smashtv

Pre-flight testing! ;D There is this from the Soldering guide section of the CORE page: Apply power to the module after all parts except the PIC and the optocoupler are mounted. Check the voltage levels between the most important pins with a multimeter (analog or digital doesn't matter) before plugging the PIC and the 6N138 into the socket: IC1:MCLR(1) - IC1:Vss(12) = 5V IC1:Vdd(11) - IC1:Vss(12) = 5V IC1:Vdd(32) - IC1:Vss(31) = 5V IC2(8) - IC2:(5) = 5V And this quote from the Soldering guide section of the SID page: Mount all the parts with the exception of the three ICs. Apply power to the module and check the voltage level between pin IC1:Vdd(28) and IC1:Vss(14) - it must be 12V for the 6581 SID, 9V for the 8580 SID. Now connect port J2 of the SID module with port J10 of the core module (you could use the cable from the JDM module if you already made it) - ensure the following voltage levels: IC1:Vcc(25) - IC1:Vss(14) = 5V IC2:Vdd(16) - IC2:Vss(8) = 5V IC3:Vdd(16) - IC3:Vss(8) = 5V Personally I would use the same power supply for testing that you will use with the final design. Have fun! Smash

Cool! Now since that's out there, is the resistor spacing a feature or a bug? I can route all resistors for 10mm lead spacing on future generations of the board layout(s), but that's completely based on a group average answer to the question above. :) Thanks so much everyone for your honest comments, please keep them coming as it fuels improvement. I do enjoy the usual "these boards are awesome" feedback, but most people forget to let me know about small issues they have while building that I could eliminate with a layout change. I'm definitely not one of the "my way is always the best way" type of people! Have fun! Smash

You probably do have all your bases covered. This usually die-hard TIbook has fought me on everything I asked of it today, so I'm not real suprised that it doesn't work as expected. Can you view quicktime? Do you have the free player or browser plugin? If not I'll keep pushing it through codecs until one reads for ya. ;) Click here for same movie, but encoded as quicktime. (4mb) Quicktime player is available here. Best! Smash

Hello and welcome B! Good to see some of the Lab boys finally making it over this direction..... ;) Probably your best bet. I do know that there have been some changes in control surface handling on the Mac versions of Nuendo within the last few releases but I don't know the specifics. (I'm still running Nuendo in os9, since that is where my rather exensive plugins live) Have fun! Smash

Thanks so much for the positive comments and feedback! ;D I made up a 40 second video (bad quality, small and compressed) and it's about 1.3 mb in size. It's compressed using the mpeg 4 codec, and then zipped (so it can be seen/transfered regardless of server mime type settings or browser mime settings). It was made on a Mac so I know any version of MacOS after 9 will have the codecs with quicktime already, and the .zip file is stuffit expander freindly. On the PC side it plays fine on my wintendo98 VPC install, so if it won't play for you no matter what OS post about it here (but please make sure you have the latest mpeg codecs for your player first!) Get the clip here.<---edit (link removed/see new link below) Best! Smash

Hehe no doubt! :) Patching any kind of video capture is my project this morning, which is completely ironic considering I am part owner of a production company (with all needed tools to do this easy with pro/broadcast quality) but unfortunately it's all located in Dallas, a couple hundred miles away..... Let's see what I can come up with by lunch time. ;D Best! Smash

Hehe now I have to do a video of this. I never even dreamed this would be an issue for anyone! :) Maybe I am a bit rougher with this stuff than most people are, but they just pop right in for me, the key is a good sharp 90 degree bend on the lead, as close as possible to the body of the resistor. I'll shoot some video of me bending leads and loading resistors on a Core. The first thing I did after reading the first post was sit down with a Core board and tear open a Core kit. I had all of the resistors loaded onto the board and ready to solder in under 5 minutes with no tools (and not much fiddling). Just have to talk my digital camera into shooting some moving footage...... Hehe when I said the iron is too hot, I should have added that I speak from experience.....I used to run a hot iron for exactly the same reason, and an iron that is perfect for digital usually does not do well with anything larger, just not enough heat to correctly work with some of those larger parts.All that changed when I put a decent weller station on every bench (at home and at work, back when I was a solder monkey), with temperature regulation in the tip and a good element you don't have to run a hot iron to flow the connections fast..... :) Best! Smash

Heya Zoggs! Please send me an email (there is no cross reference between your username here and your info when you ordered, so I don't know who to email) so we can talk about a sending you a replacement board/module. The bad board was a total accident, I always do my best to eyeball the boards for rejects as I pack the orders, but this one escaped me. If anyone else has had this issue, -please- let me know. I'll inspect every board on the shelf tonight to try to catch any other rejects. My three goals with the store: Best possible quality, cheapest possible price, and every customer happy. Price consideration never before quality. ;) Just to clarify here, none of the boards (old generation or new) have through hole plate (very hard to do well on a single sided board). Also the only boards I did with solder mask on both sides are the SID and JDM boards, and I have done every other run since then with solder mask copper side only, mainly because of the issues you had with the clear top coat trying to fill in the holes a bit. (apparently this is only an issue when there is not a pad/through hole/via on the side where the hole fills in, with copper and tin there instead of glass resin the top coat washes out properly.) wow I really did not realize people were having trouble with this! The resistors I use in the kits are standard xicon 1/4w, and I have no problems getting them to lay flat on the boards -without using any tools-.I'll need to making a short video clip to show this, I promise the spacing is a feature and not a bug! :) I need to know where the list is wrong, so I can make changes. Nobody else has mentioned any issues with the lists, so I could use some help here..... Yep, massive overkill but since they are more commonly used than the smaller rated bridge recs, the W06G(600v) and W08G(800v) are usually less expensive than any other bridge rec with the same footprint. Very cool, and Thank You! Any help I can get with accuracy on the info on the sites is much appreciated, so if anyone sees me something wrong please let me know! Best! Smash

Heya James! Thanks so much for the review! A lot of time and prep has gone into the boards and kits to try to make them as easy as possible to build. That said let me address the issues you had so that hopefully other builders can benefit. I'm not intending to question or criticize here, just help others through these rough spots..... ;) The iron is/was too hot. They do peel easier without the mask there to help glue them down, but I have -never- peeled a trace on the old process boards, even with repeated soldering/desoldering on the same pads.I have actually temp tested every generation of copper laminate to make sure delamination only happens at very high temps with long exposure. (Lesson learned from long past experience buying a box of cheap copper clad made from a bad fiberglass mix and were not heated/bonded correctly!) Yeah, I love the solder mask. Solder just does not stick to anything but the pads. ;D hehe love this too, the old way was silver immersion plating (a little bit better than bare copper for solderability), new way is hot air solder leveling (perfect solderability). There is a trick to this, no tools are needed for installing the resistors flat on the board! Just grab the resistor body with one hand and fold the lead over to a 90 degree angle with the tip of a finger on the other hand. This means pushing on the lead right at the resistor body to bend it, not the end of the lead. I know this seems like a lot of stress on the resistor, but I promise, it will take it.After bending insert both leads into the board, and carefully but firmly push the resistor down to flat on the board (this takes a little bit of pressure, but not nearly enough to break anything.) This hole spacing was carefully chosen, and holds the resistors in there without having to bend the leads all over the place while soldering. My goal has always been no tools needed to load the parts..... :) Thank you! I was repairing an arcade game board a while back and was reminded of the solder time savings working with solder mask vs. no mask, so that fueled the quest to do it better and cheaper. ;) Best! Smash

Everyone working on this seems to have their own standard going, so keep in mind there will probably be large differences in performance/latency between the different SW.... Some links: MIDIoverLAN CP($29 commercial, Mac+PC) MidiViaNet(Freeware, Old, WIN95/NT4.0 written in VB) DMIDI/IEEE P1639(Freeware, Mac+PC+Linux, seems to be abandonware) iMIDI(Beta, Mac OSX only) There are also MAX patches for passing MIDI and other data over ethernet......... ;D If you find something good on this please post about it! Best Smash

Multitouch is not really a factor of OS support, but whether the hardware touch controller can support it. Most don't sense multiple touch points, some do. Some of the families of elotouch screens http://www.elotouch.com/ support multitouch, you just have to know how to poll the controller. ;) For something really cool on this concept, look at http://www.elotouch.com/products/lcds/1547l_cap.asp. What makes this thing special is "Projected Capacitive Touch Technology", allowing it to sense accurately through solid glass (up to 18mm thick). This means these things actually have a Z axis, and -if- the touch controller supported it (I don't think this one does, but it has been done) a GUI could actually sense not only rough hand position but distance above the display. I'm still not convinced that the Lemur isn't all just gadget factor, lacking real world features since even the designers tether it to a PC running MAX to use it. I say put the PC running MAX in the box with the touchscreen, ditch the custom hardware, and put a real live set of MIDI jacks on it, and some MIDI over ethernet to connect it to your studio via wireless ethernet. No custom hardware needed, except for the enclosure. 8) Best! Smash

Must see for the newbies: Audiopad Be sure to watch the videos of it in action........ ;D Best Smash

Great concept, bad implementation. Why not put a micro-size PC in there running MAX/MSP? The cool "organic" GUI could easily be done with MAX, You could have real-world I/O not just OSC. The hardware is all available off the shelf, including the touchscreen: http://www.elotouch.com/products/displcds.asp. Bonus: Extremely powerful real time audio processing is easily possible with MSP, and very powerful video processing can be done with the Jitter add on. Best! Smash

Too much to reply to! But I'll try without creating another novel.;) Oklahoma, dead center of redneck land. Don't get the wrong idea, not everyone here is stupid, just mostly the loud ones. And there seem to be a lot of loud ones.....;)I have heard some legendary stories of bored exploits of the angry gun-toting meat eaters in Montana..... :o hehehe we'll know the fun is almost over if we see Harman buying up chip plants. You scared me there for a minute, I thought someone had changed the US's "enemy of the week" and nobody told me! ;) Yes but this would be an expensive process.(I use the word expensive here, but the thought is more than testing/prototype/setup costs, the largest cost is the amount of time needed to create new documentation) I can't answer for Mike on this, but yes. There are -many- variables to consider here though: Is the community ready to support people with no electronics knowledge as they wire these pre-built modules together? Will there be any market protection for me as a fabricator? (In other words, after I invest another $4k in prebuilt modules, Will I be forced to watch them rot on the shelf when someone who puts an unrealistic value on their time and can match or beat my price?) No idea at this point. I do like the idea of the focus shifting over to MIOS dev rather than hardware troubleshooting! Personally I would feel wrong about -not- offering a kit for the current hardware.The kit thing is a major headache, I spent about 4 hours last night splitting out and packaging 30 CORE kits and 25 DIN kits. Not complaining though, I knew there was much more to it than buying parts when I started offering the kits. I'm very interested in MP, You have had my attention since the first announcement here.Hopefully one of these days I'll have time to build one join the fun! Like I said before, a PCB is a commodity part, just custom made. Some of the PCBs I design here way outstrip my fabrication capabilities, so I have them made just like everyone else. To limit myself to what I can prototype in house would not be wise. Cool. Let me know when it's time for me to build some test fixtures. Very cool! My one and only feature request for the first generation of FPGA hardware running MIOS is that you include the Pac Man Core. ;D Best! SmashTV

If I'm reading correctly he's asking for part numbers for the motorfaders and encoders that some of the commercial control surfaces/mixers/studio-in-a-box units use. It's a good question too, which might help make the quest for cheap touch sensitive motorfaders a little easier. ;) Best! Smash

Heya G! First off I'm not pretending to have any clue what's wrong here. :) When you say high freq., how high? Is the level of hum directly proportionate to the amount you turn the knob away from dead center? Hard to know exactly what's going on without a schematic for the EQ, but if it's humming at a frequency that you never hear out of a bass, I would guess that something on the EQ is fried. (personally I would take the shotgun approach, replacing all opamps) If the hum is in the normal freq. range of your bass, I would look for questionable connections, ground loops, and especially wrong wiring to the pickups. If this is a used bass there is no telling how it was abused in it's past life, someone could have mistakenly plugged it into a hot speaker output just one time and smoked the opamps on the eq board. Hehe I did a show once where the guitarist tried to power his active eq from a battery eliminator (wall wart). This scenario + tube amp make fire, much to the suprise of the guy who was stupid enough not to bring a battery to the show. I gave him fair warning, he was enough of an idiot to call me stupid just before he flipped the switch and let the smoke out. :) Please let me know what you find! ;D Best! Smash

I completely agree on the support effort point. Some kind of built in throttle control keeps the community from growing too fast for it's own good.On the infrastructure costs, it has always been my opinion that these should be paid from the only existing places that money changes hands in the name of the MIDIbox, Mike's shop and mine. I don't know Mike's opinion on this though. I can't count the number of times I have -wanted- to tell a customer, self-etcher, or one of Mike's customers to just send it to me for troubleshooting/repair so they could move on to MIDIbox fun. Of course I don't have the time to repair MIDIboxes for free or pay, and if I wanted another revenue stream from bench work I would just repair another few stacks of Galaga arcade boardsets for $75 per hour. ;D One of my planned future projects is an online table of failure modes/fixes, but abusing these pretty modules to the point of failure is something I'm having trouble pushing myself to do. It's going to be an expensive process also, burning up parts so I can tell you guys what part I intentionally fried on mine to reproduce -your- issue... ;) The idea of never having to re-explain the tricks -some- people have to use to get a JDM working on their PC, or having to tell a fresh builder to check their solder joints a fifth time does appeal to me. My email is a constant flood of tech questions, ranging from the most simple to fiercely complex. TK I can only image (read:fear) the volume of questions you get in a day! It would be stupid to assume that the best programmers in any field are also always able to construct the hardware they write for. That in mind, the idea of looking past the hardware and welcoming a new class of end users who will hopefully add to the functionality and community is changing my way of thinking about DIY as it relates to the MB. This all reminds me of the separate approaches towards consumer PC's. Apple - closed hardware (not available for license to 3rd party manufacturers), no Mac clones, but for the gain of near perfect SW/HW integration. No clones means no competition though, so the price stays high (relative to a PC clone) and less developers chose the platform. Lack of a large developer market causes less developer tools for the Mac, etc. PC - open hardware (available for license to 3rd party manufacturers), thousands of companies worldwide making PC's and more making component modules, at the cost of very poor integration between wintendo and the hardware it runs on. Competition causes PC's to be affordable, exponentially more PC's than Macs are bought, so the developers naturally focus on the platform. Not intending to re-hash the Mac/PC holy war, but the history and outcome of these situations serve to show us the possible results of whatever path is chosen. ;) If the path of "hardware as a commodity" and focusing on the software side of developing the MB is taken, we must be careful to build in some type of protection against the Bill Gates types of the world, who will undoubtedly show up ready to pad his pockets via the hard work of others. I wonder how much time the Behringer people spent soaking up info on this site before taking "their" control surface designs to Uli? Understood and appreciated! :) Best! SmashTV

The arcade game collectors I used to hang around with were buying Ballblazer game carts for the Atari 7800 because they have a Pokey chip inside. Atari apparently dumped loads of these carts off on the discount retailers and surplus companies here in the US due to the lack of sales on the 7800. No idea how many made it overseas. A quick evilbay search shows a few for sale there (way cheaper than shipping a 1541 disk drive just to get a sound chip!) Pokeys are rumored to be all of the "super game" 7800 carts, but I don't know if this is true. For a quick overview of the Yamaha chips used in some of the common machines see Yamaha sound generators of the 1980s home computers Best! Smash

hehe no doubt Moebius, nothing makes me show my teeth faster or raises my blood pressure like any perceived threat to this community. Years of exposure to the typical American attitude has given me a quick fuse that interferes with producing productive dialog. ;) (not aimed at anyone here, I live in the middle of redneck hell and the price I pay for living here is constant exposure to the least-common-denominator, welfare-supported, typical money hungry credit-maxed stupid American attitude. Of course there are good people here too, but they seem less common because they usually are not trying to proudly show off thier lack of IQ.) ;) Whoop sorry about that, I need to hold my mouth for war and not let those little rants slip out here..... ;D I think its a Stellar idea, TK what do you think? Anyone know the best tool (any platform) to easily open a pdf, and make an addition? Best! Smash

I obviously can't make an unbiased response to the question of is it still DIY if you buy a pre-made PCB. ;) I see the PCB (even though it's custom made for this) as just another part, like the capacitors, resistors, etc. Please keep in mind that my definition of DIY and how it applies to the MIDIbox was (and still is) formed by the opinions of TK and this community. A purist definition if DIY is different for everyone. I have most of the equipment (and all of the knowledge) to forge, machine, heat treat several different metals here at my disposal. I also have the knowledge, equipment and a good catalyst formula for making capacitors. So if I built myself a preamp in a Par-Metal store bought case, using Blackgate capacitors, is it still DIY? From a purist viewpoint the answer is no because I have the ability to do all of that myself. If the same pre was built by someone who had no clue what the guts of a cap are made from, would the answer change? Again no offense, this exercise in knowing where the DIY line is helps keep everyone on the same page -myself included-. :) Best! Smash

Very cool. Welcome! :)

Everyone starts somewhere, next time it could be you pointing the way to MIDI knowledge for someone else just starting. Hasn't really been that many years since I had the same questions you do. That's the fun part, watching the knowledge/learning spread...... ;D Best! Smash

Don't let our discussion ruin your chance or thier chance for having some MIDIbox fun. Again this is my opinion, but the only place(s) your plan crossed the line are where you solder the parts on the board for them (It's all intentionally designed with single sided boards to make it a good starter project), and in putting things together/assembly. Probably more of my opinion than you want is you should build the custom enclosure with your talent (craftsmanship!) and sell it and whatever else they want them -as parts- ready to put together. For whatever amount you want to charge and they want to pay. Remind them that they are welcome to ask any question here, a forum search will bring up links to illustrated soldering how-to guides, and I and others will do our best to help them through any hard parts. There are no stupid questions here. (you will however find some rather stupid answers posted by me!) I know they don't think they can do it, but they can, especially considering the support this community gives. :) Absolutely agreed! I hope all this discussion is not a buzz kill for anyone, if so I'm very sorry. hehe whoa back up here, I'm not a big boy, just a cranky bear that's been hanging around here studying the writings of the big boys for too long....... ;D Best! Smash

That would be sweet... IF your DAW software can be setup to output timecode, AND a MIDIbox app was written to allow you to tell the MIDIbox what the start and end timecode for the track(s) are, a little MIOS math could scale the fader throw length to fit the track length so it could move to follow the timecode. Man I wish I had the time to wrap my head around MIOS enough to write this. This is not a feature request for you TK......would be nice to see the community get together and write this.......so it's a feature request for the community.......Anyone feeling code froggy? ;) Best! Smash

True. But if I were standing in China instead of here in the middle of the US, I would have a totally different answer on this. Hiring a factory to produce something for you is really really cheap these days, and almost every electronic part is exponentially cheaper in the pacific rim. This would deprive the end user of taking part in this community! Also keep in mind that even though you won't start by asking Fiat HQ about your speakers, if nobody else can answer your questions/issues that you will eventually end up talking to Fiat HQ. Even if someone local solved your issue, they did so with either training or direct help for your issue from Fiat HQ. The big difference is that everything you bought was a part. Even if it was a custom part, you still assembled the box yourself. Definitely DIY. If you were to buy a soldered module or complete box someone else did it for you. Not DIY. Even though you might feel like it was DIY, it was PIY (Plan It Yourself) then hiring someone else to do it for you. Anyone can put a design on paper for anything. Actually building it is a totally separate effort, and in this situation, with the intent clearly stated as DIY by the creator of the project, not building it yourself should exclude you from the license so graciously loaned to us. Right, a contractor going against the intended use of the project that has been shared with everyone with only one stipulation: DIY. The DIY community loses nothing but the regulars who won't stick around when the signal to noise ratio here gets off balance, and it will.There are many projects that are no more due to profiteering and other related issues, many time the principal of the project loses interest in having any more of his/her work exploited by others. hehe..... :) </rant> Standard disclaimer applies, no offense intended. Best! Smash