lylehaze

That appears to be a switching supply (I can't be sure) I have two concerns.. A switching supply can add noise to an analog signal. Switching supplies often require a minimum load to regulate properly. If you were building an all-digital project like a MB64(e), the first concern would not apply. Your comment about the 12 volt output seems to confirm my second concern above. Good Luck, LyleHaze

I think I may have a clue... A resistor, a capacitor, and feedback are all that's required for a "R-C timer" or free-running oscillator.. so somewhere in your circuit you have a feedback problem. There are a LOT of resistors and caps in a EQ.. but finding the offending circuit might be as easy as jumping an extra resistor across each one in your circuit.. as the resulting resistance will be less, the pitch of the oscillation will change when you hit the right one. It's worth a try, anyway. Good Luck, LyleHaze

The Problem: "Audio Gone only Hum Left" The Solution: "Try turning the balance control to the Right". Sorry, that's all I've got. :) Good Luck with it, LyleHaze

The last time I chatted with Stryd, we were surprised to find that we BOTH had new jobs and very wild work schedules. At that time he let me know that it's not a permanent absence, but there are a lot of demands on his schedule. I expect he'll be back once things settle down a bit. LyleHaze

An Important note: The displays we have shown you are all parallel interface, which is what the MidiBox is designed to drive easily. The core you showed us is a serial interface, which is NOT the "native" type supported by MIOS. Just something to be aware of as you shop around. LyleHaze

Well, I found a white on Black at SparkFun It's a start, anyway. Have Fun, LyleHaze

That sounds really useful.. And not difficult to do at all. The only question that come to my mind, (and it's not tricky at all) Is whether you pre-program the bank/patch for each button, and compile and load it, or if you get tricky enough in programming to be able to "teach" your selections in the field. Obviously the second one takes a bit more programming, but let's you "create" the setup you want after the programming has been finished. It also has the disadvantage that once you are "out there" it would be possible to mess up your presets if you happen to find the "save" button. Another question: DO you want to support a display, so you can see the name of the most recently selected patch? Since displays are recommended for most builds anyway as a troubleshooting tool, you'll probably have one on hand anyway. Whichever way you want it, Yes, the MidiBox would be a great way to get what you want. Have Fun, read a lot, and post what you accomplish! LyleHaze [edit] Oh, I almost forgot.. +5 Bonus points for posting in the right forum. And welcome aboard!!

The amount of heat they put out depends on how much current your project is pulling, multiplied by the difference between the input and output voltage of each regulator. OK, so who cares bout the math? My point is that a wallwart with a higher voltage will result in more heat.. so the original designer has NO WAY of predicting how much heat your regulators will put out, unless they provided your wall wart in the kit. How hot is too hot? The regulators will shut down if they get too hot. So you don't need to worry about damaging anything.. But if they shut down in the middle of your live concert, you'll be embarrased. Getting the temp down to "safe to touch" is a good idea if you have room for heatsinks. You can buy "fancy" heatsinks or use any spare scraps of metal. The positive regulators that have the center pin grounded also have the tabs grounded, so they can use your metal case as a cheap heatsink. Negative regulators, and "stacked" regulators have their tab at some voltage, so you'll need to keep them isolated from the case, either by using unattached heatsinks or insulator kits (often mylar). Have Fun, LyleHaze

Without seeing your schematics.. I can fairly safely say Yes, you need a cap before the regulator(s). The "usual" sequence of power is Transformer, bridge, capacitor, then the regulator(s) then more caps.. without the cap after the bridge, the input voltage will fall to zero 120(or 100) times per second (depending on what country you're in). SO the cap before the regulator will "average" the pre-rectified voltage. It MUST be enough so that the input voltage never falls below the "dropout" voltage of the regulator.. about 7 to 7.5 volts for a 7805, or 14V for a 7812. If you want to read more.. Have Fun! LyleHaze

I don't know much about them yet, but my next computer will have one built in. :) LyleHaze

It's over.. $100,000.00 given away in 1 hour, 44 minutes, 50 seconds. I never got logged in.. But it was fun trying!

Yeah :) Well, they DID say they wanted to "stress test" the new server. I'd call today stressed. I'll keep trying, just in case I get lucky. LyleHaze edit T + 15 minutes, still jammed up tight. :) Talk about a self-inflicted DDOS attack!

The Oscilloscope that Frailn pointed out would be a great troubleshooting tool for MidiBox work. I already have a higher spec one, but a lot of people here could use that. I have a cart ready to go already.. PC power supply connectors for easily making a PC supply into a bench supply.. some audio cables, an FTDI USB to serial adapter..Stackpins that really WILL work right on the MBMixer.. and a Duelmilanove for new toy material. For once I'm glad to be on second shift, so I'll have a fighting chance at getting my "stuff" tomorrow. SO many toys, so little time. :) Good luck on your "treasure hunt" LyleHaze

Wow, great progress! I am just learning board design for audio, Maybe some of this will help: You should have one (or more) bypass capacitors at each chips power pins. These should be as close to the chip as possible. This is true for digital circuits too, but even more important for analog stuff. Try to avoid long parallel traces.. this can lead to "crosstalk" between audio signals, or even worse, from power leads to signal leads. Ample grounding is important... as is shielding, but don't use the same traces for both. Shielding traces should be carrying no current. The ground arrangement in the last version of the mixer had four separate ground circuits! The analog ground, for all op-amp circuit grounding and the analog part of the PGA chips. The Digital ground for the digital parts of the circuit, the center tap of the power transformer, and the "shield" circuit, which protected the signals but has no current path otherwise. All 4 of these grounds were joined together in one place only, the center of the regulator board. I also used separate regulators for the analog +5 and digital +5 circuits. to reduce digital noise. Was it all necessary? Maybe not. but I wanted to apply everything I could to keep the board as quiet as possible. Getting back to your designs.. I have not even opened the eagle files yet, but I see no bypass capacitors on the op-amp board you showed a picture of. That might be a good thing to try. Good Luck with this man, it's looking great! I'm diving back into Java this morning to try and get the mix window ready for release. LyleHaze

OOooh, Pretty! LyleHaze

Your reply has me grinning from ear to ear. One of the great strengths of this community is the diverse thinking of it's members. What you describe will work, no doubt.. but is it the "simple" solution? Instead of editing the code that is actually counting the time, you would rather pick up a hardware output and feed it into a hardware counter? That will work, but you'll also have to add synchronization signals to reset the counter when the clockbox is reset to zero. And if it is set to something OTHER than zero, your counter will be out of synch. And instead of using a synthesizer to create the audio signal that you want, you would rather design and build your own audio sampler from a chip level? Sure, absolutely. It CAN work. And it sounds like a fun project. Designing a sample playback device would be a great addition to the other projects we have here. But you must admit, it's a lot of design work to give your metronome a click. Maybe I could suggest a different option... that keeps the problems I mentioned above to a minimum.. If you can find an "extra" output from the DOUT card, you could either raise the output for one clock every beat (tick) or toggle the output at every beat (low bass thump).. That output can be used as a digital trigger, eliminating your counter chip and synchronization problems, or you could add a resistor and a capacitor right off the digital output to create a simple audio signal. You could also use it for a big LED, if you like the "flashy lights" thing. (great for loud drummers) There are many ways to do what you want. go with whatever looks like the most fun! :) Happy New Year, LyleHaze

The clockbox keeps time, but a synth makes sounds.. Why make sounds from the clockbox? Every beat (that's usually every 24 or 96 clocks) send the following MIDI bytes: 0x99 0x32 0x64 Send those out a MIDI port that's connected to a synthesizer. Change the second byte to choose a different metronome sound Change the third byte to change the metronome volume It's WAY easier than teaching your clockbox to make sounds. Have Fun, LyleHaze

-Every Clock- is a very frequent event. I would find every 24th clock (or every 96th, depending on the resolution) would be more useful.. If you output a MIDI event, you get the option of selecting the sound, I usually use something from a drumkit. Have Fun, LyleHaze

Sparkfun is offering a "Free Day" on January 7th. They will allow up to $100 USD in products FREE per household, you'll only have to pay shipping to get your stuff. The offer will only last until it costs them $100,000, so the first thousand people on that day will be the lucky ones. They have a few things that could be useful to Midiboxers.. Displays, Tools, JTAG stuff that might work with a Core32, even custom circuit boards that you have designed yourself! Definitely worth a look, especially if you are building on a budget. Happy New Year, LyleHaze

There are some projects which have added limited support for 7/8 segment LED displays.. but they require special hardware and software to support them, and they are numbers-only displays.. I think the clockbox offers some support for those. But support for LCD displays is built in to MIOS already. all cores have the connections set aside for at least one display (or more on the core32). The software to use those is all written already.. there are even options for graphic LCDs.. although most of us use the more common character LCD types. There's a lot of information at the ucapps site and the WIKI, and all the information is free.. Have Fun, LyleHaze

It has been suggested before that an LCD display is VERY helpful as you develop your project. Even if you take it off after the programming is done, it will be REAL USEFUL to be able to see what the MBox is doing as you develop your toy. Believe me, anything that helps you to SEE what is happening to your core is a good thing. Have Fun, LyleHaze

Without getting too picky, I'm not sure I'd describe losing less than 10% of your range as "much narrower".. Also, you said "almost all" of the pots.. do SOME of them go full range? The numbers you gave show most of the "lost values" are from the bottom of the range (0-7 missing), those are the values closest to ground.. so here's a simple test.. choose one of the pots that cannot go below 0x08, disconnect it, and connect the lead that was going to the pot wiper directly to the metal tab of the 7805 on the core. Does it read zero now? If so, you just proved the analog input, as well as the software, is working fine. If that test shows zero, then you'll be looking at your pot wiring.. search "pot wiring" in the WIKI for more info. Good Luck, LyleHaze

You did not say what kind of MIDI interface you are using, but you might find that USB based interfaces can handle more traffic than joystick port interfaces. Getting back to your question, it looks like "MIOS_AIN_DeadbandSet() could be used to give less updates for analog inputs. Have Fun, LyleHaze

It's beautiful, man. Nice Job. I'm a bit late to help troubleshoot, but I've been real busy lately. Wick not working? Solder wick only works well when it's fresh.. If it gets a bit old, it does not absorb the solder as readily. Wick VS Solder Sucker? Each has advantages: When wick is used properly (put the wick BETWEEN the iron and the part being desoldered) it slows down the heat increase at the part, helping to prevent overheating and lifting of the traces. It also burns your fingers that way. But if it's not fresh, it'll probably just piss you off anyway. Solder suckers are faster, and can get solder out of deeper holes if used properly, but they only work well if you have practice. And the part and board will be subject to the full heat of your iron. (That's goods if you are, and bad if you're a noob) I always prefer a solder sucker, because it never runs out. :) Finally: Heat Sink Compound. I see you're in the states.. Radio Shack sells small tubes of white non conductive stuff pretty cheap.

Please excuse the slight change of topic: I have spent the last few months learning Java, and I'm almost ready to release my first project. I hope to release before Christmas a Java based Mixer control surface. It was originally designed to control the MBMixer (of course) but is now being re-written to allow the user to configure it a bit more. Sliders, Knobs, pushbuttons and Toggle Buttons, and VU Meters too. The user can "define" every control on the board by CC#, Channel, working range and even user-images for knobs and buttons. The board is complete now, I'm just adding the XML parser to let the user describe the board layout. I "borrowed" the knob code from MIOSStudio and then modified it to support loading, scaling and rotating user images.. all the rest is new code. It's just my very first Java project, but we're damn near ready for first release. I have written a lot of MIDI apps for the Amiga OS before, but this is really my first venture into other OS's.. MIOS Studio inspired me to give it a try. I hope you don't mind the off-topic post, but it seemed to fit the latest suggestion. Expect it before 2010. LyleHaze