TheAncientOne

Interesting. A guy in Manchester has just offered me an unfinished ML-303 in part exchange for building him a x0x. I need to look at it first. Last time a musician offered me a part built kit, his soldering 'skills' had all but destroyed the PCB. On the same track, I once swapped some work for a non functional but immaculate looking Wasp. All I got was a case with knobs - the insides must have been left under water for a month a least, they were a mass of corrosion and beyond saving. Next time they tried it on, I "let" them stick me with an old Marshall with a burned out mains transformer they'd found in a mates garage for £50. It was a tagstrip built mark 1, a new transformer cost £40 from Marshalls. I added a few cosmetic parts, replaced the selectors on the back, The original Mullard EL34's were still good. I gleefully sold it for £400. Don't get mad .......

This might be a totally lame idea, or indeed, since I've not done any searching, (it's not been a good day, and I'm very tired), it might have been discussed already, but what about declaring a standard set of MIDIbox ID's? Let all the 'usual' versions (SID, FM, Seq, 64 etc), have their own default ID. People doing 'specials' could alter as required. Another thought, especially in the 'protection of IP' line: If all of us chipped in a $1, it might possible to raise the $200 annual fee, and get MIDIbox it's own MIDI SysEx ID code, though I guess keeping 7DH (Non-Commercial), is enough. I can sympathise with Thorsten with the upload blues:- I once managed it with a motherboard, due to a badly labelled file on the FIC's ftp site, I had to do the dodgy 'hot plug' trick to get it reloaded.

Current is like the water flowing in a pipe, the amount that flows depends on what the device connected draws. A 2 Amp bridge can SUPPLY current up to a maximum of 2 Amps. If your MIDIbox draws 300mA, then that's all that will flow through the circuit. The situation you don't want is a rectifier rated at less that the required current; more current than it is rated for could overheat it and make it burn out, which may in turn damage other parts. So: current required = 600mA, rectifier rated at 2 Amps = Good Current required = 600mA, rectifier rated at 500mA = Bad. Just don't go too big - they are expensive and take up too much space!. On the same analogy of flowing current in a wire being like water in a pipe, the Voltage can be thought of as the pressure pushing it along. This is why it is very important to make sure your voltage regulators are working properly, if the voltage is too high, too much current will flow through your box, and the chips will overheat and burn out.

The rating is a max - never use one anywhere near it's max rating. A bridge rectifier can be used at anything up to it max rating. For instance, in a volume compressor I'm building, a 1 amp rated bridge is used to rectify the incoming audio signa1 for control - and that isn't even 10 mA (10 thousands of an amp). A bigger bridge won't hurt. There are lots of 2 amp ones that will do fine. The voltage for a bridge is trickier. Use a wide margin: it you think about it, the maximum voltage on any one diode is the voltage stored on the reservoir capacitor at the other side plus the opposite peak AC voltage from the transformer. This is roughly twice the peak AC, so for a 12 volt transformer, the diode PIV will be around 34 volts. It makes sense to use a 100V rated rectifier, (they are quite common), to give a reasonable safety margin. Indeed, if you check the B40C800 data sheet. it says max PIV 100V, recommended, 40V. Hope this helps

RS do them at about £0.30 and £0.40, but they are packed in 10's. I might be persuaded to do a batch pack of things like Tempco's and resonators. If Sasha wants me to get the Tempco's from Farnell and mail him a batch then it will put us in the money discount - wise. I have located a major UK distributor for Greyhill. They need to find out the MOQ for these switches. If I did this formally through my company, it might be a way of preventing the 'Double VAT' effect, on some items, though I would have to put a small mark up on the items to cover the company - the tax man gets funny if you do too many things for no profit at all.

First run at finding some bits: Prices quoted are each, including VAT LA4140 Cricklewood Electronics 1 off £2.35 Vintage Planet 1 off 1.40 Euro BA6110 Cricklewood Electronics 1 off £4.11 Vintage Planet 1 off 2.75 Euro (a winner for now!) ChipForBrains on Ebay sold me 10 pairs 2SC1583 / 2SC2291 for $56.90 delivered. works out at $5.70 per pair. AD6562 is an LM358, (National Panasonic later changed their part number to reflect this - I used LN358 in my Oakley TM3030: they work fine). If you really want the original, Vintage Planet have them at 1.4 Euro LT300014T261K0J 1K tempco resistor Farnell, UK, 1 off, £1.50, 25 off, £1.20, 100 off, £1.16 I have a Farnell account and could get these - other synth makers may want them too - they are used in a few other things, Like Fonik's SSM2044 filter board, and Jurgen Haibles Tau Pipe Phaser. FT232 (USB Chip) Farnell 9519769, 1 off £4.58, 10 off, £3.91, 100 off, £3.42 UPDATE! from http://www.ftdichip.com/ they are £3.85, no price break before 100 off then £2.87 from Digikey, £3.80 ATMEGA162-16PU 8-BIT MICRO 16K DIL-40 RC:- Rapid, 10 off. £2.50 I have a programmer, and don't mind getting a batch and 'loading' them. You'll have to wait until I build my board before dispatch though, then I can test them. The Greyhill Hex switch may be a small problem. If we can get over 25 switches, (easy) the Digi-key will do them for £2.46 though I'll need to add some other parts to stack the order over £100 to get free shipping. What quantities do we need anyway?

Bankstep by Algorithmic Arts is a sort of configurable 'knobs style' sequencer. Can be useful building midi sequences and doing weird random stuff. Has a learning curve about as steep as AutoCAD. Works on just about and M$ operating system bar Vista. Can produce panels more dense than rebirth. Allegedly can do polyrhythms. Works with some soft synths. Free download. http://algoart.com/bankstep.htm Hope it's of use to someone.

OK. I can't find a phone number for him. Memo's, emails and a contact through PayPal have produced no reply. I've sent him a polite letter by recorded delivery, with my phone numbers and contact details. I've done a long scan of groups using his nickname, and narrowed it down to members that are likely to be him - he hasn't been on anywhere else either, at least not using that nickname - the cutoff date is about the same all round. I think the next move is to call in, and that is down to Goblinz or myself, since we are the closest. If Goblinz will be in the area on Friday, then I guess that's down to him, or I'll go over next week. I don't think members should go the PayPal refund route yet, because: 1) it's very slow. 2) they may not give you all of your funds back: you can end up 30% down. My thoughts are this: I don't think it would be worth his while to screw us over for the amount he's had - the synth DIY and music community is small and tight-knit - he'd be out for ever. I personally think something has happened to him: It's not worth speculating just what until we have more data. To expedite things, and get things moving, I have an idea. I can probably afford to pay Sasha for the boards. Those who have paid Jaicen should get in touch with me, providing a proof of payment, (like a copy your PayPal receipt). That way Sasha can get on with the job - he's one of the good guys, and this mess has really upset him. Once again my email address is: profpep (at) hotmail (dot) com When Jaicen comes back, he can pay me. I'll follows TK's advice from his boss: "today we solve the problems of today....". So lets get this party re-started!

Yes, Ibought it direct from 'Bang on a Can' in New York, it cost me $30 for the unsigned version. http://www.bangonacan.org/store/product/99 It's definitely on the raw and weird side, but I like it. I may end up sampling it to a CD and playing it from there, to save wearing out the flimsy jack socket. A very nice idea though. It isn't the same thing as the "! bit Groovebox" - you can get details of that one here

I think it looks like a beautiful old Valve power supply: anyone experimenting with valve amps might throw rocks at you if you scrapped it. Can we have a close up of the labelling? Pity you're so far away - I'd have swapped you something for it.

OK, I'm going to try to help out here. Jaicen seems to have fallen off the world, and cannot, (or will not), reply to pm's or emails. If Jaicen can read this, but can't reply he can get my phone number from our paypal transaction and ring me. I'm just hoping it's nothing too serious. Will all those who actually paid Jaicen please get in touch with me, off list at: profpep (at) hotmail (dot) com Please attach a proof of payment, (your PayPal receipt or whatever).

That's why I posted a clear pic. They are still widely used in servo mechanisms - which is what those were for. If you're in the UK/Europe and want a few 5K ones, drop me a memo.

Like these you mean?

I'd like 4 for a start, and would pay the extra for the crimps, (having worked with flexi PCB I know how hard it can be to connect). Cool idea

No. Operators are not the same as voices. There is no way to link the signals between the chips - we're talking things happening at the actual FM synthesis level. A 6 operator FM synth can usually emulate a 4 operator one, the other way around is not possible. If you haven't already, try a bit of googling for some notes on how FM synthesis works.

Christmas has come early to the UK, thanks to Santa Wilba. (If all Australian deliveries are this fast, I beginning to realise why the English cricket team alway look so sad!) Thanks again

I agree with the DIY price tag thing, but I do think, considering that he is in Belgium, running a VAT regsitered company, then the price is not too out of line with the cost of a top flight guitar pedal, and the build quality is good, (apart from the fact that I'd want a decent shielded meal case). In medium quantities, (100 off) 4 Spectrol pots will cost me 15.78€, (that's for linear, conductive plastic, logs are about 2/3 more), so I don't think he's profiteering. Given his samples I do know one thing: he isn't going to light up any dancefloors with his 303 programming! On that front, though, I've got an 808/Muff hybrid distortion unit design around here somewhere, which I'd started adding a Vactrol based voltage controlled distortion to. I was thinking in terms of a thin board with edge mounted pots, then they could be racked up for things with more than one channel, and controlled in tandem. I'll dig the design up in the New Year and have a go, (got to put a floor in my loft before then - then I'll have some space to work). The dynamics thing he talks about is simply a side chain device. By doing a bit of crafty design, it can also act as a noise gate, because distort FX are inherently noisy due to the high gains involved, which he doesn't seem to have thought of, and would be good for recording. I've been reading a lot on compressor technology recently - I've ordered a couple of boards to try out: Mnats take on the 1176, http://www.geocities.com/m_natsume/1176.html and the 'Picocompressor' http://www.picocompressor.com/picocomp/index.htm. I want to design a side chain breakout unit that will route the compressing signal into the side chain, or all of it, as required. Some of the older gadgets like this were great - I remember reading Jon Hiseman's trick of gating the snare or Hi-Hat with and Allison 'Kepex' triggered by (say) the Bass drum to get emphasis on the beat. Of course the ultimate in dynamics messing is with a vocoder, but the though of buying all those polystyrene caps for the filters is putting me off, just as much as the build time. (Wandering again....) Mike

They are what I would call visible but not massive. If you like I can email you photos, (I took them to send to the box supplier). 3 might be cheaper to send together. Please PM me an email that takes attachments Mike

Three Cheap Cases I had a few cases that were badly packed from the distributor and replaced by them. they have a few scratches on the top face, around the screw locations for the front panel. The original front panels are similarly scratched too. Since I made a minor loss on Paypal fees, (my bad!), I'll sell a few of these on to offset that. So if you don't mind 'slightly used' look, or are prototyping something else, (like my matching box of filters), then here is your chance for a cheap case. Prices: £8.00 to Uk, £10 to Europe. (£5 if you can collect ;)) PM me to order. Mike

Last and final invoices have gone out now. Anyone who hasn't had their Paypal invoice should contact me.

I've used the flexi-fits. they are excellent, and mean you can harmonize your control knobs across both spline and 6mm spindles. The only point to watch is that they may not do a fit for 0.25 inch ( 6.3mm).

For these, Rapid do them from stock. If you're not in UK, I can get some on one of my regular orders http://www.rapidonline.com/productinfo.aspx?tier1=Tools%2c+Fasteners+%26+Production+Equipment&tier2=Fasteners+%26+Fixings&tier3=Knobs&tier4=16mm+soft+touch+knob&moduleno=64710

Rean Catalogue is here:http://werfo.sulzerchemtech.com/rean/download/product_catalog/en/rean_productcatalogue.pdf The P301 is not in current production, according to their UK agent, Neutrik. I hada a word and did suggest they made some with a translucent liner..... The P401 is currently in production, but they have got part number problems - they seemed to be finding a pointer version, (P400). They're getting back to me next week. If Nebula can make it work, that's best, though it may be worth doing a global split for postage etc.

According to them, Serbia has sanctions, and anything going to Serbia has to be approved by the 'sanctions help desk', which, it seems to me, is manned by one little old lady every alternate Friday. Us dangerous sanction busting synth builders have to be watched, it seems. Also, I have to go in person, and can't do a wire transfer on line, as I can for most other destinations. Sasha gave me an excellent set of details, and I still had to assist the girl in the bank with her geography. Like the intermediary bank was not in Serbia.... In the meantime, it seems western Union have dropped their prices for Serbia, so that they are now cheaper than the bank, who charge a basic rate of £20 for the transaction. Thanks again to Jaicen.

I can get them from RS for about 10p each, 3mm, 10mm under head. Bags of 100. How many do you need ?