Davo

Ugh. Jay's page somehow makes my mozilla and firefox crash. How does he play that guitar? It looks like he's only touching the neck.

I've been mulling over the idea of an ultra-portable SID. As most of us already know, a Step A MBSID synth can be made pretty small. So, the idea is to take one of these, make it battery-powered, and velcro it to some convenient spot on a Roland AX-7 keytar. So, now you have a convenient single-package you can sling on your back and whip out at your convenience at, say, a club in which a band is playing that lacks a bassist. 8)

Emerald Tablet ;D

http://www.vintagesynth.com/ doesn't have an entry for this beast. I'm curious how it sounds.

Alchemy

I've been trying to get 8580s and just not realized that only certain C64Cs have the 8580 chip. So I now have six 6581 SIDs of varying vintages and one 8580 still in the computer. How do I determine a shrinked 6581 from the markings on top?

I also determined that the SID is good, but was left puzzled. I put the SID in question into a known good machine and tested with the same Music Machine cartridge. The SID sounded great. I then tried the good machine using the bad keyboard. Problem reappeared. Put the SID back in the first machine and plugged in a known-good keyboard. The SID sounded great. So, the keyboard was somehow able to cause this odd problem. Regarding hearing any sound indicated a good SID, I've heard that some SIDs can have good oscillators but bad filters. I wish I could find my Frogger2 cart. That was a good sound test.

I'm checking out a C64 using the "Music Machine" cartridge. I figure that ought to be a halfway decent and quick exercise of the SID. Anyhow, this C64 has a dodgy keyboard, but I'm able to get one key to make a sound. Repeated presses of the key causes the same note to appear onscreen, but each time, it gradually rises in pitch by maybe an eighth of a step. After maybe 20 presses, the note is constant. Is this a good SID or a bad SID? What would be a better SID test?

Where did you get the keyboard?

Was anyone here able to load http://www.midistation.com.ar/?

Hey, Smash. Would you please check your PM regarding those chip tubes? I'm not set on anything in particular for trade.

I've been thinking of a combination midi mega-splitter/merger to speed things up and avoid the need to turn everything on if I just want to play with one device. From first glance, this looks like it would do the job nicely.

I'm still wondering just what this Junkbox is intended for.

In the wake of a recent project, I have a considerable number of empty chip tubes. Some had chips in them and were marked "anti-static". Others had chip sockets in them and were not marked "anti-static". Should I just ditch the ones not marked? Is there really a difference?

I don't see any electrical reason why you couldn't regulate the power before it goes into the midi cable. I'd prefer to regulate it afterwards for versatility purposes. For example, you find a wall wart that supplies about or just above the voltage you need and you don't know it's regulated or not.

Smash, looking at the new DIN module, it looks like you have it such that one can use either SIP resistor nets or discrete resistors. Is this correct?

Try using a tiny smear of epoxy to secure the tube to the switch shaft.

What I like most about this front panel is how you managed to put all the controls of TK's prototype into a single rack unit AND make it look good. Here are some things I'd do with the design: Shift the operator/instrument lights left a bit to line them up with their respective select buttons. Replace the round buttons below the LCD with rectangular ones that fill all the horizontal area there. Look at the faceplate of a Yamaha TX802 (http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/tx802.shtml) to see what I mean.

I asked this on rec.music.makers.synth, but nobody seemed to be able to help. In the manual for the Yamaha TX802 (rackmounted version of a DX7mk2), it says that the RAM4 data cartridge contains one bank of memory and that in the future there may be cartridges with as many as 16 banks. Does anyone here have the schematics of the RAM4 data cartridge or know how to make this legendary 16-bank cartridge?

There are some typos on your panel ("close", not "cose" and "Operator", not "Opperator"). Otherwise it looks very sweet. When I finish my MBSID, I'd like to make my MBFM with a front panel like yours. You will release the design file, right? ;D

The midi interface is now sold.

I'd just like to let everyone know that this interface is still available.

Is it okay to tie all the DIN ground connections together? Is it okay to do the same with the DOUTs? Is it okay to connect DIN grounds to DOUT grounds?

It's the firmware-loading that bugs me. On top of getting things working correctly with a new notebook (Thinkpad T42, see http://www.thinkwiki.com), I'd rather not have the extra hassle of firmware that needs to be loaded.

I bought a Midisport 1x1 USB midi interface on Ebay about a week ago and now realize that it doesn't play well with Linux So, I'm offering it to someone here who uses Windows. $25 obo to the continental US. See this unit at http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MIDISPORT1x1-main.html