Jaicen

Hey doods, i'm just wondering if there have been any updates to this project?? Now that the store's open again, i'm gonna be chomping at the bit to get at some of these patches!

I can see both sides of this particular discussion. When I found this place just after christmas, it messed with my head a lot. No offence to the people that do the documentation, but it's not accessible at all when you first read it. Compared to the diy stompbox community, this is like rocket science, or so it appears. I get why TK et al don't want to be holding hands while people build these things. If the documentation was just a big 'do this and this, voila!' people wouldn't learn stuff, and would constantly be bugging the forum for help. I've spent a total of 29hrs just logged into the forum, that's besides reading all the stuff on ucapps, even stuff not directly applicable. I've also gone over to other SID and commodore sites to learn a little more about the way the chip works. I think this is something you're gonna have to do to make this project successful. Knowledge is everything. Almost all the answers you're looking for really are in the documentation, they're just not easy to find. For example, I want to build a control surface that's less complex than TK's. I'm not gonna get someone holding my hand while I mod the code, it's something I have to learn to do myself. I'm sure there'll be help available, but I gotta do the legwork!

Well, as I say it's not exactly finished, but all the info you need to build one is in this thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=38521.0 Some of the links are broken but I think most of the good stuff is still in there. I'm hoping to integrate the CMOS switching system in the near future into a second pcb which will also contain the oscillator to drive the LDR vibrato feature.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the LoFi loop junky that Zvex makes, but it's a pretty funky analogue sampler. I made something pretty similar which uses a chip with longer record times if anyone's interested. (For the record, my design is in no way superior and should be more properly regarded as inspired by).

Does it look like caramel or honey?? I'm thinking it could be a bit of stray flux from the solder. Ceramic caps are virtually indestructable at the temps they're soldered since they're formed under high pressure/heat, so I think you should be ok.

I guess I'd better throw my hat into the ring eh? My best electrocution was when I was in college doing a physics experiment. I noticed that the the power supply I was using had a loose fuse (the screw in type), so of course, I reached over to tighten it. I don't remember what happened next, except that I was on the floor and the room was dark (tripped the security breakers). Turns out so much current was going through me it melted the secondary of the PSU transformer. I'd definitely be dead if it had been higher voltage i'm sure! With regards to that DK monitor Smash, I have a sneaky suspicion it was ionisation of the air from the tube. I've heard it can happen, but never seen it. Oh and 110v is lethal because it's usually delivered at about 50Hz, which is close to the resonant frequncy of the heart, hence perfect for stopping it! 110 was chosen as it was believed to be safer, but it requires more current to deliver the same power as 240v, which is another reason it's so much more dangerous. Sorry for dragging this post even further from the topic....

All good new then! Any idea when you'll be accepting orders again? I've got my girlfriends' birthday money burning a hole in my pocket man! ;D

If you want to hear the DR-110 then head over here: http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/d_machines/dr110.html I love that place, i'm sure it's feeding my obsession somewhat ::) I actually just did an A/B against my unit, quite surprisingly there's a fair bit of difference in the sounds (Mine sounds much nicer of course). The hats are less harsh and the kick is fuller. The virtual one seems to be pitched down slightly too, strange. Sounds ilke you had a much harder time back in the day than us young pups. From what I can find out, the XP-10 was one of the first of the crop of 16-bit digital boxes, along with the HR-16 (&16b). You don't see many about so i'm guessing it wasn't as popular.

Thanks for that man, it means a lot! With regards to the layouts already posted, most of them will have at least one error, and a number of improvements to add so keeping copies is only really useful to see how they've developed. For instance, the dual kick & Rim layout now has a pair of - to + converters to allow them to be triggered by the same -'ve pulse as the rest of the DR-110 modules I'm making. It also has decay and pitch controls for all sounds. I will say that they're all untested so far, I haven't even gone through and error checked them against the schem. With regards to the CR-78, i'm interested in the more esoteric sounds it makes, like the guiro & tambourine, which are pretty unique to that box. The stock DR-110 sounds are actually quite good for more generic drum sounds, though I'm not really interested in another x0x box if you get what I mean. I can't say I care a lot for the Linn-Drum type sounds. I don't really like PCM samples, though the low sample rate does give them a certain character. I don't know anything about building one of those! For what it's worth, I think it would be relatively easy to interface the modules i'm making with some piezo's and a Schmitt trigger to trigger all the drum sounds if that's what you're looking for. There's a good article on sound on sound about DIY drum triggers. I'd personally want to trigger these sounds in conjunction with a live kit, that's more my kinda thing.

Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking. I think it would be nice to be able to use one noise source for the hats, and another for the snare. The digital noise is definitely less smooth, and apparently creates some interesting effects when decay times are increased. I figure the circuits are small enough that I can put them both on one module with seperate outs and a mixed signal to cover all bases!

Hey guys, i'm just wondering if anybody has seen the thread below. Looks like a really interesting project, particularly since the designer alludes to the fact that he got the ADSR etc to work as intended, which I assume fixes the SID envelope bug. Could be invaluable when stocks of SID's start to run dry in a few years time. http://myhdl.jandecaluwe.com/doku.php/projects:phoenixsid_65x81#to_do EDIT: That last comment was not intended to imply that this is a drop-in replacement for a 6581 or 8580.

Thanks man! I hope it didn't look like I was sulking or attention seeking! The hats layout has some slight errors which i've now corrected, and I also added Decay controls for the open hat and cymbals. The hardest part is still to come, when I have to do the layouts for the chime generator which is mixed with the noise to produce the cymbal tones. It uses a 14069 hex inverter, which is a shame as I would have liked to keep the signal generators completely transistorised. That said, the hat & cymbal noise shaping filters use an JNM4558 op-amp anyway so it's no big deal. The question is, do I use the pseudorandom (digital) noise generator of the DR-110 or the transistorised noise of the DR-55?? So far, i've come to understand the workings of this circuit a lot more in doing these layouts, so if nothing else it's a good learning excercise.

Hey guys, it seems that not a whole lot of people on here care but I've made steady progress with my Dr Rhythm modules. Below are layouts and PCB's for the DR-110 snare, cymbal and Hi-Hats. The noise and chime/filter generator will be on a seperate PCB to try and cut down some of the hiss you get on real DR-110's. I'm very proud of the hats layout, that's some tight work! 8) Oh, I should also mention that I think it's possible to get close to the DR-55 hats sound using this circuit by taking out the chime tone, effectively leaving gated noise. I might still make a dedicated module from the 55 circuit, as it would be nice to have them simultaneously.

Yeah of course! I actually plan to make some of those voices as well I just don't need the cowbells and stuff. So far, i'm definitely cloning the DR-55 kick & Rim (Done), the DR-110 Snare (half Done), hats & cymbals. I'm also looking to clone the hats and snare from the DR-55 when I work out how they're implemented. I guess I should clarify that i'm not looking for the typical 808 soundset, I want something a little different. I'm looking for a usable CR800 or CR-78 schematic if anyone has a copy (I want the tambourine and guiro sounds!).

Ok guys, i'm not sure how many people here have quite the same fixation for analogue boss/roland drum machines that I do, but I thought i'd post this anyway. I'm working on building up a modular drum unit based on my favourite sounds from all the old TR, DR and CR series. I figured i'll start small with the kick and rimshot from the DR-55 (which I love! first drumbox I ever heard). They're pretty simple little circuits, so they're easy to mod too. The layout below incorporates two seperate (identical) kicks and a single rim shot which can all be individually triggered by a +5v pulse. I think it would be nice to layer two kicks, one very low and long (say 60HZ) and another short & high (150Hz??). Luckily I found a single mod on the net that would do both with one single pot. The same goes with the rim shot which can be pitched up and down using the emitter resistor. It's also possible that i'll put these parameters under CV, using the techniques shown here:http://www.hoohahrecords.com/resfreq/mods/dr110.html I'm working on cloning the snare and hats from the DR-110 at the minute, but i'm not exactly sure how they work so bear with me (assuming anyone cares!). If anyone's interested, i'd appreciate any feedback regarding the accuracy of the layout below (i've included the schem for reference. I have both DR's. 808, 606 and 909kick schems if anyone wants them as well as the CR-78 too). I've tried to keep things as small as possible. Trig1 & Trig2 are the kicks, same with out1&out2. The pad for out2 seems to have gone awol on the layout though ??? I'd appreciate it if anyone can shed any light on how the schmitt trigger gates the noise signal for the snare and hats, as i'm stumped by that at the minute.

Does anybody know if it's possible to create a temp indicator pulse or LED?? I have a design for a simple sequenced filter i'd like to integrate into the MBSID. It has it's own lFO, but if it could be synced to MIDI that would be awesome! Basically, it's a 10 step decade counter (less steps can be used, 2 or more can be chained together for additional steps) which controls a filter via an optocoupler. For every pulse received, the counter moves on one step, so the MIDI sync would need to be output in triplets (ie, 8 per bar). I'm wondering if it would be possible to use a single note on my sequencer, say C8 or something really high, which would trigger a dout pulse??? I figure the highest notes aren't used since the SID has restricted frequency response. Does anybody else think this is a great idea??

Hey Slorrin, i'll be interested in buying at least two of these, possibly four depending on the price. Can you pm me or mail me some details as soon as you get them?? This'll be great for alleviating my guilt at taking apart these lovely old machines ;)

Sorry for the delayed reply, I lost this thread! Yeah I do have a parallel port which is not being used, I just don't know how to access it. Anybody got any ideas?

Just wondering if there's any news on wether they're shipping yet or not? I'd like to get my hands on some before I spend all my money again ;)

Hey, I was wondering if it could be possible to produce pulse outputs from a Dout module that will respond to MIDI note messages that can be used to trigger external drums. I have a nice little DR-110 drum machine which i'd like to mod for external triggering of sounds via MIDI since it has no way of syncing to my PC. Has anybody done anything similar??

Yeah I've seen both of those, and a few other variations on PIC based sync converters. Thing is I don't really know a lot about PIC, certainly I don't have any facilities for programming them. I just thought it would be nice to have a VST to do all the leg-work for me ;)

I'm sure there's an obvious reason this hasn't already been done, but hopefully someone can tell me. I didn't know anywhere else this could be posted so it's here ;) I personally rarely use synths and drum machines outside my home studio (back bedroom ::) ), usually using a PC based sequencer as my skills are somewhat lacking in the actual playing field. Anyway, tonight i've been looking up DIN sync and it occured to me that it would be a really nice idea if somebody could write a plug-in for a VST or something that would send control voltages from a PC serial or USB port. I figured it would be a relatively easy task to write code to convert a MIDI clock signal to the correct Sync24 pulses. Failing that, maybe something could be added to the MB firmware to allow a Dout module to send Sync pulses. What do you guys think??

The TL07x family will happily run up to +24v (+\- 12v) so you should be fine. It'll give slightly more headroom than +9-12v as well, good for transients. That said, i'd probably just use a Mosfet buffer/gain stage as it'll draw less current and take up less space. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out ;)

I second that man, the new PCB's look brilliant. I just hope you're gonna stock enough to keep up with demand ;)

I don't know if it's important, but the keyboard on the first C64 is indicative of an earlier model. Presumably it was stuffed into a later case during the transitional period. This probably accounts for the fact that i've seen several 'later' type C64's with both 6581's and the later PSU's.