stryd_one

Nice :) I like those buttons. That last photo looks looovely... The one where it's open...spaghetti! ;D

Once upon a time, there was a thread where we were discussing the hardware seq which has now given birth to the sram module monster ;) Some of the people on the thread discussed an embedded PC running linux, and so after my time away, and with the recent activity on the linux audio scene, I thought, maybe this really is worth a try.... Well, long story short.... Linux still crashes, just like windows. Back to dedicated hardware for me. BTW, I tried dyne:bolic, agnula, and Planet CCRMA FC3 and found them all to be rather good. Dyne:bolic is pretty darned cool but hard to install or upgrade stuff as it's built from scratch and that means no package manager.. Agnula was too buggy. I'll be using CCRMA FC3 for hard disk recording. But certainly nothing as complex as realtime midi sequencing. I think a system that crashes and has strange bugs sometimes is not quite what I'd call "ultimate" ;)

*SLAP!* Forgot the most honorable atari! Thanks TK :-[

Alas, Not in dedicated hardware, only in software running on buggy crash prone feature bloated operating systems (mac, win, *nix).

Seq24 :)

Oh yeh good point, can I grab the schem's too, I might need to know which pins go where if I'm gonna write the code :) No rush at all, there's plenty to keep me busy ;D

My cover is blown! ;) (for everyone else.... I know d2k from somewhere else on the net, never mind our shenanigans :) )

:o * Todd bows to his superiors * ;) You've even put in the bypass caps! Thanks guys! I think I better start coding! (long pause while thinking) Hangon a sec, did you just call me ekaf? ;D How'd you figure that out?! hhehehehehehe

;D ;D ;D Sorry but that made me really laugh. I have this mental image of a core module wearing those big dark sunglasses and a string bikini heheheheheheh

OK, I give up... I've been trying to convert this thing to a board in eagle (I did my own schematic which is very much the same as the above)... Maybe it's meant to be difficult, but to make this a one-sided board, the best I've been able to do is to have 11 airwires! Is it likely to be this difficult? Or is it just cause I'm a newbie? Perhaps a double sided board would be more appropriate... But perhaps that makes it difficult to build, from a DIY point of view? Maybe I should stop asking so many questions and leave it to those who know what they're doing... But I don't want to make you guys do all the work unless you want to.... That said, I'm happy to do all the coding work once it's made, so...... What do you think?

And I just bought the soundcard to steal the chips from :) Nice one smash!

Awesome TL. This is more complex in a way, but as TK said, perhaps it will be faster. The more I look at the schematics, the more I can see that you have put quite a bit of thought into this and I want to say thanks once more. OK, so like... Not to try and pretend like I actually have a clue ;) , but I've looked at the datasheets for both, and RC0 (J7:RC) seems to be a compatible pin for the job, and I don't think it will clash with any other MIOS operations... Did I pass the test? :D

TL that schematic looks great. I'm looking forward to seeing your next one too. Thanks again for your input :) Would you mind if I look at the eagle files too? I'm trying to learn to use it. Just a side note.... Look how many views this thread has! And in just a few days....Obviously the concept is a popular one :)

My answer: How big are your fingers? ;)

Thanks man :) I found it in Eagle too... For some reason the memory-hitachi tree was missing... I suspect it was "pilot error" ;)

TK always makes things so easy . He's the MAN! ;D

Wow! looks so good i thouht it might be rendered for a minute :)

Hey guys, I'm having a great deal of trouble finding datasheets for the 628128... I read something about the 628128 being 'end-of life' (discontinued)... I did find some info for the 628512 which has a few more pins but much more RAM. There are enough pins on the core to drive one of these though... We still have J10 and J4 :) I can't find either chip in eagle though... Am I doing something wrong? Sorry to ask so many questions  :-[ Todd the n00b

Hi TL, Thanks for your input mate :D I can't wait to see what might come next Cheers!

TK .... You're the man :)

Uhm, in short... USB is crap crap crap. Sell your midisport to some poor soul who doesn't care, and buy a better but older interfface with the money, then take your girlfriend to dinner with the change ;) USB is great for the consumer and the mildly computer illiterate, because most of the time you can just plug it in and it goes. So it's great for your Mum to use if she wants to install a printer, or for your young children to plug in a camera and automatically download photos...etc... Because of this, and because we live in a society where "majority rules, even though the majority are fools", USB has become a standard. Once something gets that popular, humans being the sheep that we are, do not ask questions. It's a subconcsious "well it's what everyone else uses, it must be OK" Well I for one don't buy it. (pun intended) It's buggy and slow and most importantly for high-end audio stuff, it interrupts your CPU. It causes skips in audio, jumps and lags in MIDI, screen redraw problems... Basically anything that uses the CPU gets paused when USB feels like it. IMHO, USB took off purely as a result of the MS/Intel alliance putting heaps of cash behind the protocol and flooding the market in order to compete with firewire for market share. The fact is, most computers users are PC users, not mac. When all the PC's start to have USB interfaces built in, and you can no longer buy an intel chipset without the interface, the interface becomes a pseudo standard. It's certainly not the first time that MS have twisted the industry standards in order to have things their own way. This is not some anti wintel argument, heck I'm a wintel techo among other things, and I really like a lot of MS's features... But I'm just calling it how I see it. I've found that when the CPU is a bit maxxed out (you know, too many VSTi running, 99% CPU... We've all been there ;) ) serial MIDI interfaces can sometimes get a bit laggy and drift. Sometimes. Cheapo soundcard onboard MIDI is not really designed for heavy/pro use, most SB cards will easily crap themselves if they have a long enough sysex string sent or recieved (especially recieved). Personally I recommend Parallel MIDI interfaces, and they're really bloody cheap now because the majority don't want them cause they're old ("I want new toys" syndrome). (Parallel MIDI interfaces that were $800 on ebay last year or two are now $100) Best, but more expensive, is a MIDI interface on a PCI card (I've never seen a PCI card with MIDI but no audio...anyone else?).... I haven't had the opportunity to test any firewire midi interfaces so I shouldn't comment, but I will go out on a limb and say that they're probably very good too. It is imperative that you turn off stupid ACPI and IRQ steering (grrrr!!! another wintel strongarm tactic) and manually set IRQ's for the PCI cards in your PC's BIOS, and disable the USB interface in the BIOS (Just disabling in windows will not help, the interface is still active, just being ignored by the drivers that way). If you don't do these things then don't expect good performance in any CPU intensive area, no matter what your choice of peripherals and software. Which PCI card is in which slot also has an effect on performance, as two slots are shared, and the cards are accessed in slow order... So your audio interfaces should be in the first PCI slots where available. Your mobo has wireless lan in it, I would definitely turn that off!! PS there's a little info on this from EM mag and the man currently responsible for the MIDI standard ... Just in case you don't think I'm 'pro' enough to make thse statements ;) http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_letters_5/ More backup for my opinion from SOS... read the recap bit http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct02/articles/pcmusician1002.asp A bit of searching on google will find (under other names) me making this same tirade about 5 years ago. My apologies to anyone in the industry but...... I TOLD YOU SO!! :P I should add that although I personally can't stand the fact that USB even exists, let alone is still being used... It does have it's advantages (see above), so it's really a matter of what is most important to you. If you've got a dual xeon with 16g of ram you probably won't max it out too often and these interruptions would not rate as such an issue. And you should donate your PC to me ;D

Yes, could someone clarify this for us? I kinda sorta think I understand but I'm far from clear on whats going on. Bypass caps for dummies please ;D

Synth-for-me ehehehe

That's why you're a YABB G0D ;D Please do send me the file when you get a chance, but there is no rush, so take your time . Thanks again TK Sensei

Hey all :D Short version: I need help with building hardware to interface a core module with SRAM. Very long version: (sorry!) I'm back from the dead ;) Some of you may remember that I was working on an x0x (rm1x/electribe/schaltwerk/whatever) style sequencer before I disappeared, and I must admit that I'm very surprised that someone hasn't given this a shot while I've been gone. I see that there is still much interest in this idea, however as the design would branch away from the standard MBHP/MIOS design, progress seems to come to a halt. I've moved house (just 4000km's away), left behind a lot of things that have been in my way, and got a great job with great pay... So I want to make hay while the sun shines. I've done lots of work on the design and inner working of this thing, theres a stack of code and pseudocode and notes and half-made stuff. I'm fairly sure I can make this work with a single core module now, but there is one issue that I just can't seem to solve. RAM. The way I see it, there are several available solutions: 1) Newer PIC - eg 18F4525 - This PIC is pin compatible with the 452, will need some minor code changes to work, but has 4 times the RAM onboard. This is nice, but I don't think that it will be enough. 2) New Core Module based on FPGA - eg cyclone - LOTS of work! If others were interested in helping out a LOT, I would do this, but otherwise it may be too much work for me alone. I'm sure TK is too busy for this and he should be involved in any such project. So maybe this is out of the question. 3) External SRAM - There has been talk of this in the past. TK was even kind enough to suggest pin wirings and a suitable chip :) I'm very confident that I can deal with all the code, but hardware is not my strong point. What I am hoping is that someone here knows enough about the hardware side, to design a board with more RAM that will work OK so that I can do the code. I will be happy to pay for any hardware required to make the board if you can get this to work. Some notes from TK on SRAM: For common SRAM chips a lot of connections have to be made: i.e. a 128k SRAM needs 17 address lines, 8 data lines and 3 control lines... the number if wires could be reduced by using a latch like known from 8051 devices, and the data bus could be shared with the LCD bus --- but this would result into a design far from the (easy-to-solder) MBHP ....... So long most pins are free, you could hook a 128k SRAM (like the 628128 ) to the core directly - here an example: data lines could be connected in parallel to the LCD port, 8 address lines could be multiplexed with the data lines like known from 8051 designs (by using a 74HC573 latch) 8 additional address lines could be connected to J5 the remaining address line to J7:RC the chip select to J7:SO the latch enable to J15:RS the R/W to J15:RW You need to implement a (simple) read and write routine for RAM accesses (RAM_Write, RAM_Read) and put it into your application. The resulting access time should be about 2 microseconds (ca. 20 instructions) - fast enough for large data structures. SRAMs can be buffered with a small 3V battery Is it really that easy?! Do I need to add anything else (pull up/down resistors or caps or something)? How about J6 (AIN) and J10 (SID)? Analog ins and MBSID won't be supported by the seq, can I use those? I can check the datasheet to see if the port is compatible, but I hope that someone here knows, so I don't have to read that darn PDF for hours (again) ;) It would be great if this could be made into a kind of Core Module 'daughterboard', which would allow normal a core module to be used, and then the new module with the SRAM and latch IC's piggyback on top of that, and then LCD module etc from there. This will keep the project much closer to the MBHP project design. (even thouh the software may not be 100% MIOS compatible) For those who haven't read about my ideas over the last years: Once I can get the SRAM to work, a little programming will result in something like a shaltwerk / zeit / phaedra / fruiyloops interface, mixed with the awesome but now apprently extinct ( :'( The link died in the last 48 hours) Signal Arts Performance Seqeuncer and the Manikin Schrittmacher. The idea is to have independent tracks of independent play speeds and lengths, which can trigger either MIDI stuff such as notes or CC's etc, or they can be used to trigger other tracks, manipulate other tracks' play speed and length, manipulate note/velocity/cc/gate length values and mutes in other tracks, or even within the same track. It's basically a semi-modular sequencer. Think of a kind of hardware version of Five 12's Numerology. The UI would consist of (among standard things like menu buttons and jogwheel and LCD etc) a scanned matrix of 8 steps by 12 tracks. The reason for choosing 12 tracks is to allow a matrix editing mode where one track can be expanded to take up the whole button matrix. This will allow a whole octave of notes over 8 steps. Obviously this mode will have octave up/down buttons. There would be no song modes or pattern chaining etc as a separate section, instead just normal tracks can be used to sequence other tracks in order. For example, Track 1 of 4 steps, plays at 1/4 master tempo. Steps 1, 2 and 3 play the drum break programmed into track 2. Step 4 plays the sequence in track 3, which has a drum fill programmed into it for the end of the bar. Meantime, track 4 with 2 steps plays at 1/4 the speed of track 1 (1/16th of master tempo). This track changes the trigger on step 4 of track 1, so that a different fill is played at the end of each set 4 bars. You could have track 5 playing a 5 step pattern at 5/4 speed - polyrhythms. These five steps will loops in sync with the 4 step tracks above. You could have track 6 playing a 5 step pattern at master tempo - polymeters. This way, 4 steps will play for every 4 beats at master tempo. The 5th step plays at the same time as the first step of the next loop, the 2nd step of the next, the 3rd step of the next, Every 20 beats, the two loops will start together. I would also like to include an 'envelope' mode where steps act like envelope breakpoints for midi cc's or NRPN's etc, various MIDI FX (gaters, delays, etc) and an arp/transposer. This is one of the few things I haven't actually tried to do yet so no promises :) You can of course take this concept much further by doing weird (silly) things like, uhmmm, playing a 13 step track at 3 times 7/5 of master tempo (21/5) which triggers another pattern to move backwards and forwards step-by-step (say 3 steps forward, then 4 steps back, then 2 steps forward, then 5 steps back etc) through a pingpong loop, on which each step changes the loop mode of another pattern at 63x master tempo which controls the start point of a reverse loop which changes the breakpoints of an envelope sending MIDI CC's to do filtersweeps on your MBSID :P Or something stupid like that .... There are other things too but this post is already WAY too long :-\ Please feel free to send me any ideas you have which you would like to see included, or to volunteer help :) Regarding the Zyklus MPS: (and Vangelis Direct) I only just discovered this today (I've been researching this subject for years and somehow missed it) while reading posts from while I was away. Guys, you were looking for a manual for the machine, you can find it at: http://www.vyla.co.uk/ You'll also find the preliminary spec for a new sequencer called the Improvisor. Just in case anyone is thinking "Hey, this stryd guy is stealing the idea", start searching this forum and find my ideas for this being expressed over 2 years earlier :) And the ideas are much older than that.. I say this because I do not want people to think I am stealing :) Congratulations if you made it this far!!!!! ;D