who briefly comment all the extra crap to make sure you follow what's going on, but they often don't. I have enough trouble trying to walk and breathe simultaneously these days. ;) It's a shame those others aren't on paper. Any of you guys have any favorites (in print) which might compare to some of the web tutorials? Thanks! George

Seems like it would be straight individual connections with all those pins (unless they waste a bunch of them). I like that digit display (...but then, I like all digit displays :)) George

John, Sorry it's taken me so long to post back. (I'll tackle the one I actually know first 8)) - There are pretty significant differences between the two methods. As you know, the trend with all the modern soundcards is to provide some means of hardware-based signal routing, using whatever processing the card or interface itself has. For instance, MOTU's "Cuemix" or RME's "Totalmix" ("zero latency" monitoring... blah blah blah). They've usually got a control panel/mixer app to set up the routing for that, but with ADM (ASIO Direct Monitor), you can do it all from within Cubase, Nuendo, or whatever, and it's a bit less confusing than running an app in the background (which might stay "live" even during playback). On my MOTU machine, there were a few things that Cuemix could do, that weren't 100% possible under Nuendo control, but then there's the larger issue anyway-- Direct monitor (however you control it) usually means patching and mixing hardware inputs directly to other available hardware outputs. AFAIK, there's little more than level (and pan) that can happen to the signals there, as all the processing really takes place outside of the Cubase mixer. This is great with regard to getting tight delay-free cue signals in the phones for recording, but unless you've got outboard hardware doing any EQ, dynamics, or effects, your phone signals will also be dry as crap, and if you're running a bunch of VST plugs or using the mixer's channel strip EQ, there might be a night and day difference in the signal when you play it back. Keeping DM turned off gets you full software control of the signals, complete with plugs & processing, at the expense of a delay in the cue signals as they get run to the computer, through Cubase, and back out. Depending on your host machine and card, it's possible to get the buffers and latency down to where it doesn't drive you nuts, just be careful with how much you try to push it (low buffers as well as CPU/plug loads). Don't risk tracking like that until you've done a couple decent length test runs under the same config and checked the results for glitches and junk. Now on the MIDI thing, I can't say first hand. ??? It sounds pretty messy, and a single multi-port box would probably be the cleanest way to go. I think I just realized the obstacle you're talking about after looking at Nuendo1.6 on here, but don't see an answer- You're looking to separate a sixteen channel input stream (on one port) to a bunch of different ports with some channel bumping (...ouch). I also see that I've got pulldowns for port AND channel on input, but maybe not for output (port only), like it retains the incoming channel info. There could be a way around that, but it's way beyond my Nuendo MIDI needs. I'm usually just controllers & software instruments, sometimes not even that. If anybody else here knows it, the floor is yours... ;D Take Care, George

Hey again John, I'm sort of stumped too. Doc mentioned the "connections" panel, but I think even with "Stereo Out" routed to the wrong jacks, Cubase's "Stereo Out" bus would show activity (you just wouldn't hear it). As a DSP24 owner, I'll add that STAudio/Hoontech's software is some of the funkiest and least intuitive of any I've dealt with, and it's a shame as I feel the card itself is really nice and has some potential otherwise. I wish they'd get off the "virtual bus" crap (at least with the panel & drivers mine has) and realize that anyone who buys a semi-pro or above soundcard will already be running DAW software for that purpose. Mine has only two ins and outs available, and it has about 10 channels in the stupid panel. ;D Back on topic, only things I can think right off are to make sure you've selected the actual STAudio ASIO driver in devices, and to try with and without the direct monitor checkbox ticked. BTW- The realtime monitoring with effects you mentioned, will only be available with direct monitor off. There are also some cards which don't (or don't properly) support DM, so turning it off just to get a signal might be a safe starting point. I also don't think you'll want anything patched together (ins to outs,etc.) in the card's control panel, if you'll be working in Cubase. All that stuff should be accessible from Cubase's mixer. Sorry that's all I can come up with. Good luck and let us know what happens. :) George

Well the DVD player ones I mentioned are probably nowhere near that nice underneath, but they are undeniably cheap if you look around. :) Here's a couple that were here: That's a Daewoo on the left, and a Sony on the right. There was a KLH laying around that had a cool one too, but I just took it somewhere. George

John, I've never tried to do that exact thing before, but it sounds like what you're looking for (live routing) would require something like one of the mixer panels for the soundcard itself (like RME's Totalmix or MOTU's Cuemix). Cubase could do it as well, but you may have to set up a "dummy track" just for monitoring purposes. You sound as if you've already got your i/o set up in the VST Connections panel. You should be able to add a stereo or mono audio track and have access to whatever you've got available as inputs (where you were seeing meter activity) from the input pulldown on your new audio track. As Therezin mentioned, make sure you've also got them routed to your mains. You'll also need to get them in "monitor" mode before they'll probably do anything (the speaker icon on the channel strips). A couple other notes: *If you should appear to be missing any i/o, due to a changed config in your soundcard panel's prefs or something, you may need to hit one of the reset buttons in the inputs or outputs panels in Cubase to update it. *Keep in mind, there are a couple different methods of monitor available from Cubase. If your card supports it, there's the "Direct Monitor" option in the VST Multitrack panel (in "Devices"). That will actually control the hardware DSP functions of your card via ASIO Direct Monitoring, just like the soundcard's mixer software might do. You'll figure this out when you mess with it, but that method actually bypasses some of Cubase's signal path and has a couple other routing limitations IIRC. It is however, likely to be the fastest with regard to latency. I've managed to keep that unchecked here (in Nuendo with a MOTU 424) and get my buffers and latency down low enough to do basic multitracking, along with some live VST plugs, without any "slapback" sounding obnoxious delay in the phones, but YMMV. With DM off (regular software monitoring), you'll have the benefit of getting the exact same signal path on play and record, complete with insert plugs, and you can set "monitor" to automatically turn on when you go into record. *Also, "guessing" you've got the dedicated ASIO driver for the C-Port selected in devices, rather than any of the ASIO multimedia wrapper stuff. *MIDI may also have some similar switch position requirements to get a live path happening (the record or monitor buttons). I know at least the "thru" function didn't seem to work without a record enabled MIDI track. - sorry I'm sort of vague on Steinberg MIDI, beyond it's remote control stuff ;) *You may need to do some of your soundcard's setup (sample rate, clock source, bit depth) from within Cubase (either in "Project Setup" or from the "VST Multitrack" panel), rather than from your card's control panel. Cubase may override whatever you had set on the outside. At least that's how it is with the MOTU stuff, but MOTU and Steinberg pretty much hate each other, so again YMMV. ;D Hope some of that helps, and let me know if you hit anything else in it. I've been with Nuendo since v.1, but I'm no "power user". I sort of stick with just what I need from it, for basic multitrack duties. Take Care, George

Yeah, with the Core2, I actually meant buying one. Not sure how common it is now, but for a while it had such a horrible rep that you would see it on eBay for 15 and 20 bucks sometimes. Not many people knew that it actually could work. If you play by the rules and can deal with a little resource management, it does fine and stays completely invisible (problem-wise ;)). The ADAT i/o is it's true beauty. With a cheap ADA8000 or AI-3 converter tied to it, you could have a pretty solid box for 8-track remote recording, complete with outboard conversion for a couple hundred dollars. I've also got a Live card around here that someone gave me. I've been meaning to check it out, as it did have S/PDIF IIRC, and it was supposed to have some usable ROM sounds. I thought I remembered reading that it did some weird non-bypassable on-the-fly sample rate conversion to 48k or something that people didn't seem to care for. ??? Would be cool if one of the underdog DAW software systems added support for GUI-less control like we're talking about. Think if you could set up scripts to initiate all the basic session junk (loading, saving,etc.) either via MIDI, or some way to feed the data out to an LCD or something other than the graphics card. Under a common OS with VST/ASIO support, it would kick the crap out of many a standalone harddisk recorder, probably for less money. George Man, I know the feeling. :'( :'( :'( One Core2 here was set aside to go in such a remote 8-track, hopefully with a control surface, and it's looking like an impossible dream now. I've actually got a really nice single board P3, with LCD support and a PCI slot set aside for it, and by the time it ever happens, that will probably be like running a 386.

Couple other ideas- For anybody sticking with 98SE or 98lite, the notorious Lexicon Core2 has served very well here under those, just so long as you're not trying to run brand new motherboards or chipsets (not sure about those, but it's been OK on an unsupported AthlonXP here). It's a dirt cheap card with 4 analog inputs with switchable DBX compression and 8 outs. Also has ADAT and S/PDIF (optical or coax) and the analog and S/PDIF stuff is in a small breakout box which doesn't have much circuitry to it (just some passive junk maybe at the S/PDIF part). You can wire whatever part of the analog i/o you wanted to a 25 pin sub connector and not use the box. The analog i/o sounds surprisingly good, but I've only done multitrack stuff with it, using outboard cue signals. I'm not sure how tight the latency can get for doing something like VSTi's. I've also had decent success with the onboard S/PDIF of some of the really cheap sound cards, even dating back to the ISA Epoch days (required a small TTL converter circuit, but worked). That's showing up on lots of cheap stuff now, as are actual ASIO drivers. There are CMI based (83x8 chipset) boards and cards around here which will run a MIDIMan DiO 2448 driver for really low latency. George PS- Back when I was playing with MAME junk, I remember people running COM port LCD displays to monitor the startup process. Always wondered how much they could do and what was needed, if anybody here knows. Booting straight into a DAW app with a MIDIBox front end and no screen would be great, but I could see where hitting one little bump would knock you flat on your ass. I ran for a long time here with a giant fixed frequency monitor on something. It was fine after Windows loaded, but if anything went wrong, you were screwed.

Chuck, If you're into breaking things, I've noticed lately that a lot of consumer DVD players have such an assembly on their front panels (usually tact switches behind them I guess). The ones I'm looking at here range in size from about 3/4" diameter, up to over an inch and a half, and look as if the cap part is just sitting in a simple round hole in the panel. They're mostly 4-way, but I do see a Sony here with that center button you describe (a DVP-NS300). Once the cheap loader assembly starts screwing up in most of those things, they're worth about as much as that switch. The earlier players that refuse to play anything are worth that much from the start. 8) George

Yeah, typical "old scavenged part" problems. ;D I'm still planning to dig that stuff out and get it running, but I'm also still in that frantic mess trying to get moved out of my studio, which at this point is either by the 15th of April, or by the end of April (nice margin huh?). Should know which within a couple days. I'm also going to look into the errors you mentioned on yours before I start anything. Take Care, George