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Aah thanks! I understand now! The $00 $20 $40 $60 columns each correspond to a different wavetable.. Thanks a lot :-)

Thanks TK.. I'm still scratching my head and wondering how you can see what is going on from that table of numbers - I'm scanning the parameter chart and still no clue.. http://svnmios.midibox.org/filedetails.php?repname=svn.mios&path=%2Ftrunk%2Fapps%2Fsynthesizers%2Fmidibox_sid_v2%2Fdoc%2Fmbsidv2_parameter_chart.txt I'm looking at one of the tutorials - this one is how to make a Sync Lead, and I understand what's going on here.. OSC3: enable the Saw waveform and transpose by -12 OSC1: enable the Saw waveform and set the sync flag ENV1: depth=+63, Attack=0, Decay=72, Sustain=0, Release=0 LFO1: Rate=24 Wavetable: Track1 assigned to CC#72 (LFO1 Depth), adjust the Wavetable Rate to 5 and enter following sequence: STEP CMD #1 00 Play 40 01 Play +00 02 Play +00 03 Play +00 04 Play +01 05 Play +01 06 Play +02 07 Play +02 08 Play +02 09 Play +04 0A Play +04 0B Goto 01 So having set LFO1 to modulate the pitch of OSC1, the ADSR of the patch and configuring the parameters of wavetable 1 (Track 1 assigned to CC#72), I hit the WT Editor menu.. And I'm presented with this: How do I input that series of Play / Goto instructions? And where do I find the hex value for a 'Play' / 'Goto' operand? Cheers for your patience, I am but a SID padawan.. Carl

Hi, I'm struggling to figure out how the new V2 Wavetable editor works.. I followed the tutorial to rip the instruments from a .sid file, and ended up with this.. Wave Transpose Att Dec Sus Rel 10 +00 (+00) 0 112 80 72 +00 +00 (+00) ... ... ... ... +00 +00 (+00) 0 120 0 0 10 +00 (+00) 0 0 0 0 00 +00 (+00) 0 112 80 72 04 +31 ( 31) ... ... ... ... and so on.. However, I can't seem to find where the command byte is (i.e. PLAY, GOTO), or where to put it in the SID wavetable editor.. Could someone give me a quick and dirty explaination of where to input these parameters in the control surface's WT editor? (guessing it's the $00 $20 $40 $60) Cheers, Carl

Hi all! Thought you might like to see my synth! It uses a MB-6582 as the core, running through an SSM2044 filter module, controlled by an Arduino.. I only just realised that the Midibox SID has an analog CV out, but it was too late! I ended up coding an Arduino with a seperate envelope generator and CV out, with two modes - one is a dirty PWM output that mashes up the CV through some filthy capacitor filtering - this is what I'm using in the video clip.. I've since added a seperate DAC chip output for a cleaner CV, but since I liked the sound the PWM filter makes, I kept it, and added a switch to toggle between both modes. I also cannibalized the C64 power supply, so now the whole unit all runs from a kettle lead on the back of the box.. There's some big faders on the left controlling the ADSR, which makes hands-on control of the filter a piece of cake, which is crucial when you're in the midst of a funk jam! There's a MIDI controller built into the box, and the Mod Wheel also controls the filter.. Excuse the MDF box and marker pen labels - presentation was never my speciality! I think it fits the disgustingly mighty sound this monster monosynth creates! Here's a clip from the reCyclotron 64's first outing last week at my Groove Night.. Enjoy the filthy sound of four SID chips running through an SSM2044, into a Roland Jazz Chorus, with some extremely funky British musicians! And big up TK and Wilba for some awesome electronics x Carl

Hello peeps! Did anyone ever successfully get this project working with a Matrix 6? The question's been asked a couple of times before in this thread, and other than a nod towards using a Behringer controller, very little was said.. I've got some old MB cores lying around from my SID-making days (successful they were too!), and I want to build a controller surface into the top of my Matrix 6 keyboard.. Best wishes, Carl

Just a little video of us noodling with a few of the knobs in the bassline engine and getting a feel for the way the Midibox SID works.. Except the session turns into a bit of a rave at the end :ninja: What you're hearing is a MB-6582, running two 8580's.. What we discovered is that each core can run another two basslines (and the third oscillator can modulate them) - so I'm currently looking to pack her out with a few more SIDS! Oh yeah, and the feedback pot is definately a necessity! I bought a 470K pot from Maplin which I'm still waiting on *grr* Enjoy a little Chiptune-Techno, South-London style, as professor Timmy Orangafruup demonstrates the intricacies of the MB-SID in his own unique way.. Oh, and a massive thanks to TK, Wilba, Smash and the rest of the cats who make these things possible, and inspire us all to learn the dark art of electronics..

I figured the ones from Maplin (the 470k linear ones) are fine for me, but then I'm bodging my whole thing into an old C64 case and I want the knobs on the front panel, along with a patched in delay pedal :-)

Since I just finished my Mb-6582, thought I'd share a little clip of me jamming along with Herbie.. Enjoy! Carl aka The Red Reverend x

So, I bridged the Vreg and I'm now sending 12v straight to the SID.. With a rather substantial amount of background noise that I'll deal with later, I'm getting the test-tone loud and clear! But now, once I upload 'setup_6581.hex' - the core reboots, and says "Launching CS" It then flashes what I assume to be an error message, and reboots.. And repeats this over and over again.. Apart from once, when it booted up normally after I left it for a while (at which point the sid wasn't powered so I couldn't check if was working :-( - and after that, nothing.. Maybe i've blown up my PIC after all.. Other apps upload OK (i.e. setup_8580.hex, setup_MB6582.hex) and go into synth mode, but setup_6581.hex - the one I need - just keeps rebooting) Any thoughts on this?

Hi Nils.. Firstly - yeah, I'm using a 6581.. I performed the multimeter test between the vreg ground (middle) pin and the vreg lineout (pin nearest the SID), and i'm only getting 0.2v. With the multimeter negative on the ground lead of my 14v power source, and the positive on the MB_SID 14v in pin, i get the correct voltage, so I can see that the correct voltage is reaching the MB_SID board. And with the multimeter negative on the same ground lead, I can see the same 14v reaching the voltage in of the vreg - so the correct power seems to be reaching it.. I replaced the Vreg with another 7812 - and still I get the same problem.. So although I assume isn't the vreg that's causing the problem, since I replaced it and still get the same result, I can't work out what the problem is, since the correct voltage seems to be reaching it, yet the wrong voltage is being given out.. Maybe part of the trouble is I'm not sure which ground lead I should be attatching my multimeter to - and as a result I get different results..

(Here's a diagram showing what voltages I have on the 14v power section of my SID board..) I hope someone can help - I think this is the final hurdle before I finally get some sound out of the beast! Could I take out the 7812, and bridge the top and bottom holes, and put a direct 12v through this board from a Wallwart? Or is this a bad idea?

GGGGRRRRRR!!! For some strange reason, I'm now only getting 10v on the SID 12v Vdd pin.. I traced it back to the SID board - i've got 14v coming in correctly to Sid:J1, and it reaches the topmost pin of the 7812.. But the 7812 is then only giving out 10v.. I replaced the 2200uf Capacitor, but it hasn't made a difference.. Strangely, I get 14v on the SID:Vdd and SID:Audio Out/In when the core module isn't turned on, but it goes down to 10v as soon as I power up the core.. I tried the testtone, and there's no sound coming from it now - I lost my super-quiet high-pitch whine completely, (except for the high-pithed whine I'm now making out of sheer frustration!)

Aha! I just noticed that CS# is supposed to be giving out 0v when tested.. It lives!! So let's see what sonic delights we get out of this beast..

Hi all.. I'm currently performing the interconnection test between the my core and sid modules - i've got a steady 5.24v on every pin except for CS#.. I've continuity-tested the connections from the PIC pin RC5 to the SID pin CS# - and the connection is good. So i checked the voltage on the PIC pin RC5, expecting it to be sending out the 5.4V, but i can't detect any voltage on it. Is this an indication that my PIC is broken? (I did smoke it a little with a poor power connection, which I've now fixed) - and every other function of the PIC appears fine. I'm guessing CS# has something to do with the clock source for the SID, so I can see that potentially I may have fried this vital function when my SID started to melt.. Any thoughts? Is is it time to call Smash and ask for a replacement? (Hope not! I'm soooo close to hearing the first phat sounds out of this leviathan!) Cheers all!

I'm having problems getting my SID to work using the testtone app - sometimes when I turn it on it doesn't work, but after I turn it on and off a couple of times it works again.. Did you manage to make yours work properly, every time?

As regards the voltages of the SID chip.. I'm getting 14V on VDD, about 10V on the audio in, 10V on audio out, and 10V on Vcc - is this correct? I guess having 10v on the audio pins is ok - but should Vcc be getting voltages as high as that?

Hey all.. It's been a long night.. I finally built the SID module, and wired everything together - I've built a power board, following the optimized psu schematic, and it seems to be giving out a nice steady 14v / 5v.. So I wired the whole thing up, and.. The PIC appeared to start smoking, and left a faint burn mark on Smash's sticker :-( (you can see it on the screenshot) I realised it was because my 5V power cable wasn't soldered to the core module properly.. So just before I threw the whole sorry mess out of my bedroom window I decided to fix the connection and try it again, expecting nothing.. It booted up normally! The only thing that seems to have suffered so far is the backlight on the LCD, which alas is no more.. Apart from that, I still had the 'Ready' signal on my display.. So I jumped straight in and uploaded Sid V2.. Alas, no sound - nothing but a faint click as I play a note, so quiet I've had to turn my volume up full just to hear it.. So I uploaded the test tone - and it plays the high-pitch note! (Very quietly).. I read somewhere that the filters on my 6581 have to be calibrated, but I can't find the application to do it.. Could someone tell me how to do it please? Or maybe it's just because my PIC is scrambled! But then I wouldn't expect it to work at all if that were the case.. And with the Sid application loaded, I get the 'Lead Patch' as expected.. I'm really struggling to figure out why i'm only getting little clicks, especially as the test tone plays (quietly).. If someone could help me out I'd be extremely grateful - I've come so far already! In the meantime, I'll try my second SID chip to see if it fares any better.. Many thanks guys!

Ahh.. My bad! I used a molex connector to connect the LCD to the core - it just needed a little bit of filing down, it now sits snugly in its place.. I now have the 'Ready' message on my screen! One small step for man, one giant leap for my Midibox SID!

Hi all.. I've finally got my PIC to communicate with the PC, and I've managed to upload MIOS to it (using MIOS Studio's hex uploader in Smart Mode).. The pic sends the PC the 'ready' sysex string, and the MIDI sockets are both working.. I've been through the MIDI troubleshooter and everything's fine there.. So I'm trying to get my LCD display to work now - I've got it wired as described in the wiring diagram - the only difference is on my LCD, the backlight power +/- is reversed, but I tackled that.. I checked every pin with the multimeter and they're all connected to the core properly. According to the wiring diagram, I've wired up my screen in 4-bit mode, which it tells me is suitable for PIC18F4685 projects. So, i'm using MIOS Studio to try and send a 'hello' message to the screen, but there's nothing on it. No black bars, no text, nothing - only the backlight. I twiddled the brightness/contrast pots like mad, but still nothing. The only thing I noticed is that the wiring diagram describes putting a 1k resistor on J15/D3 - do I need to do this? Cheers all!

Hi all.. Whilst going through the MIDI troubleshoot guide, I was probing the chip with an LED.. (Maybe this wasn't a good idea?) I tried to connect the LED wires to Rx(26) and Vss(31) - but the wire touched both Vss(31) and Vdd(30) - causing a tiny spark on the PIC leg, and making the LCD screen turn off and on again.. The LCD was blank before (I tried twiddling the contrast/brightness pots, with no joy) - and it's blank again).. could it be possible that I fried my PIC by doing this? Cheers all!

Hey thanks guys.. I'll try these out.. My first port of call is to make a proper power board, so I can be sure that the power getting to the core is stable. After that I'll do the loopback test. By the way, I'm using the newer PIC18F4685 - could that be why the little loopback hex prog doesn't work? Thanks a lot! Carl

Hi There, thanks a lot for your reply.. Here's the results of my tests... Test PROG1: I bought the PIC from Smash, so i assume it's fine CORE1: There's a crystal in there, however I may have shorted it whilst probing just now - i swear I saw a spark! Are they particularly prone to exploding? CORE2: Not for me, I'm using a core V3 CORE3: I think i've ironed out all my soldering bluffs, but I'll keep checking.. CORE4: All Vdds are measuring +5V - they're a little over 5V, nearer 5.7.. Is this a problem? CORE5: All ground checks are 5V CORE6: Midis are checked thoroughly CORE7: Diode is good CORE8/9: I checked the resistors with the multimeter and a magnifying glass and all's good there CORE10: I'm not getting constant sysex messages, just the initial one at power-on: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7 CORE11: The 2200uF seems good, although I'm just running power directly to the board- I haven't built an optimised supply yet, but power seems stable on the board, if a little over 5V (I was getting about 5.65 on the checks) TEST PC1/2 - the computer midi ports are fine At this point, I tried to upload MIOS [see screenshot] each block was showing up on the In Monitor (on the left), but the Upload Control window was showing 'Write Failed' errors, before finishing with acknowledgement responses for the last 8 blocks. I carried on: The MIDI In tests seemed to pass.. TEST IN1A: resistors are fine TEST IN1B: optocoupler is in correctly TEST IN2: MIDI plugs are fine TEST IN3: The LED/resistor between RX and Vss lights up when I try to send a data stream (by uploading MIOS) Further MIDI In tests - the opto's fine, and the LED blinks when I try to upload MIOS I then tried uploading the SW Loopback test.. [see screenshot] Again, the upload displayed an error message, followed by an acknowledgement response.. Then the MIDI monitor started throwing up loads of gibberish before stopping, and not responding to my turning the power off/on (whereas before it would display a power-up/power-down notification. I also then the feedback loop by playing notes - nothing is being returned on the Input monitor though. Not too suprising though, given the little tantrum the PIC just had.. So that's where I am..Basically to summarise my question: Is the Hex file I'm trying to upload to the PIC getting there? Something definately happened after the loopback test was uploaded, although 'a load of MIDI In gibberish followed by nothing on the In Monitor' is not what I expected! Many thanks, Carl

Hmm... I tried to upload the loopback test from MIOS Studio to the pic, and I get the following error, which time-outs after 16 attempts.. Sending block #1 00000000-000000FF Received error code 05: Write access failed (invalid address range) Aborting after 16 errors Does anyone know where I can track this error back to? Is it a problem with the PIC? I'm also trying to send midi notes to the core in MIDI-OX - i'm only getting note on/off reports in the MIDI out window. I've been reading a big thread from 'Dubstructor', who seemed to be having similar problems to me. He was advised to perform this MIDI loopback test - I'm trying to decipher the whole thing, but if anyone has a quick summary of what my problem might be then that'd be really helpful! Cheers guys!

Hi all... I guess the term 'check soldering thoroughly' is something I'm slowly getting used to.. :-) However, i've got the Sysex 'Sign of life' now (F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7) in Midi-Ox (in Midi IN and OUT) - I got my pic from Smash with MIOS preuploaded, and the sysex hex string only appears once at power-up.. I've been using MIOS Studio to check the interface between the pic and the PC by performing SRAM read requests of 32 bytes each, peeking around in various memory addresses.. Whichever location I look at, I get the following on the MIDI In monitor: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7 I'm guessing I'm poking around the volatile RAM of the PIC - does that explain why the data is empty? Are there any ways of poking at the memory of the PIC itself just so I can make sure it's alive? Cheers, Carl PS Many thanks to you all for helping someone return back to electronics after 15 years!

Hi all, I'm getting further along the road to building a SID monster, and enjoying the challenge immensely.. I'm trying to troubleshoot the MIDI in socket, and I'm getting some odd results.. I performed the LED check, connecting Anode to PIC Vss(31) and Cathode to PIC Rx(26) - no light on However, if I connect the Anode to PIC Vdd(32) withe the cathode on Rx, the LED blinks if I play a MIDI file from Midi-Ox, so I can tell that MIDI signals are getting to the core chip. So I checked the Optocoupler.. with the Anode on Opto pin 6, there's no light, but the light does blink if I connect it to pin 8.. I performed the other Opto checks and everything's fine.. I'm doing a thorough check for short circuits and haven't found anything yet. Does anyone have any ideas what's going on? Many thanks, Carl