moogah

I've got a feeling this has been answered before, but I have only found examples of it's use by searching the forum, no explanations of what it does. Lines like this from seq_gp.inc (line # 59) are what I'm trying to suss out: BIFSET SEQ_MODE0, SEQ_MODE0_STEP_EDIT, BANKED, rgoto SEQ_GP_Mode0_Button I've gathered that this performs a conditional branch of sorts (Branch IF SET?), probably by comparing the first two arguments.. but the "IFSET" indicates to me that it is checking a simple 1 or 0.. little help? Also, what does the " <<" operator mean? like in the following code: xorlw (DEFAULT_GP_DIN_SR0 - 1) << 3 I've also found a few problems with my beta layout for the 808 clone. I didn't originaly plan on doing any major changes to the software, but I've found some problems that made me change my mind, first I didn't keep all 16 GP buttons in two SR's which is problem #1. It's easy enough to change the layout for the final run, but from tracing the code I believe the primary reason for keeping the buttons consecutive is to keep the following code simple (from seq_buttons.inc starts at line 46). However, if I changed the code here (to get the beta working) I've got a suspicion that I would still run into trouble as perhaps the buttons need to be consecutive in order to be assigned to the proper step in the sequence and bank/pattern. SEQ_BUTTON_Handler_ChkGP1 movf MIOS_PARAMETER1, W andlw 0xf8 xorlw (DEFAULT_GP_DIN_SR0 - 1) << 3 bnz SEQ_BUTTON_Handler_ChkGP2 movlw 0x07 andwf MIOS_PARAMETER1, F rgoto SEQ_BUTTON_GP SEQ_BUTTON_Handler_ChkGP2 movf MIOS_PARAMETER1, W andlw 0xf8 xorlw (DEFAULT_GP_DIN_SR1 - 1) << 3 bnz CS_MENU_BUTTON_Handler_NoGP movlw 0x07 andwf MIOS_PARAMETER1, F bsf MIOS_PARAMETER1, 3 rgoto SEQ_BUTTON_GP I also want to implement a dedicated encoder for tempo and instrument select, along with an analog pot for swing. The encoder for instrument select is fairly easy, the SEQ tutorial lists encoder #9 as performing this task already and I assume that can be remapped. Creating a tempo knob will be a bit more involved I think as I will need to create a handler function to catch the event. The swing pot I havn't even considered yet.. also, why does the datawheel have to be at encoder #0 for the SEQ application? My last question is one that I havn't investigated much yet, I'm just looking for a quick suggestion while I sort out other issues. On the final unit I want to change how a pattern is selected in play mode. You will still use the GP buttons like before to switch, but each pattern will have with it up to 4 shortcuts to other patterns, each assigned to it's own button (this is what I plan to do with the function buttons). this has the obvious advantage to keeping core parts of a song at the fingertips, and allows easy creation of pattern chains by pressing more than one of the buttons at the same time. A pattern is assigned to a shortcut button by holding down the shortcut while selecting the bank and pattern number.

I used to use centrifugal force to pull bubbles out of a thick mixture, by swinging it around my head in some ladies hosiery... maybe something like that is a trick that could work? LO-Freekin-L Please make that your signature...

I've got a few hundred of those switches, and they're quite nice. Pretty much ideal for this kind of button DIY.

No kidding! I've got 4-5 of Gyraf's board sitting on the shelf, and no time in sight to even start on them!

CGS is good quality stuff for sure, and he has alot of unique modules. Check out Blacet and MOTM as well. MOTM is ending it's kit line in a few months, but he still has stock (and he'll sell just a PCB too)

Oberheim SEM Minimoog ARP Odyssey Roland SH-2/5/7 Korg MS-20 ;D www.bluesynths.com has schematics for most of those

OOps.. yea, file that under a big "DUH" for me doc. I have a copy of that datasheet right here on my computer. SO, the schematic doesn't look too ugly at first glance, I don't think it'll be that big a deal to get a discreet version that behaves similarly. Now it's just a matter of getting the 3340's. Synthtech has 'em for $40 a pop. Would be nice to find a place that sells them cheaper in quantity..

I'm in for a button grid. I'd also agree that we really aren't going to need any fancy coatings on the pads, I can't think of many synths that had them.

Making our own PCB's really won't be that big a deal. I need to present a bunch of board designs to smash pretty soon and I'll add one of these to the mix.

Putting your own LED in a B3J is actually quite easy, the switch is made of of 3 parts: A B3F series tact switch, the "Lever Actuator" which is the cap and the LED housing. The 3 parts are just assembled like lego's. The only tricky part is that one leg of the LED is glued into the housing, so you need to use a pair of pliers to get it out, and then need some way of getting the glue out so you can put another one in. The same size drill bit used to drill PCB's will do this nicely. It sounds like alot of work but I think you could easily finish a full set of buttons in an evening. The only problem I've come across with these buttons is that the leads are too short! They just barely make it through the PCB, which makes me wonder if I've got some oddballs. I did get them real cheap from a surplus place.. If anyone wants a few of these to mess with PM me and I'll send you a couple.

OOOOOOOO YEA If these are 3/4" pads then I'll definatly be first in line for a set or two, the price is more than reasonable!

Hehe, myself I prefer the "whole box" approach. It's the 808 or 909 groove that appeals to me, and I can only get that with one sitting on my lap with a pair of headphones on. ;D Thats what I meant too, each instrument in it's own module ;)

Due to the way I am doing my layout making individual 1u modules will be trivial :)

Nice work! It'll be some time before I have the motiviation to etch my own boards again, but building one of these sounds fun :) Have you considered the options with triggering? If all it needs is a 5v pulse the seq I'm using on my 808 will work nicely ;D

Yes, all my documentation will be in the Wiki so as to keep the amount of "information scatter" down. Give me time tho, at the moment I'm still eyeballs deep in Eagle! I expect to have 808 PCB's ready to send to people sometime around August. Everything else will follow that in sequence (with the highest priority on the Oberheim, then the Moog)

"And for the MBHP based modules you could mention in your documentation, that they can be purchased from SmashTV and Mike if the user doesn't want to built them on a breadboard, or etch himself If a special DIN/DOUT module combination with the possibility to mount the buttons/encoders/LEDs directly is required, I guess that the best way would be to discuss this with potentional users first (how should the case look like), and thereafter maybe to ask SmashTV/Mike, if they could distribute the PCB over their shop" Thanks TK, this is what I was thinking :) For the encoder board I was thinking about a nifty two-sided board that used different spacing on either side so as to allow maximum options.

Ehh... The silence is making me uneasy...

Bah. No thanks to digital envelopes, they just don't have the same character as analog ;)

Eh.. That Pro-1 is going to be tough. You will need both CEM3340's and CEM3310's. The 3340's can still be had for 40-50$ each, but the 3310's are pretty much unobtanium. Take a look over at emulatorarchive, he had originally planned on doing the Pro-1, but it seems he has come to the same conclusions as me, too many difficult parts. The only good news there is that you don't need to worry about the uC and logic as MidiBox hardware will do all that nicely. And if you do happen to find a stock of CEM3310's anywhere, let me know? Please? It is possible to just replace the ADSR's with some other discrete circuit, but, alot of the Pro-1's attractiveness came from it's envelopes. I would gladly help with a project to reverse the 3310's, there should be a patent somewhere (Smith? Rossum?) detailing how it works.

Hello all! I've been talking with a rep from Sifam this week about what kind of knobs they keep in stock, in particular which colors they have available for their bullet knob style. The exact link for this knob in particular escapes me at the moment but you can see the type here: http://www.sifam.com/2colpush_on_intro.lasso These are nice little soft touch knobs and Sifam actually has a decent variety of colors in stock. I will probably be ordering a bunch of them with black bodies and red, orange, yellow, white and blue pointers myself but they also have green pointers and grey bodies available too. We haven't discussed pricing in detail yet, but the colors I need come from their stock so there is only a 50$ minimum order to deal with. If anyone else would like to get in on this feel free to look through their catalog and let me know what you like, but I would prefer to keep with a few different styles to get some kind of price break.

Having just noticed this new area to the forum (I wasn't visiting very often this winter/spring) I now realize I need to make a few requests. Some for projects which I've already nearly finished. As I'm sure many of you here know there is a wonderful TB303 clone project, the x0xb0x. I have one myself and during several discussions over there I began thinking seriously about taking Sebastian Lindstat's (aka hallucinogen) 808 clone that I was working on and continuing the project to make a set of PCB's with a sequencer included. I have now nearly finished the final revision of the 808's analog section and have alot of work done on making an adapted MBSEQ to fit to the 808. The adaptations to the SEQ are minimal, all I've really done is add the ability to use DOUT pins as analog triggers and removed some of the features that are not needed in a drum sequencer in order to have a tidy interface. I was originaly going to make a full x0x style makeover of the SEQ, but I see that there are people here already working on this and I think it would be better for me to simply contribute to their projects where possible instead of competing with them on a project that is well defined (we all know what we want a x0x sequencer to be). Now, I have no plans to sell completed units but I would certianly like to do a run of PCB's for all who are interested and possibly offer a partial kit with all the components which are not available at the big vendors. Profit wise I do not intend to have any real markup, considering that I've spent in excess of 1000$usd in realizing this project (I needed the full version of eagle, amoung other things). It is also interesting to consider that with the completion of the SEQ section of this project I will have done most of the work neccessary to make a full MBSEQ on a single PCB. With about 10 hours more work I can easily offer a design that keeps all the original points of TK and Smash's PCB's, but in a nice, compact form. Same would go for various "larger format" modules like a DINX8 or a PCB that holds 4 encoders, switches and LED's (tell me those wouldn't be useful!). Now, I have more than just the 808 clone on my plate. I've also been assembling a set of Trevor Page's (aka introspectiv) 9090 PCB's which do not include a sequencer. The very same seq design used for the 808 will work for the 9090 as well, so I would potentially like to offer the SEQ section as a seperate PCB to the people over at that forum too. Further yet I have an "Oberheim Clone" that I have been working on for some time now which lies somewhere between the SEM and the OB-1. This is a pretty complicated project so it has taken me quite some time to get my head wrapped around it, but with the completion of the 808 I'm pretty sure I will be ready to finish it. This project will also have an adapted MBSEQ, but will also use MidiBox hardware to provide patch storage and a digital interface ala the OB-1. Again, no real intention of selling completed units, but PCB's and small kits are likely. I've also got a set of files from 5meo-geo (aka geomantic here, I believe) that begin the task of making MiniMoog PCB's!!! This one still has alot of work to be done on it, allthough geo has come a long way and was generous enough to give me his files to work with. Same intentions as with everything else, a single PCB with the analog sections and some useful MB hardware. As for my obligation with the GNU I do plan on meeting the quality of documentation provided by TK for all my projects and modifications as well as making the extra effort for the PCB's themselves to be informative and included credit to all contributers. I cannot, however, provide a timeline for when the documentation will be complete. This is a hobby, after all ;D. All this brings up a point, should there be any restrictions on selling kits that include MidiBox hardware? I've read through all the posts relating to MidiBox and the GNU/GPL, and I don't want to open that can of worms here. However, I think removing restrictions on selling *kits* as opposed to completed units neatly steers around all the problems with unsophisticated users and greedy folk and still allows innovative people the freedom to do what they wish and grow the community. PS: @TK. why not lock any threads here once you have given a verdict? That should get the point of finality across ;D

Indeed! These are two different materials then. Apparantly that material works MUCH better than acrylic in terms of spreading the light out instead of just letting a beam pass through it. I have, however, found something interesting. A friend of mine has a new modem and it uses what must be the exact kind of material we would want for making buttons like this. I can't find a good picture of it but the modem uses little plastic cones to bring the light out to the front of the case and they light up VERY well, even better that pay_c's buttons. I'm going to begin finding out what kind of material this is and if it is available.

I've been using 3mm ultrabright blue LED's, and the results have been flat out dissapointing! I even bought some frosted acrylic rod to make some buttons out of, in order to get a better dispersion. The results are better, as long as they are viewed in the dark.. but as soon as you turn on the lights it really is underwhelming. Obviously I'm doing something wrong.. One thing that is different is that I'm not using a knife to cut the acrylic, what kind of knife are you using? I found the material hard enough that I couldn't make one good clean cut so I didn't end up with a nice smooth surface that way. I've also tried drilling small holes in each button and placing the LED inside, this has had the best results but I am still a far cry from what I see in those pics!

WOA... What the hell took me so long to show up in this thread? RE: Hallucinogen's 808 clone: the PSU schematic is MIA and Sebastian didn't have them available when I asked months ago. I've actually got a set of his boards all etched, stuffed and wired on my bench now. It really does sound like the original, kick drum in particular. Now, as for his clone becoming "vaporware" I would agree that Sebastian seems very busy with other endeavors (when was the last time he posted here?). The good news is that I took it onto myself to continue work on the project, specificaly creating a layout in eagle that combines the 808 analog section with a MBSEQ with all the proper modifications to work like the 808. ETA about 2 weeks and I will be gearing up to do a run of boards. I've also been working on my 9090 PCB's I got from Trevor this winter. Good stuff there. I will also then have layouts for all the instruments in eagle format, most of which will fit in the 100x80mm size of the free program if you all would like to tweak them ;)

interesting! as it is now I assure you there is no way to make mine look like the picture by adjusting voltages, but this thing about flipping the lens is interesting.. care to elaborate? *going to check datasheet*