OrganGrinder

i agree, i was just speculating pie in the sky stuff. making a router for 16x16 would exceed my current needs anyway.

hi stryd i was just thinking, is there any reason why we couldn't use the DIN and DOUT modules for midi messages? obvisously we would need to use a chip with more memory than the 18f452 so that we can have the buffer(s) to avoid dropping messages. thats a potential of a 129x129 router on one core! ;D of course there would be good reason why we couldn't go that big.

hi i suppose it is possible to do what you said, create a (large) breakout box for the hammond tonewheels which is then controlled by midi. robinfawell's solution has its possibilities and can be done using a high end pentium3 (1.0 - 1.4 MHz) as for simulating the leslie speakers, why not get some proper rotary speakers from hammond (http://www.hammondorganco.com/). they can take a signal from any audio gear.

i have read on this forum about work on implimenting a scanning matrix so that more inputs can be read. the downside of this technique is that input latency is increased from around 1ms to 8 ms. i think it would be better to connect 2 or more core-midio128 in a daisy chain. you will probably have a lower latency than a scanning matrix. additionally midio128 can be setup to recognise the difference between a passed through midi in signal and a midi out from further up the daisy chain. (sorry, but i don't think this is reading the way i mean it) i believe it is done with the configuration file, but i don't know exactly how.

hi there are also raiser cards available for pci-e and pci-x. don't worry too much about pci-x because pci-e is far superior from what i have heard. and if you are particularly desperate, i might be able to find an isa raiser card in my spare parts bin (LOL) OrganGrinder

hi all the hammond sound is unique!!! i understand that it is produced by some electro-mechanical means. add to that, the B3 went out of production in the mid 70's after a production run of around a quarter century. good news is that hammond is selling an upgraded model called The New B3 for about a year now http://hammondorganco.com/B3.htm. alternatively native instruments has a software synth called the B4 II http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=b4ii_us&ftu=5b3b828ddb49ef0 OrganGrinder

hi sd2000 it appears that your problem is that you are activating the DOUT pins on discrete volume levels from midi. the problem is that the volume signal probably will use other values in the volume messages. therefore you need to configure your system to activate the appropriate pin on its range of volume levels. i believe hand coding which DOUT to activate for each of the 128 volume levels can be done. (if there is an easier way, can someone who knows midio128 better than myself explain it) btw the signal levels you are providing for each DOUT appear to be on a logarithmic scale, it might be a good idea to check the pot attached to your expression pedal and make sure it is a linear pot and not a logarithmic pot. (i don't know how to tell the difference, but it should be available with a google search) on a linear scale, an even distribution would be: [table][tr][td]DOUT[/td][td]Hex[/td][td]Dec[/td][/tr][tr][td]1[/td][td]0-15[/td][td]0-21[/td][/tr][tr][td]2[/td][td]16-2A[/td][td]22-42[/td][/tr][tr][td]3[/td][td]2B-40[/td][td]43-64[/td][/tr][tr][td]4[/td][td]41-55[/td][td]65-85[/td][/tr][tr][td]5[/td][td]56-6A[/td][td]86-106[/td][/tr][tr][td]6[/td][td]6B-127[/td][td]107-127[/td][/tr][/table] of course this assumes that your minimum and maximum volume signals from your hardware are 0 and 0x7F(127) respectively. now once you get the system working, there is no reason not to adjust the values for reasons of comfort, ascetics or placing the transition points at the same places as the orignal organ. just take care not to have any overlaps (which would power more than one of the DOUT) or gaps (which would have none of the DOUTs powered). best of luck OrganGrinder

Hi Toneburst I recently resolved a problem which seems very similar to what you are describing my core was being powered by a 9volt battery, which was going flat. as the core was rebooting due to low voltage, it was sending partial signals which mios studio was interpreting as single byte signals try checking the voltage at core:j2. i found that the reboot is programmed to occur if the voltage drops to about 4.5 volts. btw the battery was supplying 7.5 volts before the bridge rectifier and voltage regulator. my solution was to connect the core to a transformer wall adaptor and it now works without any problems (other than a hot voltage regulator, but thats a different story) alternatively you could try a fresh battery just so that you know, i originally thought i was somehow uploading corrupted programs to the core and went through a serious process of redownloading and reinstalling mios studio, and the mios programs i was using to test my cores. at one point i was afraid that i somehow damaged the pics by some unknown means. OrganGrinder

hi all i have just midified one of the manuals of the gulbranson!!!! once i got the hang of what i was doing it was easy. i think i can get a scanner so i can show what i did to the schematics, on the organ i only needed to remove 2 resistors per key, cut a few wires and connect the wires from the din to the circuit. now to figure out the pedal controllers - this could be a little harder as the pedal contacts work through an active matrix, but i'll see what i can do... OrganGrinder

i have just successfully used midi-ox to upload the syx file without any problems. to clarify what i did... 1. installed mios with mios studio 2. installed midio128 with mios studio using the midio128_v2_1c package 3. configured midio128.ini from the mk_midio128_syx package 4. run the batch from a cmd prompt as per the mk_midi128_syx readme (needs perl) 5. configured midi-ox as per the readme from mk_midi128_syx 6. uploaded the midi128.syx file to midibox 7. tested the configuration - and it worked without a problem. i have tried using sysexbox_18f_v1_1c, but without success, but i think that was from a totally unrelated problem with power supply (which i have rectified). i have not retried using sysexbox, so i don't know if it works as expected. OrganGrinder

you can also use the RS232 with the midibox ltc module. it may need some custom wiring/coding for use with the c64, maybe someone has already done it with midibox. OrganGrinder

welcome abord scube the problem with your question is that it is not clear what you are asking. i have come with two interpretations: 1 you are wanting to run c64 audio software on a midibox device; or 2 you are wanting to build a midi device using midibox for a c64 the answer to version 1 is probably not, what is being asked is to emulate a different computer architecture and would be far too much work for most hobbiests, not to mention most pics probably dosn't have the memory to do anything useful if it was possible. now i assume you were meaning version 2 and would like to interface a midibox with a c64. i would say that it is possible but you need to ask someone who has more understanding of the c64 than i do, there are plenty of them on this forum. OrganGrinder ps sorry about my picking, but i find that if the question is clear and not subject to interpretation, everyone benefits.

hi pk thanks for your reply, and thanks for not overreacting to the emotional parts of my post. i have been insired inspired by the organ retrofit ideas that have some around of late, particularly the use of midi as the communication medium of keyboard/stop controls. a software solution which has got me thinking is hauptwerk (http://www.crumhorn-labs.com/), a pipe organ simulator. but i have a few problems with it, firstly it is expensive. but the main issues i have with it are that it is proprietry software (closed source) and although this appears to be a philisophical issue, my concern with closed source is what happens if the developers interests change or the company goes bust. but my main issue with it at the moment is the need for a single monolithic computer in order to run the full featured system - there is mention of using a dual opteron system with 8GBytes of memory - you can buy a new computer for the cost of each of these opteron processors. i was going to give an overview of a software alternative i was thinking of developing - but it would have gone too far off topic (it would deserve a new thread) and i don't think i have developed the idea enough to post at this time anyway - but to put it simply, a open source alternative to hauptwerk. btw miditzer is a great piece of software, provides good sound and can be run on the "normal" level computers available today. my problems with it at the moment are only with regard to configuring it with the "strange" hardware that i currently have available (read my previous posts). OraganGrinder

i agree with you pk what i asked was (now read slowly this time) how to setup the audio output from the pc (the two stereo out channels) to cater for a specific hardware audio input configuration which is not a "standard" audio system. at the simplest how to reconfigure windows quadraphonic output into 4 discrete mono channels - now don't repeat that it is already there because windows filters the sound for use with what is assumed to be a surround sound system. for example as in the setup i described earlier say the two main channels are channel 1 and 2, the leslie speaker is on channel 3 and the subwoofer is on channel 4. if i play a tibia sound, i expect the sound to output through channels 1 and 2, but if i have tibia tremelo engaged, i require sound through channel 3 instead (that is how the leslie rotory speaker system works, right?) if i play a note with a pedal, i expect the signal through channel 4 (i am not sure if this is only channel 4 or in addition to 1 and 2). my organ was built in the 70's, they knew about wave theory and developed the organ to take into account loud and quiet spots generated by multiple speakers - that is why the main channel is divided into main a+b and main a-b (this information i got from the service manual). now the Ta-Da responses to my previous post simply tell me to combine all the output channels from the computer and connect them equally to the inputs to the amplifer which is not the question that i asked. i asked how to utilise the hardware which i have already to its full capacity with the features that are available - why would i want a simulated tremelo (which is not much better than a vibrato) by a synth when i have a fully functional leslie system. if the Ta-Da responses were meaning that i connect each of the four pc audio outputs to individual audio input of the poweramp, that is an even stupider suggestion. think of it, a sound from the front left in one main speaker, the front right to the other main speaker, a sound from the rear right through the leslie and the rear right through the subwoofer. if this is a suggested work around for use with fluid synth, i would have expected alot more detail including settings for fluidsynth (and i don't think settings to this details are supported anyway) i am sorry that this may upset those who did respond to my query, it is that i asked a question well beyond how to connect pc audio out to organ audio in and i assumed that the level of detail that i gave would have indicated what i was after, i was talking about specific audio channels on the organ indicating the contrast to the audio channels of a quadraphonic output from a pc. i have not programmed audio output from a pc before, and i do not know if directing audio to specific audio channels is possible - but i assumed it was always done this way until recently with libraries which only required where the sound was coming from and the library would handle the channel mixing. so to sum it up ... can the software and pc audio out be reconfigured to cater for the specific audio inputs which the power amplifers of my console have? as stated before the audio input channels of the console are main a+b, main a-b, subwoofer and leslie speaker. OrganGrinder

it would be great if miditzer and other software would send audio out which is suitable for the amp inputs of retrofitted consoles, i wonder if we could ask the developer(s) to do so. in my situation with a gulbranson 600 connecting the audio outputs from a computer to the preamp of the console would be a difficult task, firstly there are many audio inputs in addition to signals being passed on to reverb units and other filters, on top of that there are many controls which are adjusted with variable resistors. an alternative that i was thinking was to bypass the preamp and let the computer and software handle the issues of mixing, filtering etc and just send out what would be sent to the consoles power amp, which then goes to headphones/speakers. to do this, the computer would need to output audio on 4 discrete mono channels tibia leslie, pedal, a+b main, a-b main. obviously the first two are to the power amp inputs which go through to the leslie speaker and the subwoofer respectively, and the second two are amplified and passed to the main speakers. obviously if the pc audio output is not enough for the consoles power amp, a customised preamp (4 channels) would be needed to boost the signal to get best results from the amp/speakers. OrganGrinder

when you test one core and say it works, are you test only your first core or each core individually? if all your cores work individually it may be that you have not assigned unique id headers for each of your pics. you can change the id headers with the change_id program from troubleshooting in the mios download section. don't forget to look up the midibox sid docs to determine which header ids you should use. OrganGrinder

i agree, you can make as many mistakes as you need to on a separate box. once you make mistakes on your organ console, it will never be the same again (even if you can professionally cover them up).

being that for the most part, all that has been available so far are sequential computing systems, that has been the direction of what has been done. now if a parallel computing system will benefit synthesis and effects will depend on how we try to take advantage of it. we will have to think of way to utilise parallel and indepenent processing of the same input data. i am not well studied in systhesis and effects at this time, but i am sure there would be situations where it would be preferrable for effects to be applied in parallel instead of sequentially to a sound source. one situation might be if you wish to apply more than one sound patch to a midi noteon, at the moment midi dosen't directly cater for this, what is done is to either copy the signal to another channel before sending to the synthesiser or using midithru to a second synth. this is a problem which organists (including myself) come across when introduced to midi, midi was not designed for multiple patches to a single noteon signal (what i described earlier are work arounds), while both electronic and pipe organs natively can handle multiple stops (patches) simulateneously. - actually the term stop was used to describe the mechanism to prevent certain pipes from sounding, otherwise all pipes associated with a note would sound. but back to the subject ... the main reason synth and effects applications are not readily thought of for parallel processing is that we have always used, designed and thought of sequential processing of a signal. parallel processing may cause a revolution or it may have no effect at all, it depends on if we can use it for what we want.

it was only a matter of time before parallel processors became available. a good use for it is for ai in robots (particularly if a neural net is used) and other cool stuff which need simultaneous independent processing. we'll see how these things get used soon enough.

for the multiple duplicate midi out, why not modify the LTC module. my idea was to take out ic1 and ic2, and then repeat the ic3 section as much as required (should also take out any unneeded midi thru aswell). there would be a limit on how far this can be done, but i don't have the expertise to say how far. but for 4 additional midi out (plus the 1 on the core), i wouldn't think there is a problem. and for such a simple circuit, it can easily be done on a stripboard. alternatively to provide 5 midiout, you could use 4 IIC Midi Modules plus the midi out on your core. it is a little more complex, but it would give the ability to independently adapt each midi out signal or just send the same midi out to each IIC module. OrganGrinder

i've been considering the use of a general midi module on an organ, thats 128 patches on 15 channels shared between 3-4 manuals (incl pedals), plus the drum channel (used as traps rather than rhythm). considering the space required, i found it unrealistic to try to provide enough buttons to allow the number of combinations that are possible, especially when each channel only handles one patch at a time. The idea i have been toying with is to create a midibox with lcd display and buttons and/or encoders to select through a menu system to allocate and deallocate patches to the various manuals. while the control surface is not in use, the display shows the status of the midi channels (probably showing which manual each channel is listening to and the output patch name) and displaying the menu options while the controls are being used. of course such a system could be customised for any specific sound module. i haven't gone beyond a basic design concept at this time, but it seems my idea is an extension (at least conceptually) to the midifilter/processor project. I was thinking of using this as my first attempt at a full blown programming project with midibox. now if i was going to develop this with individual buttons for each patch, just for the sound patches i am looking at 512 buttons (4*128), probably with individual leds so i know what is switched on. but i would have to work out how i will handle the situation where: 1: i switch on more patches than the midi module will handle, 2: how to setup the buttons so they are easily usable, 4 rows of 128 columns works out very big plus i need to label (legibly) every column (at least) on the button board. now i am not trying to discourage you from your project idea, it is just the what you have proposed requires a fair amount of construction effort (meaning time and possibly money) and i encourage you to plan everything out, review alternative layouts, make sure you haven't left out anything. i suggest you prepare as much as possible, because with the time and expense of building your project, you don't want to find out that you forgot to add something, or could have done the layout better; half way through construction. if you go ahead with what you proposed, please do a write up for the Wiki, also i would like to see pictures of it too. OrganGrinder

Hi all its been a while since i gave an update on this thread. first i have been working on repairing the gulbranson 600, so far with limited success. this is mainly due to the fact that i am finding it difficult to issolate circuits to confirm that they are operating correctly. so far, there was no problems with the keyswitches so no fixing there. all the stops on the lower manual are working now, turned out the problem was one part of a lm3900 (a quad amp chip) which cause problems with the 4' stops. the upper manual appears to be a much bigger problem. it appears that i may have problems on the "gate matrix", this board with use of daugherboards (which are fixed and not easily removable) mixes the inputs from the keyswitches with the analogue signals from the tone generator before sending the overall signal to the appropriate flute and non flute stop controls. now it is difficult to do anything to the gate matrix motherboard simply due to the large number of wires involed (5 octaves of keyswitches, 8 octaves of tone generator inputs, and 9 octaves of tone outputs - some 233 wires), and that is just to get complete access to the board (remove it to a workplace) so that i can properly diagnose and repair it. as i mentioned before the daughter boards appear to be fully attached (soldered) to the motherboard, and each mother/daughter board interface has over 70 connections. it looks like the possibility of repairing this thing is beyond my skill and probably beyond what is resonable to ask a service guy to repair. on the bright side, i believe i have figured out how to suppliment the keyswitches with Din and Douts (and not blow the PICS). unfortunately i am not able to scan images so an easily understandable explaination is not possible at this time (maybe if a borrow a digital camera, it might be good enough). afterall i would have liked some feedback before i started cutting wires. so to sum up, it looks like my plan to repair the organ and midify it may not work afterall - but i am not giving up yet, a working solution may still be there. otherwise it will have to be a radical midification. Thanks for reading me ramble OrganGrinder PS - pk, i share your pain at finding out what thoughless people have been doing to your efforts to provide them with usable organ music. people now days seem only interested in what is popular and not what is good. organ music is commonly seem as "old fasioned", but my response is that people now days are so impatient, wanting the quick fix (ok sounding guitar can be done in a few days hard practice, reasonable organ takes a fair while longer). this is reflected in the music industry where the money is in low skill level good enough as opposed to properly developed quality music products (look at the training difference between rock musicians and classical (or jazz)). the scary thing is that the normal person dosen't appreciate the difference. (anyone who begs to differ, consider the last time you sang with a pop melody instead of being deafened by THUMP THUMP THUMP) PPS if anyone wants to discuss what make good music or any other phylisophical dogma, please start a different thread, i was only expressing an opinion with no intention of starting a debate.

yea. I did that mistake once on a midi out, the result was no (valid) signal to the next midi device (midi studio didn't read a thing until the wires were setup correctly). no reason to believe that if swapped on midi in that a valid signal is recieved (signal on the wrong wire). OrganGrinder

i don't know about the JDM, but my 4620s burned ok through my PIC Burner. OrganGrinder

hi my sample 4620 where shipped 11 june with the date number 0620 counting the weeks, my chips where sent about 1 month after manufacture this should give an idea when to order to get the new revision OrganGrinder