m00dawg

Not to sway you from doing it on your own, but this thing looks fantastic and would likely do everything you want (and then some) and probably for the same, if not less, than designing one on your own. Making your own is incredibly fun, but it also takes a lots of work, time, and money. That said, as far as buttons go, you can control their behavior likely in your DJ software or via the firmware, so no problem there. Have a look at the MIDIO128 page for more explanation. Button behavior is stored in patches so you can have multiple setups for different use-cases (say one patch for Traktor, one for Live, etc.). For the audio mixer component, the project I think you are referring to is this one. It is a digitally controlled analog mixer so you can control the volume of analog sources digitally (using MIDI), however it does not convert digital audio coming, say, from your computer (it's not a sound-card). It also uses custom firmware on the now older PIC platform. You may be able to combine it with your control surface, however, but may have to either make custom firmware or use internal MIDI routing features found on the MIDIO128.

Yup that's probably what I will do. Oh well.

Damn, that's what I feared. Oh well.

I would like to move some resistors and pin headers to the bottom of the board instead of the top, but want to do it without screwing up all my wiring. If I do a flip and rotate, that only works on the devices with one row of pins but it also tries to put the first wire sections on the same layer which makes vias everyone. This is really just for doing silkscreen on the bottom of the board so it's not totally required, but sure would be nice. Any ideas?

Thanks TK! Beer is coming your way!

Yup, an MBSEQ is definitely on my list! Although it's sort of far down there (after my rackmount MBSID, MBFM, and GM5 projects).

Have you looked at the =mb6582]MB6582? Also, some of that stuff the sammichSID already does other than #2 and #6 (depending on what you mean by sequencer since the MBSID platform has a step sequencer for drums and basslines).

I think you press the left-most button below the LCD. Or rightmost? I forget :) Once you know how to do it, it's easy though (as I remember, anyway)

There is a multi engine which is basically like the "lead" engine but allows you to assign different waveforms to multiple MIDI channels for a single SID pair. This is unlike using ensembles as they let you use multiple patches across multiple SID pairs - basically it's how you would assign patches to the multiple stereo pairs. Since the Sammich only has 1 stereo pair, you can largely ignore that feature. I've only had success using the multi engine when using the SID patch editor but you can do it on the synth directly (probably not as easy though). Keep in mind that though you can do some pretty neat things with the multi engine, the SID's filter is global. I have had the most luck using each SID in the stereo pair independently, so one does lead, the other bass. Works pretty well for my needs.

Brilliant as always!

Indeed I miss it. If the source-code to the patch was made available, I would bet it would be easy to compile it in to the newest version.

Re-read this thread - you missed a very important detail ;) The stock version of SIDplay doesn't support ASID output - the custom compiled version in this thread does, but that version (at least for me) gives me compatibility issues with Lion.

Nah I would disagree. It's coming from an NES so you're still stuck with the limitations of the hardware (which, in my opinion, is what makes true chiptune music brilliant). Whether you are using a tracker or sequencer doesn't matter in my opinion. In fact, I've been wanting to build a ArduinoBoy for my GameBoy, which lets you send MIDI data to your GameBoy. Coupled with mGB, you can send MIDI note data basically making it function similar to MidiNES. Trash80 came up with both the ArdunioBoy and mGB and it seems pretty cool (though I wonder how easy it is to modulate things like you would with LSDJ). While I'm a bit off topic, to try to re-rail the train, wasn't someone sort of close to the MidiBox community working on something to control the 2A03 directly as well?

Oooh nice MidiNES! I'd love one of those things one of these days! We use Famitracker and render NSFs which we play on the PowerPak. Anyways, as far as the snare, indeed if you can work on the decay it might be better. Could just be me too, who knows ;P If those were off the MidiNES, they actually sound damn good! I thought you were using a separate drum track over it.

Sounds awesome! Indeed those metallic drums sound fantastic! Curious what you used for the NES bits? The only suggestion I have is to perhaps adjust the snare a bit. Actually, you could go with minimalist percussion for the song and I think it might sound pretty good. Either way, the snare sounds just a tad off beat to me? Regardless, it's a bangin' tune!

Thanks! We certainly think so! Glad you like it!

We have finally crowned a winner for the Name Our Song contest and have released the newly named song into the wild! We ended up going with Riptide Resistor:

These may help. I use NanoKontrol for my own DJing and, though it can't be a full blown DJ console, it actually works extremely well given the comparatively small pricetag. I'd still recommend you grab something like the above up first and work on your custom controller thereafter.

Aha forgot that project replaces the MB64/MB64e - good catch!

I am curious as to why you want to build over buy? Controllers might appear expensive when you first look at them, but in reality, making a DIY controller that looks a polished as a commercial one is likely to end up costing you more and can take a great deal of time and effort to do. Yes, it will be far more enjoyable, unique, and generally worth it; but it is often no small project. If you really want to make your own, I would actually recommend you buy a commercial one first so you have something to use while you work on yours. You can also get ideas for what might work and what might not with your own layout. Second, I would start small. Get a CORE, an LCD, some buttons and some protoboards and make something small so you become comfortable with how everything works with CORE and the MidiBox platform. Once you have that, you can start planning for your design, parts, etc. for your actual controller. As far as planning, you have to consider how everything will mount and fit inside whatever enclosure you opt to use or make. That is going to take some trial and error, surely, so be prepared for that. Ponoko is a great place you can use for plastic enclosures (see the Sammich synths) and is cost effective. I am going to use it to prototype my own control surface for my MBSID before I have that made on aluminum (which you can have made via Front Panel Express here in the US).