Razmo

Pascal: Just saw the links to the files you gave... thanx! :D

I'm uncertain of this... the only thing I've found seem to be sysx ifo on MIOS itself, and not the MB SID V2 specifics... I need to know patch request and patch dump strings etc... if any is there at all... I've found for the V1 enginge, but none for the V2 yet...

Hi... this is basicaly for Thorsten: I've finaly made a V2 SID synth here, but as I've not build any control surface I'm set on doing a Sound Diver editor for the V2 engine... I've not been able to find any kind of SysX info on the V2 engine horsten... is this because it does not support this yet, or won't at all? Without SysX capability it's kind of hard to store patches on a surfaceless version of the V2 engine...

Stryd: Don't worry, I believe I've got some browser confusion goin' on here... I'll sort it out! ;)

The 707 and DS-8 both use the same FM chip as the FB-01 ... it's the YM2164. It's impossible to find the datasheet for this chip on the net, though I've got some info on it from the FB-01 service manual. The chip sound awesome, though the DAC is just 10 bit... I suspect this to be some of the grittyness, but still the older FM chips has a lot more warmth in their character... more analog-like. The 707 and DS-8 are almost identical... I've actualy had both of them, and to be honest, the DS-8 sound a slight more warm to me... one of the absolutely coolest features of these beasts is the UNISON feature... they sound SOOOOOO fat! :P Sidenote: Does anyone else in here have trouble logging in here at the forums? ... I have to change my password to get logged in EVERY TIME! ... if I use the normal login procedure, Internet explorer tell me that it cannot read the format of the webpage... and I've reset the whole browser to standard settings to see if that helped... no use ???

Believe me, I've had second thoughts... mostly because I do not know if MBFM have the same gritty character... old FM chips sound more dirty and are good for bass sounds. unfortunately they do not have much storage capacity... but nonetheless, the FB01 casing is ideal for a non-controlsurface build of MBFM... I do not think you can find anything with all these features at the price these things go for on ebay... one is up at ebay pt for just $35. The FM chip used in the FB-01 is the same used in KORG's older DS-8 FM synth... It's really good, and I'd really like to see a project for this FM chip. Also it's not a surfacemount chip.. good old type that go through the holes! ;D ... I believe that the FB-01 chip is the successor of the much used FM chip in arcade machines like OUTRUN... may even be pin compatible with a few enhancements.

Hi everyone :) Yes, I've decided to build a MB-FM because I stumbled upon an old soundcard with the chips lying about at a garbage area where I live... jesus, I don't understand why people throw this away ??? I've read a great deal about the construction, and I see that there are issues with the +/- 12volts for many... I needed to find a good casing, and for some reason I had my eyes focused on an old FM synth by Yamaha I've got... the FB-01. These babies are dead cheap on the used market, and are perfect for this project! it has: 5 volts for digital circuitry +/- 5 volts for analog opamps Build in powersuply with switch 3 holes for chasismounted MIDI sockets (yes they have the right size!) 2 holes for audio outs (could be stereo or mono depending on the MB-FM output config... chasis mount) it's tabletop or half-rack the only prob is the front panel... it has been made for a small LCD display and 8 buttons, but these can be taken out, and covered by a beutiful laminated printout ;O) Of course I'm making a version WITHOUT any control panel. Here is a picture of the device (some call it a "clock-radio" ;D) : Now one thing I hope is that the YM chip on the MB-FM can make as good bass patches as the old FB-01... the FB-01 has a dirt and grit to it that I just love, but on the other hand the sheer amount of patch storage capability of MB-FM makes me want to sacrifice this machine :-\ Here are a (long) demo of some FM bass patches I made on the FB-01 ... hope to be able to do something like these on MB-FM 8) http://razmo.ziphoid.com/FB-01 and 4-pole.mp3 Note that somewhere near 1/4 the FB-01 is run through a Waldorf 4-pole filter... love that sweet sound of FB-01 through the 4-pole :P ... but soon this will be MB-FM -> 4-pole :D

Hi guys.... I'm back again and I want to start joining in on the V2 beta testing... NOW! I'm going to build Wilba's MB-6582 at some point, but until the components will be purchaseable from SmashTV, I'll be building a single-core version with two SID modules to get started. Thus I've got a question for either Thorsten or Wilba (whoever get here first): What type of pot will I need to implement the feedback feature PRECISELY? ... I'd be happy with a direct link to a german/uk electronics site with partnumber that will send to Denmark. I'm not that good at hunting down parts here in Denmark, and worry that I might get the wrong part or something :-[ I'm just building a minimal V2 without LCD and control surface of any kind... I'll be developing a SoundDiver Adaption to tweak it (which I'll release here if Thorsten want it).

Thorsten: hmm... nibbles... well I'm certain that Sounddiver can decode that, just hope it will not pose too much of a hassle... I assume the reason for the format is 8 bit values right? With regards to the UNISON feature, just remember that having a bit of "sloppiness" in the triggerings can add a lot of fatness to the sound... maybe it's worth experimenting with a parameter that will offset the voices by a set amount? ... Another thing (don't know if I've asked this before): Will it be possible to control the oscillators of a single SID independently from three different MIDI channels? ... To me this is very important since NO real synth has this capability that I know of... one of the most used features of the SID tunes from the past is when two channels are playing different melodies, and one is either sync'ed or Ringmod'ed to the other... the melodic clangy results are much of the C64's charm from back then, and something I'd really like to be able to doo.

...and Thorsten: When you have implemented full SysX implementation of controlling the V2, then I'd be happy to make a Sounddiver Adaption for it :O)

Hi again Thorsten! :O) I just thought; this super-poly thing you're talking about, is this a mode that would work just like any other oldschool analog synth from the 80's with 8 voices?... I mean, that you can play the 8SID monster polyphonically vith dynamic allocation of up to 8 voices? (meaning each SID is considdered a seperate voice)... I sure hope this will be possible because that is probably the most useful configuration for me B-) ... I've always dreamt about a SID synth with 8 voices. And about those 1-2 ms... no big deal really is it?... MIDI itself seem to have some latency between noteon messages. In fact such slight variations are what makes analog synths so special... small timing irregularities etc... and IF you implement the super-poly mode, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE also include a UNISON mode for this configuration!!!!!! ... UNISON is the total joy of older KORG synths, and the more "latency" between voices fired off only add to the magic... believe me! ;O) 3OSC - 8voice unison = 24 oscillator unison!!!! WOOOOOW! :OP BTW. I'm hooked up for the 8SID PCB now, so I'll soon be participating in testing and idears again Thorsten :O)

Hi Everyone... and a special HI to Wilba, and not to Mention Thorsten :) Well... My eyes are still fatigued by looking at that "All in One" project you are doing Wilba, and I definately hope, that these will be purchaseable through Smash TV's website INCLUDING components at some point in the future! :P ... But having always been VERY minimalistic (contrary to many people in here ;D), I have a question: I've always dreamed about a space preserving studio of mine, and are well on my way to having obtained this, and thus, I'm fond of 1U rack things ;D ... so naturally, I'm wondering, if it would be possible to use your All in One PCB in a 1U rack housing!? ... As I'm informed by Thorsten, the new V2 requires the use of pots and buttons since nothing is done yet to have a PC interface!? ... what EXACTLY will be needed (minimum) to actually create this thing in a 1U rack module? ... I got enough 8580's to fill two modules if I wanted to, so SID's won't be the prob. 8) I've been asked to betatest the V2 engine by Thorsten, but unfortunately I'll have to wait untill this 1U rack thing is reality for me, as I'll not fire off money on anything but this in the future, so I hope it'll see the light of day this project of your Wilba in the near future, so that I may utter my ultrahigh synth engine requirements to Thorten and make his coding life a not so easy one to live ;D ... Best regards, and a thumbs up to your project! 8) Razmo, Denmark.

... and also, changing the range like that, would probably ruin the tuning of the filter... maybe the cap values currently used was chosen because they go "hand-in-hand" with the frequency of the oscillators? ... in other words, the filter frequency is easier tunable in semitone steps... this feature is very important when making acid-sounds with high resonance... where the filter cutoff freq must follow the pitch as played on the keyboard. Regards, Razmo

So basicaly what you do by changing the caps, is that you "squeeze" the frequency range of the analog filter. It sacrifice top end, but allows "better resolution" instead as the Filter Frequency range has been put under "magnifying glass" in the low end... so to speak. Nonetheless, this does NOT change the anyway exponential curve of the digital control logic, and thus the special 8580 code I came up with would still be valid for a true linear response curve, though it sacrifice resolution the closer you get to the low end (gradual steppiness). The good thing about "squeezing" the range though is, that as the high range of the frequency (thanks to the digital control logics) is of much greater resolution, so "squeezing" the range does not make a very drastic change in the new max. range value, but greatly does so in the low end (again, because of the digital control logic)... so yes; for bass patches this should not really be a problem. Don't caps come in adjustable versions? like risistors does with potmeters? TK? ... if they do, can they not be used on the boards so that changing the cap values would be much more flexible? Regards, Razmo

In conclution to teh above; I find that it's not the analog filter that is limited... it's the digital control curcuit that has it's limits... to make the 8580 work linearly as the 6581 what you do is that you simply use the same freq. table you use for looking up note frequency values, and scale these values to the right amount of bits for the cutoff frequency register (freq. is 16 bit, cutoff 11). This is why the 8580 filter sounds "steppy"... now TK has made some interpolating code in the engine to smooth out this effect, but since the range of values to smooth between gets lower and lower in the bottom range, you cannot avoid the steppiness in the mighty lowest of register values... Now I do not know much about filter caps, but if changing the caps could indeed make the response curve of the analog filter logarithmic INSTEAD of linear, then the analog filter curcuit would follow the same logarithmic working as the digital control curcuit that controls the analog filter, and the frequency range for the filter would be much much better!... I'll leave that to the hardware techs!!! ;D Regards, Jess.

Hi everyone! I've just been reading this thread, and thought I'd give my words on it too... interresting info here :) Well... to the statement about the 8580/6582 being linear in it's filter depends on how you look at it i feel... With the 6581, when you move the cutoff "fader" from min to max, the frequency is swept in a way, so that it sounds as if it has an equal amount of change over the entire range of the cutoff "fader". This way to me is the best way since it makes the resolution of the whole frequency range even in the whole spectrum (if the 6581 filter "works" in it's full range that is). With the 8580 this evenness in the whole spectrum has changed, so that the lower the frequency, the worse resolution you get. you can check it out very easily, just burn the 6581 MBSID version and use that with the 8580, and then sweep the cutoff "fader"... you will notice how the range of the low frequencies have diminished greatly! ... this is how it sounds if you fade the cutoff register in a linear fashion... To be able to use the 8580 in the same way as the 6581 filter (in a way that will give you even fading of the cutoff freq) you have to see the cutoff register the same way as you set the frequency registers... With the frequency registers you set a pitch an octave higher by multiplying the frequency register's value by 2... if you want that an octave higher again, you multiply that value by two... it's like: oct 1 = 100, oct2 = 200, oct3 = 400 etc. this also makes it clear, that setting the frequency in fine increments is at a much lower resolution in the lower range... EXACTLY as the 8580 filter does it... in essence, the filter is just controlled like the frequency... and why would they make it this way?... well possibly because it's digitally controlled on the 8580, and this is more easy to handle this way (something with the inner workings of a phase accumulating oscillator scheme)... and the bonus is also, that it's pretty easy to tune the filter properly making it possible to have the filter follow the keyboard etc. So if you say, that the 8580 is linear, it's partly right, ... I believe the filter itself is linear, but is controlled logarithmically from the digital control... Hope some of this was understandable ??? Regards, Jess. P.S. yep! I used the same standard 8580 filter caps on both of the demos I made here on 8580 and 6582 ;)

Hi again Wilba! :) Well... if the choice was to only have one SID, I'd certainly also choose the 8580, no doubt on that! ... But the 6581 DOES have a very grungy-smooth sound to it, if you can manage to find a "working" piece! ... With "working" I mean, that the filter range works so that lowest and highest cutoff freq. is between 0 and 127... Finding such a chip is to keep searching... I actually just resoldered my MBSID just to etst my 6581 SIDs today, and believe me, don't count on revision numbers as a sign of BEST SOUND! I testet all chips, on both R2, R3, R4, R4AR... even the two R3's was way appart in quality! ... My R4AR was good, but not the best! ... actually, the best chip I've got (6581) is an 84 R2!!! ... in fact I have only TWO SIDs that have "working" filters! the R2, and one R3. I have to say, that the 8580 is much more versatile then the 6581, and if you ask me, overall it's just plain better, but if you want distorted grungy gritty dirty bass sounds, the 6581 will rock your world! Just take a listen: ;) http://media.putfile.com/6581_R2_DEMO Regards, Jess D. Skov-Nielsen

Hi Wilba! Well... unfortunately I do not have that patch anymore... it was just a tempoary patch I made for the test, but I can remember a few things: The sound has all oscillators phase resetting on note-ons, and the filter type actually use BOTH the BP, and the LP types at the same time! that keeps the sound from getting too thin. Also, the filter frequency was mapped to velocity All oscillators was in use also ... hmmm.... maybe it's not so easy to recreate I don't know, but this is what I remember. Regards, Jess.

Hi Jaicen! :) Well... to start a debate on what SID is the best would be like judging wich is better; Apple or Orange! ... both are fruits, but have a different taste! I can give some explanation of the differencies though (soundwise): 6581 (R2-R4AR): The 6581 Rx have many bugs wich the 8580 does not. The most notable soundwise is the filter which has strange working frequency ranges making every 6581 sound a little different. Also, the 6581's resonance is more like distorted feedback. Also, the 6581 has an error that make the chip noisy when everything should be quiet. Also, the mixed waveforms does not work correctly. 8580 (R5): The 8580 R5 has some of the bugs correctet; the noisy running oscillators that should be quiet when the envelope release has finished has been fixed, and the filter's resonance now works as it "should". The AND'ing of the waveforms (mixing) also perform correctly. All in all, the 8580 has everything fixed to how it SHOULD have been, all from the beginning! (exept for that DARN envelope bug! grrrr!) Conclusion: Well... what is then best?... I'm certainly building one of each. If you want nostalgica, and distorted rumbling creamy bass, I'd take the 6581. If I want piercing resonance I'd go for the 8580. The good thing about the 8580 is that they sound identical, so if you decide to share patches and want them to sound the same at everyone elses MBSID, then the 8580 would be the best choice. To me, it seems that having just one of them makes me miss the other. As to the 6 voice polyphony I don't really think that is worth much, since two SID's give you only 2 filters, so if you are to play 6voices polyphonically, you'd have to omit the use of the filters. It's a tough job... but if I could only choose 2, I'd go for one of each ;) In fact, I've been playing alot with the idear of connecting an 8580 to the ext. input of a 6581... this way I could use the better 8580 for the oscillators, but get the creamy filter of the 6581. In fact you could also connect two 8580's like this, and get a cool 24db/octave filter instead of the 12db/octave! ... or or how would an 6581 routed through an 8580's resonant filter sound? .... AAAAARGH! you see what I mean!? it's impossible to live without each!... they should be "meltet together" those two SIDs!!! ;D Hope this helps a bit... Regards, Jess.

Hi everyone! :O) Until now I've been looking for a R1 SID chip for my collection, but as most probably know, both R1 and R2 have no revision markings, so to know which is which is kind of hard... some have said a particular batch date can be used to identify this (a special batch in 83 should be the breaking point)... Now I'm not so sure... I've found a site on the net, that gives a hint at, that the R1 actually never reached the market! ... so that in fact the only SIDs available to the public is from R2 and up! Don't know how much interrest this info has to you, but for a collector as me, It's certainly valuable info ;O) The page I found is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_SID If this site is allready common knowledge for you guys, then bear with me ;D Regards, Jess. P.S. the site has lot's of other nice info and links about SID.

It's already there!? ??? Where are the SysX specifications to be found then TK? ... I'd like to do an adaption for sounddiver as I use that for all my synths, and I like to keep it all in the same program if possible (too bad my newly acuired Yamaha A3000 sampler is not supported >:( ) I've been using the JSynthLib program until now, but I find a few things about that program not so good... first, it is rather hard to adjust the knobs... it requires very steady mouse-movements. Also, The values do not really reflect the actual values for SID... The SIDs own ADSR is in steps of 0-15, and it's kind of hard to know when you've increased/decreased a value by 1 (SID wise) because the range is 0-127. Also, the way it handles the libraries and editing is confusing... I've had quite a few patches "disappear" because I chose wrongly when closing edit windows >:( Regards, Jess.

Hey TK! I'm not sure if this is possible with the V1 engine already, but one thing I'd really like to see in V2 (if not already there) is the ability to have the MBSID engine work with SysX... I'm thinking about having two simple features: 1. Program Dump Request 2. Program dump I know that you do not pay for a specific MIDI manufacturer code (you use the broadcast all value right?), but I'd really like to do an implementation of the MB SID for SoundDiver, and if there is no dump/request macros, then it's not possible to do it. The dump/request should in this case work on both the edit buffer and the bankstick memory of course. I don't see any problems in just continue using the broadcast value, since It's probably not many devices one person has, that use this... you could just put in a pruduct-byte for your own devices so that at least your own devices can be handled without conflicting... what do you say? is this feasible? :) Regards, Jess.

Right on the spot with that answer there TK! :) Maybe this is also why my idears seem to get "through you needlehead" many times... I'm a coder myself, and have fiddled a bit with electronics, so I'm mostly aware of what is reasonably implementable, and what is way over the edge ;D It's funny... Some things that unskilled people would find to maybe be hard to implement, or time consuming can easily be a piece of cake done in a split second, while other stuff that seem elementary is a pain in the butt to implement, if not impossibe... So a good idear for the "non-initiated" would be to just brainstorm their idears, bare none... then the technically inclined people can look at the possibilities, and maybe some obscure idears are easy to implement, and may break way for new features, maybe never seen before... in this case, I for an example are kind of "limited" in the way that, I'm thinking idears within boundaries of hardware and code efficiency. so just keep them idears comming... TK will sort out what's feasible and what's not 8) Regards, Jess.

Hi js! :) Yep!... Den er god nok!... Jeg er dansker og bor i Næstved ;D And for you non-danes it says: "Yep!... It's true! I'm a dane, and I live in Næstved" ... ;) Regards, Jess.

Yes, you can do it on a simple monosynth too... but there is some differences. I don't believe many arps on other gear reset the arp on every key-press (it does not make sense, since the normal arp is meant to play at slower rates than a SID arp, and it would sound bad if it did on slow arpeggiating patterns), and also, the speed of the arpeggiated notes do NOT change their rate based on the number of keys pressed. On my demo, of course no more than two notes are pressed at the same time on those thrills, so with a standard arp you could do something that sound very similar... but to sound exactly like the arp demo, the arpeggiator must be syncable to key-pressings. Regardsm, Jess.