cheater

How is the contrast? Would you recommend it for DJ-ing? Light conditions can be VERY bad in some clubs... :)

Perhaps we could write letters, requests? I somehow feel Nintendo wouldn't mind the publicity of a Gameboy synth... Can you name some interesting ones? :) Also: are they easily found and/or affordable? Also: is the sound *just that sound* or are those just readily-made synth chips?

Thanks :) it seems like MIOS is really well written. Never wanted you to do anything for me, Thorsten :) I perfectly know the value of time. Oh well, I've always wanted to learn assembler (I know I'll have a lot of use for it once I start my own research) :) guess now is the time - too bad I don't *have* the time ;) I'll probably read up in the summer. Until then it's multi-variable caluculus and abstract algebra for me :o Regarding the microcontroller specs thing.. wonder how long until there's a more powerful PIC :) Oh well, you can always just use more cores. :P Thorsten: I read somewhere you were foraying into the world of grown-up microcontrollers. Any Midibox-related plans? :) On a side note: how can someone check if I used NDA material to write code? How do they know I hadn't just reverse-engineered the specs? Also, wasn't it true that reverse engineering for self-educational purposes was allowed? Or maybe I'm just stupid :P

Also, those look nice for the mb SEQ: http://www.okaya.com/RC4002-L.pdf 285 milimeters wide display :) for better spacing of those knobs.. hate how near they have to be :) Unfortunately, 2 of those won't fit in a 19" rack :( to be exact, two of them are around 22,4409448818897637795275590551181" wide. Still, I didn't know that/where they made them that big :)

http://www.bgmicro.com/prodinfo.asp?sid=048407407407407419321928146&prodid=LCD1025&page=1&cri=LCD&stype=2&time_out=44:52 Comes with the useful dust cover fabric thing and is easily mountable. Gonna mail them for some photos of it working soon :) wonder about the contrast. Can you say cheap? :) Has anyone used those (with or without success)?

MIOS gameboy... nah :) He didn't make a MIOS C64 either :) I admit, the cart synths may be there... but we all know how ultimately better the MB SID is from the C64-driven SID synths :) Or other SID synths for that matter :P I'm still wondering about the possible cross-compatibility between Yamaha chips... On a side note: the yamaha chips had very wide applications :) e.g. the chip in my DX11 was primarily an arcade sound chip :) The sound is great, and so is the synth 8) Shows how you can take a toy and make a professional tool out of it... in chip music, that is :) Thanks for the links, I'll check them out ---- More generally, there's a certain set of features that all synths will use (envelopes, LFOs, WTs, level control, mod matrix, etc) Idea: separate this from the SID/FM synth into an entity of its own, so building subsequent synths is much easier. edit: adding stuff as I think of it. Nothing like slow thinking on Jan1 :)

Bump ;) Come on guys, do you think this is an interesting idea worth pursuit? A question to Thorsten: Once the MB FM is done, do you think it'd be hard to adapt it to a different Yamaha FM chip (e.g. Sega Genesis chip or an arcade chip)? Judging from what I've read, they all seem to have very similar features... the question is whether the code reflects that :)

Just build the SID. And when it's ready, build the FM. You can re-use a lot of modules so it won't cost that much more... The FM will have very warm, pad-ish sounds, bells, rings, generally stuff nice to the ear. The SID on the other hand is an evil, searing analog synth.

Actually it's a PC :) with gentoo linux :) And it gets real, real big delays on the notes too....

Is digital-out planned for the synth? (I know it's early - but I believe that'd be the first vintage Yamaha FM synth with digital output 8) )

Well, since the MB is getting a lot of oldschool-style chip synths (thanks a lot Thorsten and the rest!)... why not follow the punch? I personally know I'd love to see exploited.. the Sega Genesis sound system. As far as I know there are two chips, one is a Yamaha 4-op FM chip, and the other one is wavetable or something similar (might be wrong here  ??? ) Having been exposed to a lot of sounds made by this setup ( ;) ) I must confess I've heard sounds on the Genesis I wouldn't imagine on any (other) synth. It has a character of its own, and is a great thing. I know there's already a Yamaha FM thing going on - but it's still a completely different sound. Besides, there are two chips in it :) Of course, there are other obvious suggestions: a Gameboy Classic chip synth... Or perhaps a mobile phone chip? I'd suggest the Nokia 3310. At least in Europe it's so damn popular you could easily get them (broken) for free, to salvage :) Besides, it has that gimmick-ish bleep-blep-ping sound! I just love it 8) Perhaps all those new projects could soon become a featureful workshop for the DIY synth player :) I feel the sounds those things can produce could be extremely, extremely inspiring.

Thanks for all the tips, Thorsten Best regards, cheater

Hey Thorsten, yeah, I've remembered I've seen the MIDI specification here *somewhere*... ::) I do believe the jitter is just about quality parts; I could spare some cash on the most important ones, I think ;) Any tips on what I should read up on if I wanted to use external ADC's? Also, any microcontrollers you'd suggest better than Atmel? Greetings

Hey Thorsten, I too fear it only supports 7-bit. But it may be possible to go around that using a VST host with automation, like Cubase SX... hmmm Anyways, any ideas about the other stuff? What microcontroller to use, and what A/D converters? Do you know a place to find the electrical info for MIDI?

If you included the chips found in the Genesis, it'd rock indefinitely :) I just *love* the Genesis sound!

Hey, I'm currently looking at the prospect of creating a full-fledged control surface for the Native Instruments FM7. Including all the parameters and the mod matrix it'd be well over 200 controllers... The questions are: 1. How many CC's can I have in one MIDI channel? Is it 127? Where can I find something more about MIDI specifications altogether? 2. Has anyone tried using the FM7 with control coming from multiple channels at once? I know it can listen to all the MIDI channels - but will it know the difference between CC30 on channel 1 and CC30 on channel 5? 3. I want to get some really good precision on at least a few crucial knobs - from what I read, MIDI can support a precision of up to 14 bits. How would I interface a microcontroller with external A/D converters (I know little about microcontrollers)? Where can I get A/D converters of that resolution (16 bits for jitter reduction maybe)? What microcontrollers would you suggest? PIC's only have up to 12-bit ones, and I don't think there are models with 200 analog inputs :D Someone suggested Atmel microcontrollers...? (They're supposedly more powerful than PIC controllers, and PIC ones don't have a C compiler, do they?). Note, I don't want this to grow from a MIDIBox project, as none really seems to be right for the job. Perhaps it could be a MIDIBox NNG? ;)