Sasha

Nils, I`m sorry but I just patented letters. I did that just after I read these light slots are patented. ::) But, you can always buy it from me and I`ll give you discount because you are member of MB forum ;) What a nonsense!

Hey Ricardo, did you tried it? It is impossible to find something with 14.318MHz value locally but 16MHz is available. Thorsten, was there a special reason you used 14.318MHz instead widely available 16MHz oscillator?

That is what i thought of too and I think it could be done without much effort, but I cannot expect from all of you to accept that because PCB company didn`t done the job right. I expected they will tell me not to ship the PCBs back to them. That way, I would do it but since they want it back... nothing. Didn`t say even I asked it. But I`ll as again. No, hey didn`t but they said they are sorry. :-\

It happened to me few times that I reverse the film on selfetched, single sided PCB when no text on it because of the lack f concentration but these guys are doing that for living 8 hours a day, every day in big series so these kind of things shouldn`t happened. I remember the panel company bend the edges on case for my Endorphin synth opposite way even I sent them proper technical drawing. For same synth carpenter cut (hardly find) Mahagony side panel 5mm shorter even I draw the cutting line on it and mark the piece that I don`t need and piece I need. Seams it is never enough guides, illustrations and "pay attentions" It is strange that so meny professionals really don`t deserve to work their job. I have many bad examples and alot of other people from community too. It is not the bad karma of our community and it is not strange that is happening pretty much often here. We are pretty much active and our projects need the service of all sort of "professionals". I can feel peaceful only if I can do the job myself. Waiting for the panel, PCB, wooden cheeks or whatever is never fun to me. I am always scared something is not done right. And very often I`m right. I am always willing to pay some extra money for precise and quality work. But when I asked them to pay attention, that this will be fine piece of unique work they always say something like... NO PROBLEM, we are doing that for ages, don you worry... The problem is I cannot buy all the tools, especially machines needed to make everything DIY way, you always need some kind of external services. Sometimes I think it was much easier earlier when I used to file the fader slots for weeks till they all look perfect. Slow job but I was sure they will be right, it just cost ALOT of time.

I have some bad news for you which will coses more delay. After closely inspecting the boards I`ve discovered that top layer and bottom are swapped! It might not be a problem for main board as there no SMD components on it, but for IO board it is serious problem because of USB chip. I took the PCB pictures and made comparison to the gerber Viewmate screenshots and send it all to PCB company. I got reply this morning and they asked me to ship back the PCBs with some kind of statement. I`ll do it today and will send it express mail tomorrow. Sorry for that. But I feel kinda relieved now as I was afraid will they accept to make new ones because the gerber layer files extension isn`t standardized. Mine, generated by Eagle have layer extension .cmp (component side) and .sol (solderside) but acording to what I found on internet other CAD programs might have different extensions. However, the mistake is their as they swapped the film, and put the ink side of film other way around instead ink side against the copper. As this is Serbia, a land of thieves I was scared I`ll be fucked up for money and they will leave me with the bad PCBs. Nothing new, here. Beside that, PCBs looks well done. The material used for PCB is pretty thick, which is + I`ll inform you when can we expect the PCBs, again.

:) bigger view http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2211829637&size=l

Making back illuminated panels is easy if you have right engraving material for back illumination. I`m thinking of making my panel back illuminated but it takes pretty much LEDs if you want to have nice evenly diffused light. I really don`t like how it looks on Korg Zero4/8 controller (only one LED on top of knob ring) Alps is making some LED faders but I think they are the ones used for EQs and not suitable as a mixing pots because they have tiny lever. You can make your own illuminated fader pretty much easily. I attached the quick drawing I just did to illustrate how it looks. You basically need to attach square LED to some piece of plastic, woods or even wire that is attached to the fader lever. LED is connected with thin wires to allow free movements. I did it using Radiohm faders that have flat square area at the base of the fader lever outside of the fader which makes it perfect for gluing LED holder. In addition, you need to make sloth in the panel so you can the LED trough it. If you using some of the laserable panels for backlight illumination (check Rowmark materials) you just need to engrave it and you will get instant "protection screen" and want need any dust protective screen. If I find the test piece I`ll post some pix but I`m sure this sketch is helpful enough. For rotary pots you really don`t need to have illuminated pointer as if you illuminate the ring around the pot it will be easy to see the pointer positions. The easiest solution for seeing the panel in dark is UV sensitive paint. Check out what Tos did (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tosys/) I wont say anything about buttons as there is already alot of info and pictures about it here.

Mother just called me to say that PCBs arrived! I`ll post some pictures when I back from work.

PCBs are finished and are going my way. :)

Ooops :-[ I really need to start with SMD already. I am planing to buy some chips for practicing and when I be satisfied I can start with real soldering. Much people that do SMD say that it is not to difficult at all. I think I have very good skills in trough hole soldering so I should try SMD at some point.

I miss him too, he was a good guy. But this noob bugfight, he really suks. ;D just kidding ;)

Bravo. I love the Weakness to Pirokinesis and Oohm Ah Ah! Hysteric and glitchy... the way I like it. ;) Sounds perfect soundtrack for sick Aphex Twin style video.

Wonderful news Thorsten! You say "probably the most powerful AVR based DIY synth you can find in the web" I and KokiPsiho just talked last night of getting the PCBs for AVR-X but after this i doubt we`ll do it. I love the demo sounds! Especially FM, and drums are very nice too. Thank you and Swinkel for this nice new synth. I listened to samples, now I go to read your review.

That is nice find! I wish I`m into programming. :-[ It reminded me of MBTV. I don`t know how small is smallest VGA display available (I`m sure they aren`t cheap), but 4-5 inch max. size would be great to show all possible colorful information. Bigger than that would probably be just a use of precious space on panel. I don`t believe some of us wish to have one more TFT on the stage, but for studio use could be cool. I just can imagine what can be done using this module with MB other than just showing names, note or CC values. Some supercool sequencer is falling on my mind, but I think the best use of it would be something for VJ-ing, like some kind of picture sampler/sequencer. If it can play the picture sequences fast enough form SD (2G! :D) card it could be really useful for motion pic.

No news

;D

Mike, once again... you are very welcome to help us get the parts, but be sure it wont have negative affect on your business. I remember you were mentioning something about it. How short it is? If they don`t stock much of it, isn`t an option to wait for "stock refill", or how it`s called.

Looking very good! :)

I better check the PCBs I got form Wilba. Might be infected. ;D

Hm, that is good to know. Din`t know brushing grain could lead to tearing. But i think it matters pretty much of the softness and thicknes of aluminum. Right? Thanks for the tip.

You see, you don`t have to change your nick yourself. We already changed it how we like it. I think I`ll call you... let me think. ;D BTW. Check the biography of dr. Lama Ganchen http://www.iouedu.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=121 Sure, I understand that. I am active on more than one place myself, with different names in most of cases. It would be good the nick is same everywhere but it`not. Some of that cyberspaces have nothing in common so It is really not that important. If you in Serbia you would be called Yovan :) Sure I did. As far as I remember I commented your SID too. I got your point, but my point is... you cannot have one identity without loosing many of them! Well, it`s up to you. I wanted to know what do you think about changing the names. I started to ask myself... who is this guy? not a noob, but never seen him before. I`m talking in general.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D who is next?

I don`t agree with you. It is not important as a project or band name. Seams much people don`t like how they name themself. I don`t like my real name but I want change it because people that knows me knows who Sasha is. Simple as that. The truth is that those names really don`t represent you here but it serves as a simple ID tag. Take any function names of MB app. for example... none of them sounds cool, but each of them doing what it should and they can be identified by us easily. If you change one to sound "cool" there wand be useful much. That is not what I`ve did. I`ve had an avatar from beginning and I` didn`t really change the name, I left out my last name as Sasha was sufficient. If you Ganchen or SLP think people here don`t know you are, you are wrong, if you don`t care about your identity at forum than it is OK. I`m here to stay and I feel nice when people knows me, especially when the connect my name with something that I did they liked or find it usefull. It is really not about fame, and I didn`t deserved it. It is just about knowing people.

I`ve been thinking of making this mixer myself and will surely do once the PCB is tested and final brd available. Thanks dj3nk and lylehaze.

History makes sense if you wanna see who user was before. I dont think it makes sense. We should know who each of us are now not who he was and what his father doing ;D