Jump to content

Max Romantschuk

Members
  • Posts

    114
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Max Romantschuk

  1. Unfortunately I'm a bit behind my already rather unambitious schedule. Family- and work-related stuff has occupied my time lately. But I'm definitely going to complete this project, even if it takes a long time. :)
  2. Baby steps... I'm not dead yet but Real Life got hold of me for a while and good too. I finally got the desoldering job done on the DIN tonight. Gotta read up on the docs and put it all back into active memory so I can hopefully get some more done soon. :) I should be able to do that, have to look into that as well.
  3. Hehe :) I envy your progress... My project is going a lot slower than yours. Then again I did anticipate this from the start. After work and the kids there's not a lot of extra time except for the occasional late night. ;)
  4. I really like this design. :) I think Sasha has a good and rational point about the displays, but then again being creative should call for the interface that inspires you the most!
  5. If you wanted to downsize the power supply you could look at those used for mini-ITX builds. If you're booting of usb the wattage should indeed be minimal, processor+motherboard load only basically. Keep us posted on your progress! :)
  6. Who runs that midibox.org blog anyway? I think it's sort of weird when you google midibox and end up there... Would be better to end up in ucapps or the wiki.
  7. I'm sorry but I don't think anyone is willing to do the hours and hours of research and planning your project entails for you. You need so spend some time looking at ucapps and the wiki linked at the top of the forum. Once you have a real plan, not just a fancy idea, post a new post to this thread on how you plan to build your box. Then I'm sure people will be happy to help you with ironing out the details. I don't mean to sound harsh, but the Do It Yourself idea with midiboxes is just that... :D
  8. Gotta say I love the color. It's unique, just like the device itself. :)
  9. I personally have no experience with Live, but I do know a fair bit about designing successful standards and protocols... Make it as open and well documented as possible. The more accessible the information on how to implement the protocol is, the more likely it is to be adopted. I've seen a lot of great technology fall due to the fact that it was poorly documented, or alternatively the documentation wasn't made freely available. Making a custom protocol is a double edged sword. On one hand it gives the greatest flexibility, but then again adopting an existing open protocol (Open Sound Control, for instance) could be a good option as well. Not that I claim to be able to judge the suitability of OSC for an application like this. Also, don't make people buy your product to be able to interface with it. I don't know if there is already a suitable demo available, but it makes sense to have a full-featured version of the product with a full protocol implementation freely available for download. (Saving disabled or something like that.) This way someone who wants to try interfacing his DIY controller with your product can give it a shot, and you might end up gaining a customer.
  10. I'm feeding the 7805 9V DC. Right now I only have a core and an LCD. With just the core it runs nice and cool, attach the LCD and it goes too hot to touch. (I do know it's under a 100 C.) The LCD is from Mike's, but I don't have specs on how much the backlight draws. (The datasheet I've googled only refers to the data pinout.) I don't think I have any errors on the core, as it works fine and the 7805 stays cool without LCD. The LCD works, so I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong there. I did leave the core and LCD on for over an hour, and no magic smoke came out of any components... Seems the 7805 just gets hot, so maybe I'll just heatsink it and not worry unless something malfunctions. ;)
  11. Work is slowly progressing on the DIN module, 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there... I have all the top-side bridges, and having soldered two of the bottom ones I realized that they use the same hole as the shift register chips. Next up: Desoldering. ;) Will probably finish the DIN next weekend, if all goes to plan. Any input on the 7805 getting hot by the way? The search terms "7805 hot" didn't seem to do me an awful lot of good. I'm feeding 9 volts to the core, that should be within spec, right?
  12. Um, reading the ucapps docs it seems faders/pots should be 10K linear, not 100K. Or am I missing something? :)
  13. There's something weird with the attached images, can't seem to enlarge them... (Or my browser is having a friday fit. ;)) The advantage of using the existing modules is that you can get kits from Mike or SmashTV, and those are tested and proven to work designs. Rolling your own PCB requires good circuit design skills, but I assume you have those from your post? If you want to get started quickly with the Midibox platform, I'd use modules to get things off the ground. You can always design your own PCB later. :)
  14. Unfortunately rather unlikely unless the code was written with portability in mind... But depending on how it interfaces with the hardware Wine might be an option.
  15. Haven't gotten any further on the hardware side as of yet, but I thought I'd share some of my plans concept- and software-wise. There are 36 editable parameters in an Alpha Juno Patch. My plan is to have a pot/encoder for each parameter which is a large range, and a button for all on/off or smaller range parameters. Buttons would cycle the smaller ranges. Editing any parameter would bring it up on the screen. Next to the screen I want a nice big encoder (the beta dial? ;)) to tweak the currently selected parameter. These are the parameters and the way I think I'll be grouping them into sections: (Sysex specs are here for reference: http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/sysex.shtml#ajuno ) DCO section DCO Wave Pulse (0..3) DCO Wave Saw (0..5) DCO Wave Sub (0..5) DCO Range (0=4', 1=8', 2=16', 3=32') DCO Sub Level (0..3) DCO Noise (0..3) DCO Env. Mode (0=Normal, 1=Inverted, 2=Normal-Dynamic, 3=Inv.-Dynamic) DCO LFO Mod. (0..7F) DCO ENV Mod. (0..7F) DCO After Mod. (0..7F) DCO PWM Depth (0..7F) DCO PWM Rate (0..7F) 0 = Pulse Width Manual 1..7F = PW LFO Rate Bender Range (0..C) VCF section VCF Cutoff (0..7F) VCF Resonance (0..7F) VCF LFO Mod. (0..7F) VCF ENV Mod. (0..7F) VCF Key Follow (0..7F) VCF Aftertouch (0..7F) HPF Cutoff (0..3) VCF Env. Mode (0=Normal, 1=Inverted, 2=Normal-Dynamic, 3=Dynamic) VCA section VCA Env. Mode (0=Normal, 1=Gate, 2=Normal-Dynamic, 3=Gate-Dynamic) VCA Level (0..7F) VCA Aftertouch (0..7F) ENV section ENV T1 (0..7F) Attack Time ENV L1 (0..7F) Attack Level ENV T2 (0..7F) Break Time ENV L2 (0..7F) Break Level ENV T3 (0..7F) Decay Time ENV L3 (0..7F) Sustain Level ENV T4 (0..7F) Release Time ENV Key Follow (0..7F) LFO section Chorus Switch (0=Off, 1=On) Chorus Rate (0..7F) LFO section LFO Rate (0..7F) LFO Delay (0..7F) The above are in no particular order. In addition I'll be adding a few other features. I'll probably need some general config ui stuff to handle changing the MIDI channel at least. (Do I need a bankstick for non-volatile storage, or can I use the PIC's own flash?) I'd also like to include a patch randomization feature, with options to lock some parameters and randomize others. Say I wanted a short and punchy sound. I could set a short envelope, lock that and lock pitch modulation of the DCO, and randomize until I had something I liked to tweak further. The jury's pretty much still out on pots vs. encoders. I'm leaning towards pots, but then I'd have an issue if I want to be able to receive and tweak a patch. But I could solve it by having the pot keep the value intact until hitting the current setting. Encoders would provide instant incremental changes, but without led rings you can't really get an at-a-glance look at the state. And there would be sooo many led rings... ;) (Quick non-verified count says over 20 range controls are needed.) I'm not sure I want any faders. For the envelope maybe. Not sure at all. :) So... That's where I'm at. I've been doing some drawing on the panel layout in Inkscape, and when I find the time to do something more complete I'll be posting drafts. Ideas and feedback are very welcome, I hope I won't be the only one to build a PG-300 clone. There are a lot of Alpha Junos and MKS-50s out there! :)
  16. Don't worry Wilba, if I can spare the cash I'll be getting a bunch more in sale #9 when/if that happens... :D Futureman: more pics! :)
  17. Good to hear! :) (I have an order for 3 chips from Wilba, 2 for a stereo pair and one for Murphy and/or having a spare part.)
  18. Very impressive piece of hardware. :) So, are you keeping the schematics etc. to yourself, or are you going to share? ;) I'm sure a lot of people would very much to build a MIDI-controllable moog filter... :)
  19. Heading back on topic... Review on Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/microsoft-songsmith-review.ars Interestingly the MIDI export only exports the backing track, and not the sung melody.
  20. Finally, progress! :D This is going to be a long post. For people who haven't followed this thread... There is a flickr set with all the images at a higher resolution here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxromantschuk/sets/72157611777076100/ So anyway, last time I got something done I partially finished the LCD cable. I'll just post my progress with pics as I have so far. I had bought 40 pole wide colored ribbon cable, the wider variety was cheaper per wire. ;) First I cut my needed 16-wide piece: Then I built the ribbon cable connector... These are pretty self-explanatory: I have a nice little mini-vice, so getting even pressure was trivial. For some reason my strain-relief refused to fit, but the connector seems solid enough anyhow. Then started I cutting and separating, as per Jim's guide: I found that the best way to get the wires separated was to gently stroke the blade along the groove a few times on both sides. After that they came apart really nicely. Cutting through the groove didn't work so well, it was a lot harder to guide the knife properly. I presoldered all the pads: (Presoldered the wires too.) The first ones were a little iffy... going right to left. ;) Halfway there... For the leftmost wires, I measured and marked each one separately. (Note the black mark.) Having cut and stripped the wire I routed it through the hole: The soldering part was simply applying the iron where the wire entered the hole, heating both the wire and the pad, and applying some more solder. Having both wire and pad presoldered really helps. The result: It's not that pretty, but the wire has support through the and partially from the pad too. The joints seem to be firm enough. The LCD backlight pads were at the far end of the board: (Or so I thought... ;)) All done! (While perfecting my wire separation technique I managed to partially strip #6 of insulation, hence the mending. ;)) I double checked my wiring, connected the LCD to the core, and powered up: Yay, it works! :) ...waaait a minute... No backlight? Hmm... These pads were on the front side of the board. The pads I soldered my backlight wires to were on the opposite side. I was pretty sure there was some back-to-front connection... and was wrong. There were no vias or anything. So of course I had to verify that the wires had to go straight to the front... So first two extra wires: And then some manual testing: And there was light. So I cleaned up my little kludge: True success at last: The next step is probably building the DIN module... Hoping to find the time in the next few weeks. (I can't really do more than one or two sessions a week, to keep the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of this project under control. ;) Now when the LCD is connected, the 7805 gets pretty friggin hot. Under 100 degrees C, but I'd say it's at 50 C at least. Is this normal? Should I attach a heatsink just in case?
  21. Yes, but if I wanted something that could manage monster Reaktor patches with current processors we're easily talking about a hundred watts of heat to remove. In ten years the same thing will likely require 5-10 watts, or less. Fortunately just building my current project and then a SID will take plenty of time. ;) Gioxannes is using sampling, so with something like that you can get away with much more modest hardware. But you'll still need to consider cooling it properly. I'd go for heatpipes and slow fans / passive rather than liquid. Liquid is tricky to build so that it doesn't require regular maintenance. (Eventually stuff starts to grow in the lines, or alternatively you get evaporation or leakage issues.)
  22. All I said was it's not an issue to like the music, if it happens to be good. Don't get me started on the music industry... ;)
×
×
  • Create New...