m00dawg

You can use the port on the map to wire up CV inputs into an analog effects box if you wanted to go that route. I've been going back and forth on putting my analog filters inside my rackmount SID or making it a separate box (so as to be used for other synths). Part of that reasoning was for cost and sourcing the SSM2044 chips which are also somewhat expensive to find.

Agreed, the SID has a charm about it that would be hard to keep with modern fidelity were a "SID 2.0" to be made. The idea, in it of itself, is intriguing, but for different reasons than why I like SIDs to begin with. The NES and GameBoy are the same thing. Even the squarewave generators between the two have a different inherent sound that my modern Virus can't reproduce. That said, I still find the SwinSID compelling for what it is. I would call is different though instead of better/worse. Probably a suitable replacement for the SID in a real C64, though. In a MidiBox, the SwinSID would be neat for making sounds different than the real SID and am excited to have it in my arsenal. Not to replace, but to augment, but original SIDs.

The SwinSID might not be updated all that frequently, but it still seems alive and well to be and still a viable alternative. SwinSID is ARM and AVR, not PIC; but making a burner should not be terribly difficult. If you ask nicely on the SwinSID forums, perhaps someone would be willing to burn it for you and ship it your way. The FPGA route is more an expansive and large solution than it is complicated. You can likely find a SID written in a hardware description language already somewhere in the wild. I have seen multiple projects (in passing) that implement the SID in an FPGA. Otherwise, your dream is probably just that - but it is a dream shared by many.

Tried using through hole resnets and actually they helped far more than I thought they did. I have them more or less next to the SMD chip and it's nice because I can still run traces through the gaps between the holes and can use any layer to connect to the buttons without having to make a bunch of vias on my own. Good suggestion! I'm going to try it on my other boards as well as I am using individual resistors on them and like to keep the parts more or less the same across them. Should be done with the board that sparked this question soon (maybe today)! Thanks again for everyone's help!

Yes follow the link you provided. You will not typically need to make any bridges for the boards purchased from SmashTV. The bridges mentioned on ucapps are for the board design you can download from there which is typically for making (etching) your own boards. Those designs avoid having to create a two layer boards, which are more difficult, or at least cumbersome, to do when etching boards yourself.

SmashTV has board diagrams and things that outline what headers do and things which you may find useful: http://avishowtech.com/info.html You will have to take both the above link and the Ucapps build guides and sort of smash them together. It's not terribly difficult, however. Most components only fit in one space and the directions are marked on the board. Typically the order of things is from shortest items to tallest items.

Correct, so if you want 6 note polyphony, you'd want to split the stereo out and make each channel mono at your mixer. You can also use the multi-enginer so that the left SID is playing different things than the right. I've done that when wanting a bassline + lead type of thing on my sammichSID, for instance.

This comes up from time to time so I would recommend searching the forums to figure out why this hasn't been done (cost, licensing). If you want the closet thing to a modern reproduction, check out the SwinSID stuff. It's MidiBox compatible as in, you can use and control the extra waveforms from it not found on the original SID. I haven't built one yet but could be something to look into, particularly if you couple it with an analog filter (such as the SSM2044), thereby getting around some of its inherent limitations. SwinSID is glorified emulation on a hardware chip with some extra features. If you wanted to go a step further, there have been projects to design a SID on an FPGA. Probably all you can hope for right now, I'm afraid.

Yeah I was more interested in the line drivers so I could use balanced cabling but, really, my synth will be right next to my rackmount audio device (once I finally buy that thing...err and finish my rackmount SID :P) so it seemed a little over the top. For live, I would recommend using a live mixer. If you have multiple SID pairs, might be easier to control them, plus everything else in your live show, from one board. I haven't looked at the MBSID audio pipeline in a while, but I like having op-amps before my audio jacks just in case something bad were to happen. That way the op-amp dies before anything else does. Might not be needed, but can't hurt either. Op-amps, plus the other components, do marginally change the sound but if you do it right it should generally be for the better (superior bass response perhaps).

The MIDI implementation is actually quite complete, although the NRPN stuff took some time for me to get used to. I suspect you could do some interesting things via MIDI to get around the limitations on the control surface. It could be easy to add support for controlling the arps directly as well but that's sort of speculation on my part - I haven't dug into the source that much. As far as the volume, yes it would go in between your outputs and the jack. Depending on how attenuated the volume is normally, you may want to boost things a bit using something like the CMoy (which is, in large part, simply an op-amp). I am going to be either using a CMoy-inspired design, or will use line-drivers to boost the audio levels a bit for my passively mixed outputs. Could be something to consider in your design, depending on your goals.

Thanks for all the help (both Nebula and nILS). Wish they had SMD resistor networks like the through hole ones you provided as an example. The only ones I found were basically individual resistors in a single package, which actually made it more difficult to route things to my buttons. Thought about using the through-holes as you have. Still debating on that actually. So far, the individual SMD resistors don't seem to be causing any issues, but I'm not done routing everything yet. This board has 3 595's and 5 165's (it's for the OSC and ENV sections of my control surface).

The only option I see when looking at the source .ASM file is: DIN_ENTRY CS_MENU_BUTTON_Arp, 0, 0 ; enables/disables the arpeggiator of *all* oscillators So to do this with native buttons, you may have to make more modifications to the source than just editing the DIN/DOUT tables. I would look at the source with your on eyes, though. It's available here. The MB-SID firmware, I think, supports assignable knobs so you could potentially use that feature on a full blown control surface as well. I'm still working on my control surface so I don't know all of its features so don't quote me on this part :) As far as the volume, are you referring to the output volume of the synth itself or of the SID channels? For the synth (aka global volume, I suppose), you would typically control that using analog pots (10k log ones specifically if I remember correctly). Controlling the volume on the SID can be done as well, but you'll probably find more use out of that feature by mapping it to a modulation source such as LFOs, MIDI velocity, etc. There is a menu option for volume, however, if you just want to set it to a value (though I would think that would be better done via an analog mixer or in post).

Hmm well actually these might work. They are the same pitch at the SMD SR chips I am using and appear to have troughs for each pin so that might work. Anyone use these with some results to share?

I looked at resnets, but man for SMD, they looked rather challenging. Valid point, though, that would simplify things for me by using them. I am using SMD resistors at least, but they are in convenient places as opposed to being close to the chip. Trying to get around the wiring complexity by using GND and PWR planes.

Perhaps a silly question, but I am curious as to if the order of components when using a pull-up resistor matters for the tactile switches and knobs? In other words, does it matter if the resistor is between the shift-register's pin and the component or not? Reason I ask is that having to follow such a rule would, of course, have an impact on how I place my components on my control surface boards. My intuition is that it doesn't matter, but I thought better to ask than be sorry :)

Hot! I'm digging the Electro Pop 1 demo tune at least. Haven't had a chance to try the samples directly, but like the 80's flair!

Sort of a shame these boards aren't part of a standard layout from ucapps. I wonder how complex a board like that would be to make and offer openly to the community...

Looks like this version might have compatibility issues with Lion in this version. Any chance you can give us a patch, TK? Or compile for the latest SIDPlay version?

That's correct and is a "feature" of how filtering works on the SID. There is a post about that somewhere on the forums (though it may be rather old by now). If you want to have a nice filter on top of polyphonic sounds, you may want to look at the SSM2044 stuff. I assume that behaves better with the addition of multiple notes. Disclaimer: That is raw assumption - I have not finished (or really even started) my own SSM filterbox so I don't have any proof :)

Hah err hmm...interesting way of explaining that. Sounds like you two had a great deal of fun, haha.

Ever since I posted my last comment I've been thinking about how to do the BZZZRRTTT patch thing. Here is my first attempt! DropIt.zip DropIt.wav.mp3

Ah well I'm not waiting on MBSID v3 to finish up my synth, although I'm mostly working on the control surface now and I don't think it will change enough. The guts of it is an MB6582 which I could augment/switch out for MBSIDv3...or so is the idea :P

I wasn't totally following your patch configuration so, instead, I used the Filtered Poly patch (#16) from the standard kit, which uses a lowpass filter; and my own polyphonic patch, which doesn't use a filter. SIDTest.wav.mp3

Indeed very cool tune. As far as more SIDs, I'm curious what creative things you come up with using SwinSID :) Could build a whole new MB6582 just based around it and pit real SIDs and SwinSIDs face to face :)

BAM there's the math! That should make things easy!