SounDuke

@QBAS I bought 4 TP/8SK 76 keys with Aftertouch. I went personally to fatar's factory to check the feel, the TP/8O (awww excellent design) is a little bit more weightd than the TP/8SK. Please note that "unweighted" refers to "semiweighted" as nearly all models have little leads weight inside the plastic white keys. The TP/8SK is an high end synthesizer keyboard which I use as an hybrid (organ and synthesizer) because of the very cool semiweighted action. I'm sure there are better nice feeling keyboard outta here, but as Qbas said the quality/price is awesome. Qbas's code too is very stable! (only minor adjustments to velocity curves are necessary) Doepfer doesn't offer all the models which fatar produces, in addition to this the prices are lower but I'm not sure if they'll agree to organize by themselves an international shipping, so I'll ask them to do so if we reach almost 15-20 models. I'm quite sure that a big discount should be possible, but someone has to receive all the keyboards and send to other people as I can only ask to send the goods to one destination (depending upon the location of the buyers we could choose the nearest place to all buyers). @Robin The TP/9s is the "universal keyboard", in my opinion has a worst feel compared to the TP/8 series. I didn't ask the price of the TP/9, but I'm rather sure that is lower than 90 €. (I purchased my TP/8SK paying 95€ Tax included). Feel free to ask for info

The standard synth keyboard models and hammond style model are in the range of 80€ to 120€. The piano models are more expensive, the cheaper one is about 160€ to the most expensive which is around 420€, all prices tax included. They could make discounts if large orders are issued. All keyboards have double contact rubber switch, micromatch connectors onboard. PM me if you need detailed info. I had a bad experience with UPS couriers (sorry QBAS!!), so mainly my request of organizing a big order is because Fatar may possibly arrange the international shipping with a more reliable courier.

I'd like to rebring this topic, as I'm working on my mbsid. I'll probably amplify the sid signal through an Alesis IO|26 audio interface, which features 8 mic/line preamp with switchable 48V phantom power per pair. My question is: what if I accidentally press the 48V pahntom power switch with the sid output connected? I don't know if the protection on the sidmodule is sufficient, maybe it's better to put a NON-electrolythic capacitor (10mF 63V) in series on the signal line which could work as a switch opening the line and preventing the 48V to reach and harm the sid? What do you think?

nono they're VERY?IMPORTANT it's an homicide to kill off waveform mix! thank you for the info

I would connect the midi out of the controller to the midi in of master core in mbsid and desolder the eventual buttons and connect them to Dins, but I doubt this will be effective as a custom full CS.

Gee I have no camera, but as soon as I finish everything I'll post picture no doubt!

Hi, maybe I didn't pay attention to the info's on the site, but as I'm about to finish the front panel for step C of mbsid with 4 8580, I was looking at the template by TK. On the osc section, I see a button and 4 leds to change the waveform of the currently selected osc. Then I thought "how can I configure an oscillator from the control surface to output a mix of square and triangle wave (this is doable with the VST sidcontrol plugin by S.M.) to listen to the odd and typical waveform found on many sid tunes? If someone who has built the CS can answer this he'll have my gratitude ;)

What do you mean for building it in a midi controller? Do you want to reuse the case of a midi controller or wire the controller to the mbsid? Please explain in a more detailed manner your intentions so we can point you in the right direction ;)

Hi lylehaze, I'm slowly upgrading to step C and other nice personal add on, such as a lcd graphic display and a oled 20x2 display, so I need a lot of power. In addition to this, I wanted a single psu since I can't use c64 psu's (I don't want to use stepper down adaptator when using the mbsid outside europe with 115V input). I used the core in the past with normal 1A power supply. so the core is not a problem. I'll continue building the CS, then I'll see what's the behaviour of the switching PSU with this increased load. I want only to be sure that I don't harm the sid.

Hi lylehaze, thank you for your support. I supposed the problem was the low voltage level because when the voltage fell at 4.6V I couldn't receive the starting sysex string from the pic, but maybe the problem is different. I thought that voltage spikes are prevented by the capacitor filters on the core and the 100nF caps close to the power pins of the IC's. But you're right, let me explain the circuit: 5V 2,5A output of laptop switching PSU connected to a switch, 1A slowblow Fuse and then to core ( to output pins of desoldered rectifier, put the bridge on the holes where usually sit the 7805 (which I have obviously desoldered) input and outputs pins and left the capacitor smoothing section unaltered. Added 100nF capacitors on all of the IC's power pins (except optocoupler). Since I own a sid module pcb rev2, I carefully followed the information on the special webpage on ucapps with infos on rev 2 pcb version. so the 5V part of the Sid module is supplied through J2 of the core like described in the rev2 --> core interconnection schematic by TK. the 9V for the 8580 is supplied by the 12v1A output of the laptop switching PSU, I connected only the +12V rail (to switch, fuse and J1 of sid module with rectifier and 7809 stuffed) as the ground comes from J2. I think that the high load problem (around 500mA the pic doesn't start correctly) arised because of the laptop psu design, which I ignore. Furthermore I don't want to damage the circuit, so if someone notice an error in the circuit I tried to explain, especially regarding protection and adding additional components before the modules, I'll be glad to hear wise words. Thank you, and sorry, my learning curve is slow :P EDIT: as I said, the problem occurred only with the 400mA 6V lamp on the 5V rail before the switch and fuse.

all right, I put a 400mA lamp as a load for the 5v 2,5A output of the psu. It stabilized the voltage to perfect 5V, but as I hooked it to core+sid (no lcd, only core and sid), it worked for a little bit then the voltage dropped to 4.96, and the pic had no sufficient voltage to drive the sid. So I removed the lamp and fed the 5,17 V 2,5A to the core, and my MBsid worked ok for an hour of continuous play (at the first try!). I assume that the load with the lamp was about 500mA, so I fear that when I'll hook the lcd and the 3 remaining cores and sid the voltage will fall below 5V. What do you think? this psu was very cheap, but it's possible that I can't use it. In this case it's really a pity, because although it's a switching psu, the noise level is incredibly low. ???

this is definitely scary! I'm a little bit confused about fuses. Thorsten recommends slow blow fuses for mblc, is it the same for mbsid and mb64? ). Slow blow fuses can tolerate a transient overcurrent condition (such as the high starting current of an electric motor), but will open if the overcurrent condition is sustained. At first thought, it sounds like fast fuses should protect better the sids and pics, so could anyone explain me which is the better choice between fast and slow fuses? Thanks ;)

Sorry for renringing the topic, I was very busy so I couldn't visit the forum for a long time. After reading lylehaze's post, I started to think that I was a little bit fast on saying that the datasheets are wrong (good lesson). I checked my custom psu, and I think that the problem was a defective 7805 (two pics were damaged). Anyway, I'll try to put a lamp and a fuse on the 5,15V output of the laptop switching psu, and see if voltage decreases with lamp+core and lcd load. I'll keep you informed, thank you very much for supporting me

The problem is that I need at least 2.5A, I fear the lm317 will get too hot. So I was thinking if it is possible to reduce the voltage using diode drop

Thanks to this great community I have learned a lot about PSU's. And I learnt also that datasheets are not always very reliable: some of my custom supplies deliver to core 5.25 (measured with a precise lab tester). This should be no problem because the pics datasheet tells that the pic cannot be harmed under 5.4V. Yesterday one of my pics got fried with 5.25V (desoldered 7805 and jumper on input and output holes), I'm sure that my psu was delivering stable 5.25V. This has made me paranoic, as I'm planning to use some switching PSU's that deliver 5.17V. Can anybody point me in the right direction to step down the 0.17V? I tried to put a load but the voltage is always the same. I became a maniac of stable voltage! Thanks

Yes thank you, but it's a little hard for me to order on reichelt since I can't understand german. I also fear I'll pick the wrong lever length. In addition to this, I don't know wether Reichelt sells items to Italy under a certain sum. Isn't there other cheap distributors of these buttons? EDIT: found them on ebay thank you anyway ;)

Hi everyone, this is a question for all of you reading this, but specifically to TK. Where did you find those mini pushbuttons I can see in your MBsid picture on ucapps? I thought of installing the common tiny buttons for pcb's, but the button height is too short to go over the panel thickness. Thank you

Qbas, do you mean the midi router project? I didn't read it carefully yet, but it seems that I can use up to 4 iic modules and I have 6 midiboxes to mix, and I think that makes no real sense as I'll have always an external box, so it makes sense to use my midex with separate ports.

I own a midex 8 so I have all the in's I want, but I wanted to try merging so I need to bring with me less hardware on the stage. Consider that I'm not the sequencer type ^_^, I'll use these midiboxes only to send note on/off and pitch bend messages to the Vst's, so maybe one midi thru for each device could result in an acceptable delay. So maybe I should build an LTC module for each device

Hi everyone, I've got six midiboxes and I'd like to chain them and use the integrated merger to connect the whole equipment to a single midi In port on my laptop. Do you think that by connecting the midi out of the first midibox to the in of the second midibox, then the midi out of the second midibox to the midi in of the third midibox ecc. would cause latency problem? Thanks for the advice.

grazie! è una buona fonte

Hi, if I'm not wrong, you can use the motorfaders with MB64 too, but if you plan to use the controller for cubase I recommend you MBLC app because you can have all the keys mapped by the mackie protocol. so ahead with the answers: If you plan to build a MBLC, you'll need what you wrote but the LTC module is not really necessary, you can use it to have leds monitoring the midi traffic of the MBLC in and out. You could also add another DOUT if you plan to implement ledmeters, but currently they don't work very well (I'm using Ableton live and the meters give me erratic readings). The maximum number of analog potentiometers the MBLC app can handle is limited to 8, so you can change in the code the behaviour of the first of the 8 motorfaders, in this case you'll have one motorized masterfader and 7 track motorfaders. If you want 8 track motorfaders and one motorized masterfader you have to build another core and a nother MF module, but it makes sense in this case to use all the potential of the additional MF module and core to build an extension to have 15 track motorfaders and 1 masterfader. With one core and 4xdinx you can connect up to 64 switches on 2 dins and up to 28 encoders on the last 2 dins, remember that the last shift register has to be connected to the motorfader's touch sensors (I can't live without them). You can avoid to connect the touch sensors, but without them Mios wouldn't stop the motorfaders motor. Yes, you need to choose mackie control. Hope it helps

I'm sorry for the incident. Anyway thank you for the infos

Thank you lall. The LDO you proposed has 800 mA on output, isn't it too low?

Hi lall, thank you for the wise analysis. I bought for my MBLC a toroidal transformer with 2 secondaries, each 12V. To power the MF module I was able to put the usual Bridge rectifier ---- 2200mF--- 7812 ---- 100nF pattern, and the regulator had the required additional voltage to start regulating the current. So maybe I'll be able to reach the required voltage with the 9V secondaries. in any case, I believe I can use one 9V secondary to power the sids and one 9V secondary to power the 5V logic/leds stuff. I'll put 2 7805 in parallel to obtain the 2A current I need for this, but for the sids I think you're right and I'll not be able to regulate to steady 9V the ac current of the secondary. So, can you suggest me a schematic for a suitable LDO? Thank you