Smithy

Did you even look at his link? lol Its an in depth guide about the different places you can order componoents, and where to get free samples. A parts search engine will not give you advice on each distributor!

Is there any chance you could take more pics of the controller? Preferably from the back? It looks really nice and compact in those pics.

Just recieved my sids today! ;D Nice to see new sids, with shiny legs on them! unlike my old dirtier looking sid chip. Wilba i have to say youre handwriting is pretty sexy looking. :P Thanks a lot for sending them man, no customs charges or anything, im delighted. :)

I have to say that is trully awesome! If arturia made controllers especially for Minimoog, then they should look something like that! I love the waythe Font looks the exact same too. I was only thinking about a dedicated controller for VSTs lately. Wouldnt it be cool if there was some sort of motorised midi controller... thats knobs and sliders could "popup" in the same places as they appear onscreen in the vst. Or that could move or slide into position. If it was fast enough to move everything into place at the click of a vst, and possible to manufature it would the perfect midi controller! For example, its minimoog patch, would look something similar to the controller you built. It would be even harder to illuminate the text/name for each knob! Sounds impossible but it would be cool none the less.

I would like to thank Wilba for having the patience to test each chip and ship it. You seriously shouldnt be thanking us for our patience in your e-mails. It should be expected of us, and anyone who disagrees is pretty ignorant imo. I certainly didnt feel like it was a long wait, especially when i consider whats involved.

Edit: Well arent i glad they werent all sold! had a bit of a panic there! :P

Heres a full interview with Tristan himself. It appears its a microchip after all, with software programmed onto it: http://www.cantaloupemusic.com/album.php?catno=ca21042 What is 1-bit music? 1-Bit Music is an album of low-fi electronic music that is generated by electronics packaged in a standard CD jewel case. Plug it in and you'll have 45 minutes of electronica, ranging from drum and bass to minimalism to electronic noise, played through the headphone jack. How does it work? I programmed software that generates music onto a microcomputer, which is packaged with a few other components inside the CD jewel case. It gets its power from a battery - you can switch it on and off; there are stereo volume knobs, a headphone jack and a skip button to change tracks. I write the software on a computer and download the code onto the chip. The music itself is coded as numbers that represent notes. Who would like it? The music bridges the sound worlds of electronica, minimalism and noise. Some tracks are totally danceable and some dive into the deeper parts of your brain. It's totally rhythmic and intense, though. When I perform with it, I jack the music into a big sound system and play a drum kit on top of it. And people dance! But the whole album has a minimal electronic aesthetic that geeks are into, too. It's hard to say, exactly - pretty much everyone responds to it positively. How did you make it? The 1-Bit Music boxes are all hand-assembled here in New York. I work with a few assistants to make them all from piles of raw parts with soldering irons, wire cutters, glue, and more. It's a limited run. I made a bunch to be signed and numbered and sold with a silk-screen print of the source code and schematic too. Why did you do it? I've programmed my entire life. When I was in college at Columbia, I did an independent project with Douglas Repetto, where I learned some simple electronics and how microprocessors work. It's common to generate an audio tone as an early exercise, and I was attracted to this sound aesthetic. It's really raw. It's really minimal. And it's really digital. It's also noisy, and I think that fits the machine-feeling of the whole project - it's a bare-bones circuit, nothing extra, and the sound reflects that. One bit of data is the smallest digital representation of anything: true/false, on/off. It's also the most a chip can produce, usually meant for turning on motors or lights or sending messages to other machinery. It's this über-reductionist framework that I find really expressive. Try not to think about alarm clocks and other beepy electronics when you think about 1-Bit Music. It's inspired by them, but the sound is rich and alive and dense and danceable. It's polyphonic and the interference patterns of the various tones are lush. -Tristan Perich, 12/01/2006

http://www.onebitmusic.com/ More of a concept than an album, so i put it in the misc section. This guy has released a lofi electronica album, in the form of an electronic ciruit with a synth chip, and headphone output, enclosed in a jewel CD case. Its an extremely cool idea, but the sounds the chip can do are extremely limited! Very bleepy, but if this caught on and the sound was improved it would be a pretty cool way of listening to music. Stick in a Sid chip or Yamaha FM chip with a microcontroller, and youd get much more pleasant sounds. (i dont think you'd want to give away a sid chip with a single though! :P) The first track is absolutely horrible , the same wafeform sequence going on for about 40 seconds before it kicks in. The 3rd is a 1-bit version of a fisherspooner track thats much better....... http://www.onebitmusic.com/music/TristanPerich-OneBitMusicPrereleases-09-JustLetGo(FischerSpooner).mp3

I have one more question thats sort of related. Is it possible to extract the Presets/Patches from a SID file? What i mean is extract the synth patches that were used in each track. So we could convert them to the format the bankstick uses, and play the patch live. The tricky thing is that the patches change throughout the track so it might be difficult to read all patches.

Im just wondering which version of Sidplay are ye using? In the older version of Sidplay for Win32 (Nov 7 2002), theres a really handy mixer, with the 4 sid channels. So you can mute or solo channels of your choice. After this version they removed it for reasons unknown, it was a really handy feature imo. Im pretty sure all the updates since were improvements to the sound engine. I havent used the linux version but i guess its also missing the mixer now. Do you think it would be cool to use the source from this version just to have the mixer? Or is there already away to mute channels with the Midibox itself? Just a thought.

Yea man definitely. Ive never seen anything like it. I suppose the only award TK could possibly get is in some kind of magazine for Synth of the year or something. I wonder would the folks at NAMM have any interest! They probably dont care much for open source synths though. :-\ I think TK should be recognised in some way for this. WOuld be nice to see a profile of bio for TK actually, or does he remain a man of mystery? ;)

Right on, im beginning to think that maybe its one of the most advanced synths out there. At least one of the most advanced diy synths out there anyway. Most analogue synths usually have just 2/3 oscs, where as you can have 24 with this baby. Ive never seen a synth with so many modes before either. TK you should win some award for this! Seriously.

Ah cool so its rated upto 25v! Then all is cool, thanks. :)

Okay, sorry for the long post, but i really do need to know if the 35v capacitor is acceptable. Everything else im pretty happy with, and i reckon it should work. As for maplins, theyre only 5 mins walk from my house, it would be handy to get them from them. I only use maplins for small things i need, beacause yeah, they are a bit of a rip off (to say the least). :P Im pretty sure the 35v cap will not do because its 25v in the schematic for a reason. Im not really sure where i could read to find a solution. :-\ Thanks for the help anyway goblinz.

Looks why he have another Super Fun Crazy Sid Sale!*whack*

Hi guys, another noob question here. Edit: Shortened post! I want to buy the components for the circuit from a local Maplin store. One component i couldnt find on their site is the: 2200uf / 25v Capacitor :-\ The closest they have is a 2200uf / 35v. Will this be okay or not? Heres their >> List Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I propose a thread for a list of sites where you can buy electronic components. Would be nice to have this stickied. And maybe people could give feedback from where they have bought supplies r.e. value, shipping , refunds, customer service etc.. Feel free mods to change the title to somethig more desireable. Or to just delete the thread if ye think its not worthwhile! I can edit this post to have a nice master list. So far who do we have? SmashTV's Midibox Store www.mikes-elektronikseite.de: www.voti.nl http://www.reichelt.de www.maplin.co.uk (expensive uk site hehe) Ughhh, I've just noticed on the "where to order" page in the wiki, theres a pretty good list already. Maybe it would still be good to have this thread to have extra sites, so people can find a better deal easily? I can add all the sites from the wiki too. What do ye think? Keep this thread or scrap it?

Great news TK! ;D

lol! Sorry to hear about your accident, sounds awful. :-\ What you said about the leaves looked funny though! :)

Damn! *whack* wasnt exactly the most intelligent thing to put at the end of my sid order so! Hope it doesnt get voided! :P Great to see the RC8 release, i didnt think we'd be this close to a V2 release so quickly. ;D

None whatsoever, the irish folk are a bit more laid back! ;) Its only stuff sent through ups that you can have problems with. Thanks again, Cant wait to get my kit finished and power it up.

Recieved my LCD Display early this morning, and i have to say the packaging is absolutely superb. at 11 dollars shipping its a steal. An lcd is bigger than i imagined on screen, the bigger the better! Thanks a lot nebula, quality service.

Thanks for the confirmation nebula dude. :)

Oh man, just by looking at this thread i know im after getting in way over my head with the project. :-\ Im just going to have to learn as much info as i can on electronics before i even start putting the thing together. Thanks a lot for linking that site which shows how to make the Optimised PSU. I was trying to find something which shows a noob how to build it on this site from scratch but I couldnt find anything. Id be lost without it!

Hey nebula, I was just wondering if you recieved my payment in time. I dont think i got an email from you, mind you i had to delete more than 200 spam emails! Cheers, Smithy.