m00dawg

Doh! Well that's not necessarily a huge deal if sending CC's to MBFM makes it happy. I haven't looked at the MBSEQ code quite yet, but I assume it is possible to add this feature without too much fuss? Being implemented in C certainly makes it more feasible for me than PIC-ASM :smile:

Satellite One is good, but I prefer the first S3M I ever heard: Aquaphobia

I realized that last response might be wordy, so I'll try to condense it: 1. Can MBSEQ send SysEx to synths as part of a song (mostly for patch changes on MBSID and MBFM)? 2. Does MBSEQ support BPM/tempo shifts and slides in song? Ok I ninja-added the 2nd point :smile: I think those are the two most important issues. The former I might be able to work around if MBSEQ and MBFM are happy talking CC's. To this point, neither Reaper nor Live seem to make MBFM happy when using anything but SysEx for patch and some parameter changes.

A feature I would like to see is perhaps more reliable CC and patch change support. I think it is more of an issue with Ableton Live than MBFM, but I have had to move to using Reaper for live performances to handle patch and parameter changing in large part due to having to use SysEx to make changes over standard CCs. For whatever reason, with CC's it doesn't work consistently for me. This is with sammichFM. After moving to Reaper, I have had no issues, so this is really more of a nice to have kinda thing. Some of the additional modulation stuff provided by the LPC17 sounds really neat! But I don't know what that means in practice :smile: so I can't say too much about that.

That monster is coming together incredibly well! Awesome job! Still can't wait to hear it in its full glory, though! Curious - what purpose does the limiting circuits serve when driving the SID outputs? Is it just as a simple compressor or are you trying to get in there some grungy distortion (e.g. diode limiting)?

I was finally getting serious about an MBSEQ again and started thumbing through the docs when I ran into a potential issue - I noticed importing .MIDI files only imports note-data and not SysEx/CC. I'm wondering if there are any suggestions on how to work around that? SysEx would be anything from MBFM patches changes and params, to poking our drum machine and configuring effects on our effect box. Most of the time they can be run at the beginning of the song to set things up, but sometimes I change parameters in the middle of a song. So if MBSEQ won't read those from .MID files, is there another way to easily inject that into a song? I realize my intended use is a bit periphery to the MBSEQ's core goal. If I can make it work, though, I think it'd be better off than having to rely on a laptop. It's one less thing to lug around for one (I intend on rackmounting my MBSEQ into our mixer/rack).

Well, I ended up spending an afternoon converting all our live Live sets to Reaper. In this way, I can just send direct SysEx changes changes to setup the channels and patches. Reaper has it's own issues and I much prefer Live were it not for this issue. If I ever upgrade to Live 9, though, I'll definitely give your Max suggestion a shot! As an aside, I have never been able to get the MidiBox SID Drum Engine working well in Live either. In Reaper? No problem. *shrug*

Hmm how recent? And/or does it affect patch changes too? I have a hell of a time getting patch changes working in Ableton Live. They work, but I have to start/stop the song a few times before it takes, which really sucks in a live setting :/ It's so bad I almost wonder if I can patch it, or pay someone in beer, to fix it just for Live so we can hobble along with it until we get a live-friendly MBSEQ.

That's so cool. Really hope after all this work you guys make one kick-ass demosong so we can all finally hear that hard work! Or maybe a demo video, so we can see it in action too!

Ty sirs! Live show went rather fantastic for being our first as well!

No idea why the inline didn't play. In my quest to fix it, I ended up creating a duplicate post :P It works on Facebook and the embedded code works on our blog. Since I just passed the link in directly, I wonder if IPB or a plugin is causing that. Vimeo changed their embedded code, though I'm not sure how recent, so maybe that's what is going on? @jojjelito, ty sir!

My band's first live show is this Saturday so I thought I would share what we've been working on all these months. I made this video mostly so the folks going to the show had a clue about our new sound but, even though it's just practice, I thought I'd share since I'm rather proud of it. The song is a cover of Cash's version of Hurt and uses the GameBoy, MBSID, and MBFM (although the MBFM didn't switch patches so it played a slap bass instead of what it was supposed to at the end, doh!). http://vimeo.com/victimcache/hurt-practice Click http://vimeo.com/victimcache/hurt-practice'>here if the video fails to load in-line. The actual show will be recorded so we should hopefully get a better actual live version soon. I'm not sure when we are going to release more studio-like recordings, though. Enjoy (I hope!)

I've never been able to get this working quite right - whenever I use the Drum Engine, it seems like the drums never quite start in time with my DAW, regardless of the ADSR workaround setting. Sometimes it will be spot on, but most of the time it's off by an amount enough to easily throw things off and I can't figure out why. If I set the ADSR bug on and set a -30ms delay, it's still off. Sometimes I can set it to crazy things like -65 and it'll be mostly in sync. If I turn the work-around off, it drifts from -15 to -45 or more depending on the mood :) I'm using Ableton Live on OS X with a GM5x5x5 and a sammichSID on the 2.042 firmware. I've tried all sorts of things like changing the sync type (from pattern to song or back), power-cycling the Sammich, power-cycling the GM5, restarting Ableton. I might be able to get it right for one take but it's not reproducible. That's bad juju for a live setting. Is anyone else having this problem? Of note, most other patches seem to be pretty well in sync, but I'm using the lead engine for most other songs. I'm thinking about using the lead engine in multi-mode so the left SID does the bass and the right hi-hats to see if that helps. Trouble is, the Drum Engine is too good - I haven't figured out how to make my own single drum patches sound /near/ as good ;)

Aha good idea! I'll give that a go, thanks TK!

Ah perhaps it's the speed of updates or something then? Hmm...I can bust that LCD test program to see what that does and go from there. The unlit LED strip will be easy to fix (I know it's a short since I can put the panel in a configuration that it'll work)...the panel...eek that's going to be harder to solve, I fear.

I thought that too, but why does the MIOS boot screen always come up in cleartext? The screen repeatedly gets garbled after that screen (like when it's starting up the SID app). I seem to remember there being something significant with the LCD between those steps but I can't remember what it is.

After sitting for a few years, I decided to try and resurrect my MB6582 yesterday. I spent basically all day rewiring the CS and baseboard back together, which included having to work around lifted solder pads and got it /almost/ complete. A strip of LEDs on the matrix aren't working, but that's fixable. What is more difficult now is that two of the four screws the hold the panel to the top of the case popped off, so now that panel off the top. Anyone have thoughts on how to fix that? I can try to re-JB it, but with the CS already connected to the baseboard, that's going to be prove tough. So I was thinking of drilling screw holes on the panel but I don't think I can do that with extreme accuracy. One of the reasons the panel sits so high is that the cabling I got (from DigiKey) is just a bit too long and also rigid. It's what caused me so many issues the last time, but I have cabled it up a bit different this time around and I'm hoping that will put less stress on the joints. Either way, it looks a bit silly with the panel sitting up off the case so much :) Another problem is that, while it boots up saying "MIOS version...." when it gets to the main SID screen, the display goes all garbled. Sometimes it will get fixed by playing around with the panel. I think it's the 4-bit vs 8-bit mode thing perhaps but I don't know exactly how to fix that either? Thoughts?

So SmashTV planted the see of building my own limiter for a custom headphone amp (stage monitor / IEM amp) and I was wondering if anyone has tackled something similar? I've got a design working, largely based off of Chu Moy's (designer of the CMoy Audio Amp) headphone amp and limiter designs. The idea is clear. Where it gets hazy is where to add the limiter. I read up on the various mentions of a limiter here: http://headwize.com/?page_id=707 http://headwize.com/?page_id=800 Where I'm a bit confused is Figure 1 on the Limiter page (800) seems to have the limiter after the volume but before the amp. Figure A9 on the pocket amp page (707) has it after the amp. I noticed both the value and method of connecting the trim-pot are also different, I assume because the latter case is attenuating an already amplified signal meant for headphones? The bit I'm wondering about is - wouldn't it be best to limit before amplification or volume control? That way the audio source never goes past a max no matter what the headphone volume is set to, so a dropped mic will always hit the limiter at high or low volume. It also would not be affected by differences in headphones - though it would need to be calibrated for the actual "normal" levels from my mixer (which is +4dBu, so I'm guessing 1.7V or so is what I want to center around), such that having an adjustable knob or trimpot would be wise. But I wouldn't need to calibrate it for differing kinds of headphones since the volume would be independent of the limiting? Another curiosity - I will be feeding the headphone amp a mono input so was going to split the signal to both the left and right. I am going to use a TLE2426 (rail splitter, virtual ground) so shouldn't have too much DC offset, but anything else I might be wary of? The headphones I would likely use are the common Westone UM1's probably and their impedance is 24 Ohm, which means I'll end up at 12 Ohm if I just tie them together and do nothing else if I understand impedance correctly. Finally, since I'm using a balanced (XLR) input, I assume using a two channel op-amp, with one channel for the XLR balance; and the other for the actual headphone amplification won't be an issue? Unfortunately, if I want an LED indicator (to indicate when the limiter is active) it seems I will need another op-amp channel from the designs I've seen. Thoughts?

This is quite the project but I'm incredibly excited to see it come to fruition! That SID board looks beautiful! You mentioned audio attenuators, so is that like a VCA type of thing?

Welcome to the forum! MidiBox is a fun and hugely rewarding platform, but keep in mind, that doesn't necessarily mean cheap. I'm curious, since the APC40 appears to do what you want, why are you wanting to build something similar in MidiBox? I ask because you have a big list of ideas and requirements, and that's great! But it does lack focus and clarity. Before you build big, you should start small. Learn your way around ucapps.de, get a CORE and some odds and ends (like knobs and things) to make a small project. It can even be in a shoebox (my first MidiBox was). And many of those components you can re-use if you want to build the big thing anyway, so it's a valuable experience. Then, if you like it, you can start adding things and figuring out where to go. That will also give you time to really evaluate the costs (and time) of building what you ultimately want to build.

CTRLR is a bit of a pain to get working for sure. Make sure you are running the /exact/ version and panel TK recommends. It often won't work otherwise.

You can use the CTRLR panel or perhaps the older MBSID software to setup custom patches and map things however you like. It's no repalcement for a full control surface, but it'll get the job done fairly well.

Whoa those are cheap! Nice find!

For those who have put the MBSEQ in a rack, what was your preferred method? As in, did you buy a 3U case for it, or just mount the panel directly to the rails (and do something with the other boards, such as CORE and IIC)? I was trying to figure out a way to mount everything behind the panel and use panel mount connectors for any external connections. That'd give me more options on a rack with front and back rails but I'm not sure how feasible that is?

Ah sweet! Goodness, TK, I know you're not the only person working on MBSEQ necessarily but I have to say - I /have/ looked around for other hardware sequencers that could do what we need. Not only have I not found them, but the ones I did find are crazy expensive. They only seem to do a fraction of what MBSEQ can. Props to you and everyone who made this thing possible and so great! Really looking forward to finally building one!