Martin_Haverland

Yes that's true generally, but there's also a switch to a more common arp mode when more than one note was triggered directly (preset scale switches to pressed note chord...a bit difficult to explain for me...) Yep, this scale/chord engine seems to fit this job directly! Thanks - seems i have to wait a bit until it's transscripted to C language (i'm not very familiar with asm). Would make no sense to reinvent a wheel here... As you mentioned the midibox_master_keys : There's a project on the net that actually does almost exactly what you describe, it's based on a cheap legacy pc on dos with standard midi interface and assembler optimized for lowest latency, please search for 'converter' from urr technologies (freeware). It's concept is reading almost the same than what you planned (and some more i guess). It's great in possibilities and handling and very cool for all kind of midi processing - it is also very useful for analysis and prototyping processing chains, so it might be of use in midibox development, too...http://www.urr.ca/software/software.htm Kind regards and thanks so far... Martin

Nice ideas already...i just want to add one... Anyone interested in the Electribe MX type arp? It is so musically useful that i use it the whole day when programming patterns. Not only for synth parts but for drums as well. (It has different mode for this...)In fact my master keyboard is getting dusty already... The only thing that is not possible with it is the velocity thingie (all electribes have only 2 velocity levels - unfortunately...) It's a highly useful performance type arp (arp may be really the wrong word but korg named it like this...) that i really would love to use on all kind of synths....with a really LONG ribbon it would be a completly insane midi instrument and controller :P. (something like the video tape diy ribbon controllers comes to my mind...) Functionality: Mainly, it uses a touch sensitive ribbon (switch/piezo drumpad/whatever and pot?) and a fader (pot) for arp control. You can set a scale (melody arp) or rhythm type (drum arp) and select a root note (including octave, this could be done via midi in...real time), then you play the notes via the ribbon touch (note/rhythm on/off), the gate via ribbon position (pot) and the pitch/note number via the fader (pot) - incredibly simple and intuitive to play... The note on/off is synced to the clock / rhythm struct of course :)... I was hoping to find an arp discussion on midibox with an app sceleton to fit this task for quite a while... And am wondering how much developement effort it would take to implement such functions in this minimal arp sceleton here? This may be a big side-step from the ideas already posted, but i'm interested in opinions especially from the people in this thread ;) Kind regards, Martin

Adam, you can test the burner's voltages before frying your PIC, this is recommended and described in detail (the testing, not the frying ;D ). All you need is a DMM. You might think the broccoli-18 is somewhat outdated or experimental, but in fact it works. If you don't miss the convenience of a full fledged feature loaded burner pcb and just need a few PICS to be burned, this one is a useful and fast way. If it doesn't work for you / your PC, you have probably only invested an hour of time and some pennies on parts (if any money at all...) If it works, it works flawlessly and repeatable, depending on the quality of the pc's interface. I would try one sided veroboard (the dots, not the stripes). The most work is figuring out the connections to your parallel port (systematically...). Just give it a try, and don't be afraid of it. At least you will get an insight of how your parallel port is working. It's not half as experimental as it sounds and so simple that it's not even worth to make a pcb for it... Kind regards and happy DIY Martin

Nice Dave! At least you got it working the same day you started. BTW; you are not the only one fighting with interface views in diagrams ;D occasionally... And BTW i used the Change ID application as well. Happy DIY Martin

So i want to bring a little light into a more professional way to handle all kind of noises from the stage and studio points of view. If i understand it right, you use almost exclusively unbalanced consumer level (-10dB) line signals and want to have them splitted for mainly live use i.e. gear to FoH mixer/recording mixer/monitor mixer. The pro version of what you want would cost you a big amount of money. The highest level would be an active transformer splitter box with every channel having a transfomer with a primary 600 Ohm (line level? check your gear for this in the manual) impedance winding (mics would be rated 150 Ohm normally) and optimally THREE secondary windings (all 600 Ohm to match line or 150 Ohm). I really don't know a standard splitter transformer having more than 2 secondary windings. But nothing is impossible... just didn't heard of. You can buy lams and bobbins and stuff and end up winding yourself (diy!) - resulting in a bad sounding 100 tons heavy box... Other option: get a 2x splitter transformer, standard model with one primary 600 Ohm to 2 secondaries 600 Ohm per channel (leaving out either monitoring or recording) and pay around 50-60$ (per channel) without mounting hardware and stuff. Last option: an active transformerless splitter. (search the net for this and "diy", you will find various options for this, many of them quite professional!) May be opamp based or even discrete transistor tech. fairly easy circuits but must be made with a good will of perfection as you will route all your signals at the earliest stage thru them. BTW, a fairly pro level splitter is for example available from whirlwind (with trafos i think). Costs: approx. 350 to 450$ for 4 channels to split. A pro 24ch split (complete small console) is rated at 3k$ normally... Other question: Steel rack for shielding your signals... My opinion: nearly useless to think about that...it's the least important factor for noise rejection (otherwise all live racks would be steel racks i think ;D). Gear placed into racks is almost EVER shielded by it's own casing. Most sensible part is the cable works in the rack and proper grounding. Each device has to be checked for hums due to a ground loop (most evil in a live situation). For decent description read the AN's of Jensen Transfomers Inc. . Lots of info about that. In fact one could write books about this, really... Organize your psu and signal cables on the backside of your rack to avoid noises (keep both types AWAY from each other as far as you can and fix them). Use good and stable wallwart psu's (if you have to). Often reduces noise ALOT. And last but not least think about using symmetrical signals when leaving the rack! Get a decent DI box. Again, a good (and i mean good = pro *usable*) DI Box is transformer based and *really* expensive (100 EURO per channel is absolutely a kind of standard, the trafo itself normally cost 60 Euro without the active electronics, mounting, etc...). On the other hand especially in live applications symmetrical/BALANCED signals tend to be a milestone for a good noise rejection. (signal is doubled with diametral phase, at the receiver phases are paralleled again, so (nearly) all noises from external influences are killed when the signals were summed again - just in short and bad english). A cheapy recommendation is the exeptionally cheap and small (1 rack unit) Etek 16x DI Rack unit. More awful than behringer in terms of solidity and inside electronics but i was really surprised - it's fairly usable! (Maybe i would buy a decent single DI for bass signals...) I hope it helps you a little with your decisions... Kind regards and happy DIY Martin

I just logged in after a long time (doing diy with the analogue stuff and building up a studio) to look for an application recommendation for digitally controlled lfo's...and voila... Amazing, there's still new fascinating stuff in the apps section... (Just looked for midicv and stumbled upon this thread - Analog Tools! Cool!!!) 8) Thanks again Thorsten.

right out of the box. an OS like MIOS is not a machine application in itself. It is no sequencer, controller whatever, its a midi OS for pic controllers. The schemes from Thorsten are copyrighted like stated in the impressum. i really don't want to start a discussion on this because this happened long ago already about other OSes covered by GPL. It's a pretty simple common interpretation/consensus on that: if you distribute or modify the app or OS under gpl you have to share the sources... if you write a program that interacts with it, but is your own work, your program is not automatically covered by the license if you don't want that. you have to look at the compiler/assemblers license if in doubt about your programs licensing issues because there may be restrictions if you for example use a gnu compiler. if you are using third party libs they must not interfere with their licensing issues. the way of writing commercial programs on free oses covered by gpl is completely gone before by a lot of developers and it is save and stable legally. This totally implies a commercial use of the whole, as long as you respect the gpl for the parts which are covered by it. These remain free of charge, you just can take a distribution fee for these.) For example, you can design a circuit compatible with MIOS on your own, burn a pic with the bootstrap, install MIOS (original or modified), layout the pcb for it, write your own app, put it in a self designed case, load your own app via midi, share the sources of MIOS *including* possible changes you made to it in one of the ways GPL offers to you accompanying your new product and sell it. It's mainly possible because MIOS is an operating system and not a statically linked function library. (It would probably need LGPL to make this possible otherwise.) If you don't think this is a common sense of view you might read the following interesting literature on the common misunderstoodings of GPL: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/1545.html Alot of companies actually use gpl'ed oses commercially for example in internet businesses. this will be my last post in this thread i think... ;) peace Martin

moebius is definately right. as for analogue ckts (all ckts ?) generally you should mind to avoid ground loops, means same ground symbol of your schem (whatever potential) <->ground point on PCB <-> connect together on the possibly shortest way to the same physical point... <crypt mode off> avoid any type of ground circles so the electrons will not be in intellectual stuttering stress to find their way out (some people call it "hum" in the audio world) ;D kind regards Martin

Yeah! i saw them some time ago but forgot in the meantime... btw: there's absolutely nothing to say against SMD caps where u think they might come handy. Mostly SMDs are more solid in physical terms when it comes to placing parts on the trace side of a pcb without soldermask. (just to not forget as an option...) Kind regards Martin

@Jurbo: ;D you are very good at estimating a realistic commercial break even! small chances anyone would profit from the MB's without a serious redesign or better a new design from the scratch... In my opinion selling one could only be a matter of emergency or a big commercial failure... I would seriously take a look at the music electronics industry on a regular basis if someone round here is in fear of MB's diy attitude... The B-Ringer#s are not the only Borgs ("assimilate!")Â in licensing matters... ;D Again: i will not say anything against the actual licensing of MB...i'm just talking about hardware and marketing aspects generally - got it? ;D Kind regards, relax, and peace, Martin

I was very upset when i read the thread for the first time. Sorry. A similar type of discussionstyle broke down on GroupDIY TechTalk last year and it happend to be that the provider (a canadian musician...lost his name...forever...) recording(dot)org came to the conclusion to ban all members and put the information of years and years of hard work off the net without any respect to the intellectual property owners. GroupDIY is still alive at another place, more than ever...but some information will never come back. I will not say about licensing issues before an official statement is done.

>:( I can't believe what i read after beeing away from the board for a while! What's going on here? ??? How can you call yourself "DIY"ers if you can't respect anotherones work. If jamram made a midibox out of nearly nothing, that's really a "handcrafted" piece of DIY. Do you really want to say 140 Euros is a COMMERCIAL amount for some hours of etching, soldering and construction + parts? Are you funny out there? :o The links in this auction really broke some licenses - there you are right, people! It's not my intention to say *break the law*, BUT do you really think selling a midibox to a friend is better than selling it over ebay? What kind of ethics are you looking for? If i built a midibox and want to get rid of it, i will get much more money for it for sure. And i would probably ask *nobody* for permission. IS ANYONE HERE REALLY TRYING TO SAY "SELLING A SINGLE HANDCRAFTED SYNTH IS COMMERCIAL AND UNETHICALLY"??? :o !!! MIDIbox community, welcome in the real world!!!: George Massenburg (his GML Studio Compressors sell for 5000 Euros up...) came up to The LAB of the highly rated and mostly famous GroupDIY (ex TechTalk from recording(dot)org) forum and ASKED in a friendly manner for unlinking a (reverse engineered?) schematic for his famous opamp because they are an actual design of his company. 8) Mr. Forsell welcomes all the work diyers did to make a full featured optocomp out of a sidechain he designed despite the fact he does audio electronics for a living. 8) And look at the Black Market section of this serious, famous and maybe friendliest forum of diy music electronics, respected by the highest rated diy and commercial audioelectronics designers...you must be funny about this ebay auction, you are joking, aren't you? :-\ So: Some of the comments made in this threads are RIDICULOUS and SILLY and UNETHICALLY - and i don't mean the ones from jamram. >:( This is no legal point of view but a personal, i'm no lawyer. I would feel offended if someone would get LESS than 140 Euro for a handmade MIDIbox SID. It was a matter of time when the topic "commercial or private use of MIDIboxes" comes into the spec of this community. I'm really disappointed about how little intuitive feeling some people showed up here, when it gets to such a delicate and difficult topic like this. I hope there will be more serious discussions about this so i must not feel ashamed for beeing a member of this community. That's the way to handle things subtle and careful. Thank you, Thorsten. Respect. Kind regards Martin

Wow, guter Tip, vielen Dank! Das Sortiment ist Klasse (viel seltenes Zeug dabei!) und günstig, der Versand OK und die nehmen PayPal als Zahlungsmittel. Besser geht ja kaum noch, da finde ich vieles was ich noch für ein paar halbfertige Sachen suche! :P ;D Danke nochmal :-* Martin

Hi again. Auch auf die Gefahr hin doppelt zu posten, ich habe jetzt mit der Arbeit an der deutschen SEQ-Doku begonnen und die Frontseite bereits fertiggestellt - wer also noch Betätigung sucht, sollte sich vielleicht ein anderes Topic aussuchen ;D Ich werde mich dann sukzessive durch den SEQ durcharbeiten (vorerst 1:1). Vielleicht bekommen wir ja noch ein paar Mitstreiter? Freundliche Grüsse Martin

Hi Thorsten, first page translated, look your mail... I hope it's the way you like it, mail me otherwise for general changes before i continue work on the next pages... ;) Greets Martin (PS: with style guide i meant the kind of "speech" we want the german translation to have, but your hints have been useful anyway... i orientated loosely on the korg and roland manuals for the fixed expressions...to keep it modern but precise...and hope it hits your point of meaning.) Edited: Thanks for mail, second one already up in your box...time to go to bed...