Jurbo

Hello everybody! I've had my MBSID for like 16 years now, and never really managed to dive in. But finally, in the last few weeks, I have put my head into it and sound synthesis in general. I have been digging into both the MBSID and my old Korg Z1, and it has been an amazing journey of discovery and learning. I'm finally able to build sounds with these machines! And I'm simply stunned by all the possible options inside the MBSID synth engine. I know the Z1 is considered a deep synth, but the MBSID is even deeper in some ways, truly a marvel! So, here is a lead sound I have been working on. Add some delay after your stereo 8580, and enjoy! :) JTP Lead 1 Primary realtime control goes like this: Knob 3 - Pulsewidth Knob 5 - Filter Cutoff Aftertouch - LFO 1 Depth (Vibrato Depth) The patch can sound very different at different filter cutoff settings, varying the percussive attack among other things. A lot of expressiveness comes from the interplay between Pulsewidth and Filter Cutoff. On my MBSID I have hardwired Knob 3 to a joystick Y-axis and Knob 5 to a foot pedal, so I can really wail on this patch! JTP_Lead_1.zip

Thanks, i45one! I just printed the manual, and maybe I'll finally learn to use my MBSID V2 after several years of almost non-use... Years ago, when I upgraded from V1 to V2, I didn't have the time to focus to learn the new, dazzlingly complex user interface of V2 - with this printed manual, I just might finally fully grasp the workings of my synth! :)

A cool song, well done! Nice bass, nice SID leads! Some Pet Shop Boys meets Firevision vibe going on, like it... 8)

I definitely recommend having also 6581's. I have 2x8580 and 2x6581R4, and the 6581's are very nice and warm sounding. I like them for bass sounds a lot as they have a certain glow in the sound that the 8580's lack. It's true they might not match very well - I guess I'm lucky that mine are pretty similar to each other. Actually, it's months since I have even powered on my MBSID... Been getting into guitar tube amp modding lately! I think I have to make some SID sounds tonight! :)

@ DrBunsen - Yeah, the Quad is good, although not spectacular. I use it for MBSID mainly because I simply happen to have it. I originally bought it new back in 1996 or so to be an all-in-one effects solution for my C-cassette four-track. For my (quite limited) MBSID needs, it's very handy, although changing anything on the fly is pretty much impossible. The effects themselves are ok, but reverbs sound like what they are, digital reverbs from mid-90's. Boingy and metallic. But chained to a SID chip, there's really no need for top-of-the-line natural sounding effects... ;) All in all, I'm happy with the Quad. I don't really know if anything similar even exists on the market right now (at least at a reasonable price point). By the way, are there any upgrades available for the Quad V2? I think there are empty memory chip sockets inside - longer delay times, perhaps? ;)

Yeah, it's probably most logical and comfortable to have one stereo channel for each SID pair. I would definitely seek that solution if I had an eight SID monster. But since I only have a pair of 8580's and a pair of 6581's, I'm very happy with my old Digitech Studio Quad V2 multieffects rack. I have both SID pairs going into their own stereo effect channels, then it all comes out as a stereo signal at the output of the Quad. A compact and flexible solution, although mixing the levels of individual channels is a bit clumsy.

Got my 2 chips and 1 pcb, thanks TK! Damn, the chips are small! I have once manually soldered a 2 mb smd flash chip with about 40 pins, and let's just say that I didn't feel particularily at ease doing it! Luckily these bitches have fewer pins! :P

Elfa has snappable (actually their part has grooves for sidecutters) female headers, but their price is a bit high. You don't have to sacrifice a pin when cutting them to length. Ok, I'll get the part TK suggested. Thanks for help, guys!

Thanks, but the part you suggested doesn't seem to be snappable (is that a word?) to shorter runs. Of course it can be cut into smaller pieces by sacrificing a pin. However, if the snap-to-size variety can't be found at Reichelt, then I just might go that route.

Hi! I can't find female SIL headers (?) at Reichelt. I'm talking about connectors that mate with the male "stiftleiste", that you can snap to suitable size. I think the term could be "buchsenleiste", but I haven't been able to find what I'm looking for at Reichelt. Could someone help me find the part at Reichelt.de? The part I'm talking about can be found at www.elfa.se with searchword "hylslist" (Swedish) or "holkkirima" (Finnish). I hope I'm being clear enough! All help much appreciated! Jurbo

@ Imp - Really great, your help is very much appreciated! Again this forum amazes me as there always seems to be helpful people around! 8) Yes, there is no customs or value limits between Germany and Finland so no problems on the legal side of things. I will need parts for the aforementioned modules and while we are at it, I will go through their inventory for some other parts as well! Imp - I will PM you so we can talk details!

I just added myself to the list for 2 chips and 1 pcb. :)

I'm in! By the way, is anyone able/willing to help me get the parts from Reichelt? I'd need parts for one GM5 and one GM5x5x5. I live in Finland and Reichelt have a 150 eur minimum order abroad. I can't seem to find decent prices in Finland (many parts are at least 4 x Reichelt price).

The easiest way to make use of the sliders would be connecting them to the AIN pins on the core. You can use 5 sliders (called Knobs inside the MBSID app) and assign them to different parameters per patch. Very convenient!

I also find the analog inputs on the V2 a great feature... On V1 I had a joystick for filter cutoff/res (it was a bit difficult to get it to work back then as the software had to be modified some), now I have an additional expression pedal at Knob5 as well. And my master keyboard Korg X2 has pitch bend + modulation on a single joystick (I think that old synth sends NRPN or whatever it is but it works ok), too, so I can do a nice lot of realtime sound-mangling when I want to! 8)

I have loved the sid sound since my childhood... As a hobbyist musician, for years I wondered how cool it would be to actually play those sounds realtime. Then in 2004, I stumbled upon an auction on a Finnish auction site, where someone was selling off his MidiBox kits. Then I started googling, and in the early 2005 my MBSID was alive. 8) By the way, my 2x8580+1x6581 is getting a second 6581 in the near future (I'm in the process of building the module on veroboard...)!

I haven't been messing with the feedback thing for a while now, but the "pre-tuned sweet spot switchable" idea might work nicely. I actually thought of doing it while experimenting with the feedback - I always ended up adjusting the pot to about 100 kOhm (using an 8580).

I have spent a couple of hours toying around the MBSID V2 - I'm slowly starting to understand the workings of it after upgrading from V1... This thing has seriously multiplied in capacity! The available ways to mangle the sound of the poor old SID are beyond belief! I had barely scratched the surface of the MBSID V1, thinking how versatile it was - and now I have this new beast in my hands... It's simply amazing!!! Thorsten - your work is simply fantastic! Maximum respect! 8)

Congratulations, getting the first sounds gives a great feeling of relief and accomplishment! I enjoyed the same feeling yesterday when I got sound after successfully completing the first phase of my V2 upgrade! Enjoy your SID! 8)

Well, well, well... I just had to return to the project as soon as possible (what's another night of insufficient sleep...), and after looking things through, all my problems were caused by 1) that damn AdobeUpdater.exe bug that sucks 99% CPU power and 2) a broken off lead on the midi out socket of my MBSID. After I managed to fix those, it was easy to upload the MBSID V2 app with MIOS Studio, and my V2 upgrade is now well underway. I've played a couple of test notes on my stereo 8580 and it sounds veeeeeerrrry promising! :)

Oh, here goes: Sempron 2800, 2 GB RAM, 1 TB hdd, WinXP SP3 (or whatever the big update a week ago was), SB Audigy with Live Drive (using MIDI port II). Just made a fresh install of Java v6 update 7. Hmm, I haven't turned (Java) internet update off. Don't really know of other Java programs, but before my latest OS reinstall about 2 months ago, I had no problems. Now that I think of it, there are probably a lot of things that I haven't tried yet. I'll ask more once I have the time to return to the project (probably not before Saturday, anyway). Thanks - it's possible I just missed something obvious, staying awake way too late being desperate. I'll let you know!

I have an XP machine, OS recently reinstalled, just installed Java. I have an SB Audigy with a Live Drive connector panel, using Midi port II. When I start MIOS Studio, the splash screen hover around for more than a minute, then the program starts. Inside the program, all functions take terribly long, for instance, opening the help window takes half a minute. I don't really think I'll get anywhere with the program. Any ideas - or should I take the Midi-Ox route? The problem with that is, I need to convert the SID app hex file to syx, and I tried it, but after running the convert script, I get the error "You are trying to overwrite the MIOS address range, check your main.asm file - code should be included *after* mios_tables.inc!" What should I do? The convert script and the Perl package are from 2005, are there necessary updates to Perl and the convert script? Sorry if this sounds messy, but I'm writing this waaaay past my usual bedtime. Thanks for help!

Sorry to bump - just found the SOASC and I thought this thread seemed like the place so... Checked some tunes - is the fellow's 6581R4 SID chip okay? Just listen to Wizball tune 2. Sounds downright nasty - a broken chip or should it really sound that way?

Does this link contain what we are after (scroll down about a quarter of the page)? http://www.bel.fi/~alankila/c64-sw/

Hmm, no definitive answer yet... I went googling around a bit, and couldn't find any documents that would specifically say what goes through each capacitor at any given filter configuration. Then I thought about it, and could it be something like this: - In lowpass or highpass mode, only one cap is utilised - When combining different modes, both caps come to play, for example one cap doing the lowpass filtering and the other doing highpass (notch filter) Could this be the case? If it goes something like this, then it would be logical that using closely matched caps the cutoff frequences of "both" filter channels (caps) would be the same, resulting in the loudest possible resonance etc. Also, you might be able to control the width of the bandpass frequency band with the difference of the two caps (closely matched caps make narrow band, different caps make wide band). In a nutshell, one cap for lowpass, other for highpass, then all the other modes from combining and subtracting the resulting waves with each other and the original signal. Does this make any sense or am I totally off here? Just interested in knowing the logic behind the fascinating SID filters...