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goyousalukis

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Posts posted by goyousalukis

  3. Help needed

    in Testing/Troubleshooting

    Posted

    If you can do it easily, disconnect everything from the core except the LCD. Load only MIOS and troubleshoot until you get "READY." on the LCD. That way you know that MIOS is working and so is your LCD. It really seems to me that you have a problem in the LCD wiring. With only the Bootstrap loader, you should see a row of blocks on the top row only. Then after MIOS is loaded you should see "READY." What type of display do you have? Can you post a link to its datasheet? If you disconnect the backlight, you should still see text. The contrast pot should make a big difference - from nothing to very dark.

    Justin

  5. +-12V power supply

    in Parts Questions

    Posted

    Hey, so I'm trying my hand at the MidiBox LFO extension by TK :http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_ext.html

    I am building the power supply first:

    http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_ext/lfo/lfo_powersupply.pdf

    I bought this transformer from Mouser:

    http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?&handler=data.listcategory&D=*553FP3085*&terms=553-FP30-85++&Ntt=*553FP3085*&Dk=1&Ns=MfgrPartNumber%7c%7cSField&N=0&crc=true

    Is this ok? I am unsure of how to connect the rectifiers to my transformer. To get 15VAC, I have to tie pins 5 and 7 together and 6&8 together. The schematic shows three outputs to the rectifiers, but I only have 2 - do I just connect each of the 15V outputs to the ~ terminals of the rectifiers?

    Thanks for your help...

    Justin

  7. A joystick or touchpad for the filter of SID CS?

    in Parts Questions

    Posted

    You need to download and install MPLAB and perl.

    (see http://www.ucapps.de/howto_tools_mplab.html)

    Then open the project in the directory you are working on(.mcp). Then re-assemble the main.asm. After that run the convert.bat file in the same directory. This converts the main.hex to main.syx. Then send it to your midi box. As far as the device ids and stuff. You should only need to modify the code for the first(cs) core. The other cores should just get the proper .syx file from the sid directory i.e. 2nd core gets setup_6581_slave1.syx and so forth. Remember that your second core needs to be id 01, then 02, and 03.

    Justin

  9. Bass Guitar Help

    in Miscellaneous

    Posted

    Hi!

    Are you playing the bass with your PC turned on?

    A CRT monitor is a huge source of noise for us guitar players...

    Turn off the monitor when playing. Also some halogen-kind-of light produce noice to the pickups.. turn them off!

    Hey that was it! I have to play the bass through my computer, cause I'm in South Korea and my bass amp is in El Paso. Texas. The noise goes away when the monitor is off. So would a flat panel LCD fix that problem? Maybe that would be a good excuse to upgrade my display. Thanks uclaros!

  10. Help??

    in MIDIbox SID

    Posted

    What else will I need apart from:

    sidchip

    control and sid module kits

    lcd screen

    software editor

    bank stick

    or is that it?

    You will also need a power supply.  If you still have an old C64 power supply you can use that, but you need to buy some more parts to build it. Here is a link to the schematic: http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp/mbhp_4xsid_c64_psu_optimized.pdf

    Or you can use a "wall-wart" type powersupply that delivers at least 12V .

    You will also need midi-sockets.

    You also need a multimeter. This is to measure voltages before putting in chips. You can also use it to check for bad solder joints. A digital multimeter is best, but you can get by with a cheap analog type too.

    Hope this helps.

    Justin

  11. Help??

    in MIDIbox SID

    Posted

    So I can just pick up the two module kits that I want and fit an lcd to them? Zero programming?

    To clarify - When I said no programming, I meant you don't have to write any code. The pic does need to be programmed with the bootstrap loader. For this, you either need to make the JDM programmer, or if you buy the PIC from SmashTv along with the kits, he will program it for you.

    Is putting the kit together easy? Keeping in mind that I dont know my ass from my elbow when it comes to electronics. I can solder pretty well but I dont know the names of parts or what they do or how they should work in sequence.

    Yes, the kit is pretty easy to put together. If you print out the schematics, you can line up the parts numbers with the PCB and figure out what they are. For instance IC3 is a voltage regulator. If you don't know what a voltage regulator looks like, go to http://avi.dezines.com/mbhp/info.html and click on the core module. SmashTV has made an excellent visual guide to each component. Hold the mouse over any item, and it will show you what it is. The key is to take your time and make sure each solder joint is perfect. Take a look at the solder joints on a professionally made pcb, and try to get yours to look the same. You could also go to RadioShack and buy a small vectorboard and practice soldering some wires to it.

    Justin

  12. Help??

    in MIDIbox SID

    Posted

    Yes, the LCD does make everything easier. Especially troubleshooting. There is a way to change the midichannel via a sysex message:

      f) F0 00 00 7E 46 <device-number> 0D 02 00 <channel> F7

         Change the MIDI channel

    So you don't have to reprogram the pic. Just send the sysex message.

    Justin

  13. Help??

    in MIDIbox SID

    Posted

    Okay. Ive checked out smashes site. So it looks like what I need is the core kit and the sid kit. The only other thing then that Im sure I need is an lcd. Is there a kit?

    You don't have to have an LCD. The bare minimum is just a Core and A Sid Module. There is no kit for the LCDs, you just buy the size and style you want. Here's an example for one on ebay:

    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=26206&item=3842391981&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V

    You will want at least a 20x2 size one if you get one.

    3) I then need to get this apparatus to "talk" to my pc, yes? How on earth do I go about doing that?
    Once the MbSid is built, you can play the sid(s) with any midi keyboard. Or play it with any Midi computer program. If you want to modify the sounds, you hook the midi out of your computer to the MbSid's midi-in, and then use Thorsten's JSynthLib program to edit the patches. You will probably want to buy at least one bankstick - as this lets you store 128 patches at once.

    4) Im guessing (tell me where Im going wrong) that the core module enables the parameters of the sid chip to be controlled via midi and that the computer programming is what assigns specific midi channels to functions. Yesno?
    Each Sid is assigned its own midichannel, and it will respond to control changes on that midichannel. If you have more than one, you can assign them to the same channel, or different channels. You won't need to do any computer programming Thorsten has done it all for us. You just build the module and play. There are also a bunch of example patches that TK has created to show how to make sounds.

    Justin

  14. Bass Guitar Help

    in Miscellaneous

    Posted

    Through very careful research, I've come to realize that the noise varies with the orientation of the bass. If I swing it to the left, I get no noise at all.  I guess it is some sort of radio interferance or something like that. Thanks for your help Smash...

    Justin

  15. Grounding analog multiplexers sockets in the AINX

    in Design Concepts

    Posted

    Just connect A2 and A3 on the second AIN to ground. This will prevent the random midi events.

    A LFO is a Low Frequency Oscillator. In that example, the oscilator(s) are connected to a pin on the ain module. The LFO sends a voltage from 0 to 5 and then back down at a speed(frequency) set by a Pot. The Midibox reads this and converts it to a CC Message(0-127) just as if you were turning a knob at a regulated speed.

    Hope this helps.

    Justin

  17. Help??

    in MIDIbox SID

    Posted

    Hi Daveojo,

    As Dave said, this is not a project that uses the whole commodore 64. It only uses the sound chip.

    So I check step A. Immediately it starts discussing the coding of lcd screens. Infuriating!  

    That is because MidiBox step A uses an LCD to display the control menu for the MbSID. This is not a site that shows you how to do anything you want with the C64. It shows you how to make Thorsten's MidiBox Sid. Another user posted a link to something that you might be interested in. I think it was some C64 software you loaded and then controlled the C64 via a serial port on the PC. I will look for it and post it if I can find it.

    Justin

  19. testing dout din boards

    in Testing/Troubleshooting

    Posted

    Ok, if your LCD says MIOS 1.7 and then says ready, that means that MIOS is loaded, but no other application. You need to upload an application via syx, before your din or dout boards will be used. Send the main.syx file  from midio128_v2_1a.zip to your core, using MidiOx, or the new sysex tool. Hook up your DIN to the core and then press some buttons, you should get some midi events in MidiOx.

    Justin

    p.s. if you make changes to the code, you need to re-assemble the project, convert the hex top syx using the convert.bat, and then send the main.syx file.

  21. some questions on mios

    in MIOS programming (Assembler)

    Posted

    Yes, you are correct, although you can load the with_cs.syx app even if you don't have it yet. That way you won't have to reload it later. You won't need to edit anything if you keep the same pin assignments Thorsten used for the DIN/DOUT boards. If you do change the pin assignments(for the buttons, LED's and encoders), you will need to make the changes in the .inc files and then reassemble the source code using the MPLAB IDE.

    Justin

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