Artesia

Thanks.. this is true ;) ..i did wonder for a while if to include it on the front panel... and decided not to in the end; after much head sctratching as to where it would go comfortably... also i wondered if someone would comment about this matter ;) To be honest; there was another logo i would prefer to use; if one does go on the case somewhere.. unfortunately it looks like i may not adopt this particular logo, for this purpose... This might throw up alot of questions & dilemmas.. but nevermind.. :) busy soldering the hundreds of wires to the sub modules right now... and trying to get another display or two on order ...lights on and a functioning box picture soon...

Thanks :) Not particularly... I did wonder though... the knobs are easily manipulateable with just a forefinger, thumb or both. the intention was to allow the device to be held by the handles and all the controls be accessable at the same time; without letting go ...then again my hands do span 1 1/2 octaves ..so this may not apply for everyone..

Update: Got it oscillating, had fun working out where to go from the 'infamous' "F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7" sysex message onwards.. Go there in the end... there really needs to be a clear overview as to whats going on with the programming process for people who arent too familiar with pic programming.. As three things need burning to the pic to get it to work.. two by sysex... very disorientating first time round ..and if you forget about the mios layer that sits between the bootstrap & the app (doh !) ...its a recipe for a good few hourse of goosed'ness... Maybe a nice 'layer' diagram in the mios firmware download page; explaining how the app sits ontop of mios & the boot strap. ..with the configurable elements of each pointed out along the way... hmmm... damn ! ...know why the second screen was not working now ...its broke ! :( ...oh well time to wait on some more parts.. ...back to trawling the forum & prodding the innards for the min...

this is true.. ...I dont mind google having my collection of electrical, gadget & litriture orientated links ...and probably a trail of very boring search requests for components, books, films... and the likes. It does leave the question of how much information any company should have access to. On that general note however.. i refuse to use store cards & other things which give retailers profiles of spending patterns.. wont be long (if not already) ..that this will custom tailor junk mail to your front door ...let alone more henus forms of herrrassment & invasiveness.. Something which is probably eviler than these 'passive' forms of information profiling ..has to be those -evil- RFID Tags Manifacturers & Retailers are hell bent on putting into & onto everything in the near future. (some are about already) Any item with one of these detailed electronic radio readable barcodes can be read with no physical contact or consent being made ! ...some dont even require a built in battery - just powered off a 'carrier wave' signal from the reading device ...also some are gaining an exceptionally long reading distance capacity... Its one thing to be concerned about the wealth of information carrying around these hidden devices could provide to 'official organisations' ...though, it leaves even more to be concerned about with 'professional' criminals.. All they would require to profile you.. or a given area & its contents as a 'jackpot' bust (say someones house or business premises) - would be a reader device & knowlege of the codes assignations.. and if they have 'legitimate' reasons to be inside the area (say, service personel, or customer, etc) - they would be in even closer range, for concealed 'scanner' to read 'everything'.. weather they can directly see it or not. Herbal powered paranoia ? ..not in my case anyways - Could be the biggest free lunch criminals have ever had, if this ones not thought through carefully... Hmm ...freedom of information ? ...to whom ? ;)

pretty cool idea... some interesting things seem to be popping up on the web from them.. one of the handiest things by far ive seen from them; is the ability to save your links on google.. access them anywhere, anytime .. & no crashes or multiple browsers to cause headaches..

no idea.. some exhist no doubt... Mind if theres any other things people would like to see the insides of... put up a request & i'll see if i can source one to screwdriver... & of course there are other people here who may not mind doing the same for everyone. Hey.. maybe there should be a section on this forum for posting midi Orientated Equipment Biopsies ? :)

http://www.pjrc.com/tech/midi-drums/drum-intro.html Maybe examining this project would be useful in cooking up a MIOS one ...tho hmm ..could just build this project instead...

This project sounds like fun.. .i tend to collect analog synths.. usually get them in a poor state of repair for cheap & sort them out... I've always wanted an oberheim, however ones with decent editability, have either proven too expensive or rare to find. At that time i had not heard of midibox.. However in retrospect the matrix 1000 would become anexcellent bit of kit with a real control surface to work with... I'll have to keep my eye out for one. If i end up with one sooner, rather than later... i might be able to help develop this... In anycase i'll probably build this project at sometime :) ...still got other projects to finish first ..so ibest get that done with first in anycase... Good luck ! ...it's a great application of mios ! :)

Hi, This is a small, cheap keyboard; about 10 inches wide. someone can have it for the cost of postage. Up for a good home & an experiment in mini midi controllers ? ...or it'll just be binned here :) (can accept paypal, cheque, cash or Karma)

A simple switch in the mios firmware is needed to use these displays; read the original post on the link :) (copyed from: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=5534.0 ) Hi everyone ! I recently stocked up on a bunch of new 7 segment displays; bought more than i needed.. should it interest anyone here; i am able to offer them for 25p each.. Possibly less for more than a handful.. displays are as pictured below.. also have some bar graph ones somewhere too. 15x16mm version: Package Style: DIP Char. Height (mm): 13 Number of Characters: 1 Luminous Intensity Min. (Cd): 600 If (Ma): 20 milliampre Colour: Red wave length (Peak): 665 nm Circuit Connect: Common Cathode Minimum Operating Temp (øC): -25 Maximum Operating Temp (øC): 85 7x14mm version: similar specs for smaller module more data soon... ..if this interests you, please contact me or leave a message here to express an interest in these displays.. Thanks.

Hi, I have an older style C64 case and PSU up for grabs.. make me an reasonable offer; im not expecting much... it'd be nice to get it a good home ..rather than bin it. It's jut taking up space as far as im concerned. Sorry no sid chip.. guess where that went... :] (can accept paypal, cheque, cash or Karma)

Just bought a M-audio Trigger finger; a Midi drum trigger device with 16 pressure & velocity sensitive pads... sorry ..at £139 i couldn't resist ..and bypassed the diy urge. And yes, it works supprisigly well :) Will be shortly putting up some pictures of it up in various states of assembly & provide some information about it. Which may help some of you people out there looking to build drum triggers from scratch. A quck note about it, the drum triggers are based around a membrane holding 16 pressure sensitive resistors. Which vary their value in accordance with the pressure applied. ..i have to admit - i was expecting piezo pickups of some sort :) The resistive triggers are custom made by the company www.interlinkelectronics.com This is rather blatantly displayed on the membrane itself ! They make remote controls, interface devices & oem manifacture stuff for other companys ..check them out at the above link. Nothing new here; just the same thing everyone will get to see... Off with the covers.. and the main board plus membrane pad are visable. Top section of the unit, rubber trigger pad in place. The round domed rear side to the rubber pad give the impression that the best place to hit the trigger; is in the middle ! Top side of the rubber.. annnd.. The money shot... Here's the all important resistive trigger pad on closeup - with the branding clearly visable.

Well.. this is where the projects at; Got one LCD to fix (and some logo decals to add on the case outers) ..then its done with :) After abit of soldering.. all the leds, functional & brought to the same brightness levels.. This is the original panel design for my midi box seq... © Artesia 2005 ;) My less than tidy wiring & somedetails of internal construction.. given that it doesnt see much light of day.. i dont try to hard here: Yup.. made with recycled pentum spec pc cases.. Drying front panel 'decals': the lines on the panel dont really go like that ;) its some funky interference pattern from image sizing... Bare chassis.. front panel to be added on top.. Well.. some progress has been made with further construction; waiting on the nice people at lazertran to post on some of the inkjet compatable stuff (works in lasers too). This is the sub chassis which all the components & boards mount to; the front panel with all the (nice) graphics design will sit above this to provide a tidy finish... also the case shell will completely enclose this element.. keeping all the clutter & fixings on this inner shell element :) * upper row of grey buttons are diy ..Change of design from the render.. ...made by flattening the top of some plain grey buttons with a file, drilling a hole in the middle & gluing some reclaimed speckled plastic to the top ...results in a translucent button with a 'sweet spot' in the middle.. looks fun - will wire up for effect sometime soon... (Should i put the following here ? ..hmm, ah well here it goes anyways..) Progress has been slow here in getting these boxes built and finished ..as other little projects have cropped up and completed. Of late i was lucky enough to get an abandoned, trashed Leak Stereo 20 Valve amplifier & matching 2030 speakers from the 1960's. The speakers, although a dosmestic model ...where based on the same 3 way technology; with a aluminum 10mm foam sandwich 10" woofer - used in their popular studio bound, sleeker.. bigger sister speakers. Took some work to restore this lot... The speakers needed the rear spiders reattaching to the magnet & carefully centering up... but worked fine afterwards ...damp got to the spiders over the years i guess. The amplifer needed a full overhaul, the chassis was repainted a curious pearlescent purple/blue ..which changes colour and tint depending on lighting (difficult to photograph !); As for components... all the capacitors were replaced & the resistors with modern high voltage metal film resistors.. DONT use 'new old stock' caps & Resistors ...they are inferior & have usually deteriated to a worse state than that of the ones already present. Oh.. and new valves were needed... four 'new unused, old stock' Mullard EL84's from ebay on the output end & three ECC83 Electro Harmonix's on the in stage. ...and the finishing touches were decent quality gold contact speaker & line terminals + a mains switch & a new solid base under the amp. If you happen across one of these... or any other half decent valve amp... RESTORE IT ! ...you'll not regret it & even if you dont like em' ...theres plenty of people out there who will pay top dollar for a tidy one... Iv'e always wondered what the fuss was all about with valve amps... and well ..the first time i rigged this one up ...er Woa ! ..they do indeed sound nice ;) ..very clean (and with modern caps+ res's) 'n quiet... + the top end is clear.. but not harsh... The 14-16w or so per a channel really does go alot further for some reason ..they can give a 50wpc amp a run for its money. At that, they really do sound shed loads better than most half grand transistor amps... had this up against a decent studio grade amp... and the Leak was far nicer to listen to ;) Quick note ...there are afew el84 based designs out there on the web; if anyone wants to have a crack at building one from scratch ...go ahead ...just keep in mind that going above these power ratings with valves is generally un nessursary & it gets far more difficult to keep em sounding clean without buying silly expensive transformers ..and so on ;) A quick, and marginally blurry shot of the end result.... Sort of what the amp used to look like ...except my one was scratched up & dented like crazy... Eew, that muddy gold colour ! A Hi-Fi world article about the Leak Line of valve amps: http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/oldeworldehtml/leakstereo20.html A Leak Stereo 20 restoration website ..proved useful to me...: http://www.geocities.com/stereo20/ About the Leak sandwich speaker technology...: http://werple.net.au/~kiewavly/sandwich.html

This much amuses me :) Hmm what next ? ...there's a challenge ...time for people to see how far they can strectch conventional applications of MIOS :) If.. no one else thinks anything up... i might just have to do something crazy too :)

im curious ...what usually comes in those little aluminum canisters (seen next to the midibox sid) ..got a couple of them at home ..and have absolutely no idea what they were made for...

hey.. thats kewl :)

Hi, You have a point there, i overlooked the common pin configuration, in relation to these projects.. I had a very quick look at the schematics for the dout module & have concluded that it should be fairly easy to make a common cathode mod (in software ?) ...As the current is flowing from one chip - to the next; through the displays. suggesting that it is possible to configure the polarity, of the outputs, on the driver chips. Thus it should be possible to filp this configuration; will ask TK ..as he will probably know the answer already.. It's unfortunate that these will not drop into the project by default..

both maplin & rs crystals are still being a -pita- here :( ..will unearth all four projects soon & try again.. Will let you know of working combinations for me; when the solution presents itself.. ..maybe ill just build the pannels & boxes for now, so iv'e got something pretty to look at ;)

Hi everyone ! I recently stocked up on a bunch of new 7 segment displays; bought more than i needed.. should it interest anyone here; i am able to offer them for 25p each.. Possibly less for more than a handful.. displays are as pictured below.. also have some bar graph ones somewhere too. 15x16mm version: Package Style: DIP Char. Height (mm): 13 Number of Characters: 1 Luminous Intensity Min. (Cd): 600 If (Ma): 20 milliampre Colour: Red wave length (Peak): 665 nm Circuit Connect: Common Cathode Minimum Operating Temp (øC): -25 Maximum Operating Temp (øC): 85 7x14mm version: similar specs for smaller module more data soon... ..if this interests you, please contact me or leave a message here to express an interest in these displays.. Thanks.

Hi Have built & tested the new pic programmer - seems to work really well; however here's some of the problems i have encountered: 1. The schematics describing the pinouts of the parrallel port connector, the transistor & regulator pin-out diagrams need to indicate from what persective they are drawn. ie: component leads viewed from bottom / connector viewed from soldering side. (This initially caused me afew headaches) 2. The programming software is currently complaining that the hex files for the SID firmware ''are too big & do not contain configuration data'' ..after this the pic can be flashed for some strange reason. Also dispite using the new prommer to burn the pics; i am still having problems getting any signs of life out of my midibox projects. Chips still not oscillating ! :/ Hopefully this'll be sorted in the near future; will get on with other bits here until then.

:D I like it, good bit of pcb work.

Just seen a intersting & simple way of kick-starting a crystal osc. Attaching a small capacitor between one of the crystal pins & the +5v rail. Found this in a furby schematic ! ...tried it to see if itd resolve my hardware headaches; no such luck - though maybe with other midiboxers it'll be enough to allow their boxes to run on DC reliably. Waiting on some more crystals to try now...

The response characteristics of one simple circuit can seginficantly effect the sound quality. It doesnt have to be a complex one to comprimise the signal. The performance of the overall system is only as strong as its weakest link. To make an anaology to (british) public transport. It only takes one train thats consistantly 'unreliable' - to hold up an entire trainroute. Though the one thing to consider, is that due to the age of the sid - that its capable sound quality may not exceed that of the output transistor section. Also this may well have been done to ensure a 'authentic' reproduction of the sid sound. Old synthsisers like the moogs are defined in their character from the next synth by their conveiniently nice sounding 'imperfections' in signal reproduction. Which could be compared to the fact that with guitars its not just the string you hear - but also all the incidental resonances of the guitar body. Having said that, in order to obtain a different; maybe cleaner sound - the best possible solution would probably be to use a half dencent op-amp circuit instead. Maybe a TL074 ? :)

Gawd dammit :) ..guess what. iv'e been running it on a lead acid battery & the thought did cross my mind - though thought nah ! ...who'd design a pic with oscilator circuit thatd bitch about been run on the move ? ...out with the powerpack i guess :) Will give that a try - good explaination btw ! also a note about scoping the crystal - i did in the end happen across a small trace with regular spikes at what should be about 10mhz spacing - which are clumped togeather in squarewave like envelope packets. which concurs with the trying to start theory :) notibly this pattern was not altered when the cap values were tweaked (head scratch!). hmm maybe itd be benificial to make a ripple injector to allow portable use ;) - kind of ironic that theres all those extra small value caps on the pic board n' all. btw - with regards to the crystal thread (thanks tk - i should read old threads more ! :); I tryed some of the other cap values that were suggested for use by others with these very crystals & didnt get very far :/ ..ah well, on with the above approach i guess. Update: Re smash: if you meant my address.. :) ..im in the midlands in the uk. I may well have this cracked soon tho. in anycase a known good oscillator set is a useful testing tool. ta.

i'm gonna sound really stupid now ;) I'm a little stumped; anybody got an idea what could result in no crystal oscillations when the chip (and most other things) appears to be fine ? Thanks.