m00dawg

Aha cool! Thanks TK! I'll give this a go right now! As far as the file, it was linked off the MBFM design page at the bottom. EDIT: Yep, CC's work great, thanks again!

I'm trying to use CC events to change the audio output of particular instruments and I seem to be having trouble making that happen for voices. I'm using http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm/midibox_fm_cc_voice.txt'>this chart which means I should just have to send as the value 12 to CC 10. When I do that in Live or MIOS Studio, it doesn't seem to take. Am I missing a critical detail? For what it's worth, changing the output of the bassdrum (using http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm/midibox_fm_cc_drums.txt'>this chart) works no problem. Any thoughts?

Velocity isn't terribly sensitive on the SID, but it does work (actually better than I thought it would). If you want tight control, you'd have to look at adding a VCA, the designs of which are peppered around the forum and wiki. You have to add a whole CV section for that to work but may be something to consider.

Is it possible to change MIDI In/Out on the fly as part of the pattern or song data? For instance, if I want to play one synth "live" during a part of the song, and another synth later without having to manually go in and change it (there won't be time as I will be switching from guitar to keyboard very quickly as it is)? I know you can split a keyboard into ranges, which may work, but was curious as to if the above was possible since that is most ideal for our live workflow. I don't have an MBSEQ yet or else I'd try it :) Very much want to build one - just making sure it'll fit our needs and I have a good idea of what it can and can't do before investing in it.

I grabbed the 1209 release for OS Xbut the VST folder is empty? Something I'm missing there? EDIT: AU version seems to be working just fine, however.

I am actually still having trouble with mine. But mine has always been flaky - it just seems worst now than it used to. Of note, I got one of the first sammichSID kits and I think a different encoder is now used? The one on the sammichFM is soo much better so I'm inclined to just open it up and replace it anyway ;)

So I've been thinking about this off and on as I can. We're not quite ready to have the need for an MBSEQ yet as we have other things we need to get first (like a live mixer, compressors, IEMs, etc.). But I was now thinking - I really don't need the full control surface. In fact, I still really just need to be able to select and start/stop tracks. The SEQ is really our MIID master so it's handling the clock, sending patch changes to synths and playing a few MIDI tracks depending on the song. All that will be done before-hand. So other than maybe a knob to change the BPM and a track/BPM display, I dunno if I need really anything else? So I'm wondering if I can't setup all the tracks using a computer, dump them to an MBSEQ with a vastly reduced control surface? Or is this really still in MBSEQ territory at this point? It's significant becuase avoiding the full control surface saves cost which could go to all the other mountain of gear we need for our live shows and means I can get an MBSEQ working sooner.

You can always pick a design mentioned above and have it fabbed at Oshpark (DorkBot). Rather cheap for what you get and really good quality. They even except Eagle files directly so you can pretty much grab a design and send it directly to them without even needing EagleCAD (but you really should get board layout software at some point if you're serious about MidiBox).

That's not a huge issue unless you're playing live. If so, consider controlling the patches with SysEx using your live sequencer (MBSEQ is a good option ;) ).

Awesome! That didn't take quite as long as I thought to traverse the ocean! I hope they got to you in good shape as well! It's definitely meant to be played at higher volumes :) Not blow-out-your-ears-loud but we actually asked Aardvark to try and cut the master loud. It's got this kinda grit to it that you won't hear on the digital versions that I really REALLY like, especially on side-A. At any rate, thanks for your support and the patience while we worked on getting it right. Having to do two rounds of test pressings really set things back, but I really think the results were well worth the wait!

That's the nature of the beast, and will occur on both v1 and v2, although the SID chip revision may determine how loud it is (just a guess there) since the pop loudness varies depending on the patch I switch to on my 6582's.

Yours is in the mail! Shipped it out on Tuesday via USPS. Let me know when you receive it and what you think!

Wow that turned out really awesome!! Nice job!

:thumbsup: We are really happy with how it turned out. Even my band-mate, who was initially skeptical of the whole audio differences, was rather impressed. It basically added a sort of vintage sound to the whole thing and so it really makes the songs pop!

Austin is definitely a goal and something we expect to do! We're based out of San Antonio, TX so it's not far. In fact we've already talkeda bout places we'd love to play in Austin so it's on our radar for sure. Baby steps though :) As a quick update to the records for those curious, our second round of test pressings are good so we are now waiting on URP to do the full production run. I suspect perhaps another 2 weeks and we should be good starting to ship them out! And finally since we're on the MidiBox forum, we are still planning on making 1U rackmount live-centric MBFM and MBSIDs. Thinking about making a stripped down MBSEQ as well since we really just need it for a MIDI clock (with tempo slides occasionally) and patch manager/changer and cabinet space in our live rack plan is starting to fill up quick.

Of note, I do find the output from the sammichFM quieter than any of my other synths so it requires more gain as a result. Something to consider before looking at lowering the voltage for the op-amps (since, correct me if I am wrong, that will also lower their output).

If memory serves, that's just how it is. Most of the MidiBox demos are using 8580/6582 chips, so if you are using 6581, you should expect generally more noise though I rather think of it as more "character" :) It's possible there is a work-around for some of that, but I have noticed it on my MBSID (even with 6582 chips) so part of it is just the nature of the beast, it seems.

Hey that's awesome! Glad you like it! The 7" is going to sound rather amazing so I think you are in for a treat if you have the means to play it! It has a bit of a grittier sound to it but it really helps bring out the sound we were looking for, especially for the A-side (Tsunami Gaiden). If you want to follow the progress, you can check out our Facebook page or, if you prefer less regular updates, can follow the project on Kickstarter. To give you a quick update, we are currently on our 2nd round of test pressings. The first sounded amazing but we did notice a potential issue on the B-side we want to make sure is not systemic. We don't think it is, but wanted to make sure. That pushes things back by another week but if we don't find anything in this round of pressings, we can finish the order and start cranking out records!

ah well if you already have everything working, not much else to do there then :) I still like the Sammich though from a space standpoint, but you have more banksticks and better power. These days I put my DIN/DOUTs on the CS boards themselves and chain them using headers. You might see if you have some spare room to do that, or perhaps mount another board behind the CS (as a sort of sammich) - that's my preferred method. I was going to say that you only need one 74HC165, but I keep forgetting the MBFM "minimal" control surface has quite a few more buttons and so, for that, you might need a few. I'm debating on how much I really need since the idea is to control the synth with a DAW or, later on, an MBSEQ for setting up an arrangement (this is for live shows, so we won't be modifying patches frequently and don't really need much as a result). So I really just need enough buttons to be able to manually setup the instruments should the DAW or MBSEQ fail. You might have already figured out what the true minimal surface is to do that - I haven't yet for the MBFM :)

Well, that OPL board might go to waste, but you can always use a CORE board for something :) Plus, Sammich already has the bank-sticks and a nice power solution. The latter is admittedly one thing that would have been nice to have a separate option for (I will already have bipolar power in my rack so I could have just provided that) since the solution ends up using low gain op-amps. But it does mean it's simpler all around, and you can always add more gain at a later stage if need be.

To keep things simple for your 1U, you could use the sammichFM baseboard (if you can still find them) and then just bolt on your control surface. I am also building a 1U for my FM and SID synths (hopefully in the same 1U if I can), both using the Sammich baseboards, or so is the plan. Given you're going for 1U, I am curious, how are you handling the buttons under the LCD? I found those to be a tight fit on a 1U panel :/ (haven't found a workable solution yet for that).

That is an awesomely clever idea, TK! Very cool!

There really isn't any difference at that point with sammichSID compared to the MB6582 except there is only 1 stereo pair. Everything else is the same - the sammichSID firmware modifications are largely related to the hardware control surface. In other words, a sammichSID is the same as a CORE + 2 SID modules as far as CTRLR is concerned. That said, it does need some improvements. I think TK is waiting on the new CTRLR software before adding any more bells and whistles, but it's definitely getting there.

Uhh, you mean

The busy percussion could be the ADSR bug. You can enable a work-around to avoid that, but you take a 30ms penalty that you have to compensate for. That would mess up live playing but typically if you are just firing off drum patterns, it's not as big of an issue so long as your DAW (or hardware sequencer) can compensate.