Hawkeye

Again, fantastic drums! :) well done! Many greets, Peter

Yo man, there have also been discussion threads about oscilloscopes on here, we can't cover everything in one thread :-) I've got an old Hameg 203 and it is sufficient, a modern digital oscilloscope would be better, but you can actually still use these old 80s electron tube scopes, they will work well enough for ripple detection and should not cost much more than 50 euros :-) Good luck! Peter

Hi there, afaik, we only have common ground - and using a high quality filtered switching PSU should not cause too much trouble. Even though digital in design, the MIDIbox circuits should not behave like anything switching and power hungry in other digital domains (like e.g. powerful computer CPUs under high power load/no load, switched many times per second). Of course, there might be "power spikes" when LEDs in matrix configuration are switched at a higher frequency. But I think, this should be possible to handle with a couple of capacitors in parallel just ahead of your "sensitive" analog circuitry. Your best approach is: test. If it does not work as expected: measure. If you see ripple/spikes: filter. If all of that does not work, report back. But: don't worry too much... others have built MIDIboxes with lots of pots :-). And while there are resolution limits, you should be fine... Best regards, Peter

Hi there, if you only need 5V and are building a rather small controller, 60W is indeed overkill and both alternatives you listed are good. But I'd recommend to go for the 5V/3A Meanwell version... good price, it has a metal cage, and i've just looked in the datasheet: it seems to have a 132khz switcher, which is good (above the audio frequency), even if you use it on a plain digital controller with no audio elements. You can improve the switcher ripple by adding a 0.1uF and 47uF capacitor pair in parallel at the end of the supply wire (i.e. close to your controller core), that would be very recommended. I've read nothing regarding a minimum current requirement for that switcher, so you should be good, your MIDIbox will draw a few hundred mA, so all will be well. Good luck and please report back, when you've installed it! Peter

You can probably filter most low-specced switching PSUs (I'd consider the ebay link one, based on the price, it is also unclear if that switcher operates on a low switching frequency, which might add more noise) with a bank of capacitors or a LC/RC filter. Many MIDIbox users had successes with Meanwell switching PSUs, why don't you take a look what you can find? Then buy it, maybe attach it to an oscilloscope under load and check for ripples? A good choice would probably be the meanwell rt-65b - it costs around 25€ but also has +12v/-12v, which you can use for modular stuff, or when you build an extender/fx unit, that uses opamps with bipolar power requirements. Please be aware, that some switchers have minimum current requirements before they operate properly. Many greets, Peter

Hi Antonio, great to hear from you again and sorry for the shaky camera! :-) That ESI is awesome (especially for its price!). If you want a great upgrade for it, I can recommend a SCSI2SD device - it is fast enough, needs no external power (powered by SCSI directly) and has enough storage for lots of samples/sample disks. The ESI sounds exactly like the E-MU Ultra (it loads the same sample banks, too), i ran the drumloops through both units in parallel to test, so you made a great bargain! (mine cost something like 65€ plus shipping). You can also directly fit in a 20x4 OLED from Newhaven, so that is also an upgrade path :-) Many greets! Peter

Hi there, both have advantages: pots: great resolution encoders: more than 270 degrees of sweep range, digital inputs sufficient and disadvantages: pots: the pot may be at one position, but the controller has a different value, e.g. after a patch load, analog inputs required (jitter, ...) encoders: bad resolution personally, for me having encoders with slow parameter changes (high resolution) and the option to push-to-accelerate (a feature imho introduced by Elektron originally), is the best of both worlds. MIDIbox NG supports that. Other people prefer pots, because they have a lot more resolution and 270° is often enough, and you can use "pick up" mechanisms, by sweeping the pot over the current controller value to avoid parameter jumping. Many greets, Peter

Danke, Phat! :-)

Thanks, guys :-) Artyman: am just using the MBSEQ for unmuting/muting prerecorded sequences, but there is so much more it can do (also in a live performance), like transposing, changing track lengths, track (note) directions, adding live MIDI FX and more :) Many greets and keep posting your music! Peter

Why shouldn't it? It is a MIDIbox, after all! :-D (i would not worry about the OLEDs, with 8 displays you can get high refresh rates, look at TKs demo with 4 OLEDs displaying waveforms on the MBCV) Recommendation: just get going, you will know more afterwards and surely learn something in the process! Many greets, Peter

...laying down some patterns, while the little one is asleep ;-) (only had the left hand available for jamming, because the right hand held the cam :-)) Thanks for watching and listening :-) Many greets, Peter

You need a hacking +10 stat in your character sheet to enable OLEDs or VFDs for the MB6582 ;-)

Very nice to hear new music in here! :-) Great, mangled grooves and drums/percussion! Can you elaborate on how you control these from the MBSEQ? Best regards, Peter

Yo tago, it depends on what you want to do. If you look up my voxelspace demo, that runs at 30 fps on a 256x64px panel. So if you have 24 displays (at a smaller pixel density and less grey values), you could still update them multiple times per second... So, in my opinion, all is pretty fast on the STM32F4, and not the microcontroller is the limit, but the serial bus communication - but this is still pretty fast and should be sufficient for audio/MIDI display applications. I wanted to port my old 3D line-graphics engine to MIOS, but have not had time to do it yet. I am pretty confident, that it would run quite smoothly on multiple displays :-) Best regards, Peter

Another mbseqv4+ wish :-) 1) Enable the option to create a file (on disk) to map "real synthesizer names" to combinations of out-port and channel. 2) In the track events page, offer the option to additionally select by synthesizer name (an abbreviation of 6-8 characters would be enough). When selecting a synthesizer name (or when loading a session), it could then select the according out-port and channel (and display it). This would help tremendously, if people remap synthesizers to other out ports, if setups grow, etc. I currently have a printed out lookup-table glued next to the synths, so i can find on which wire/channel a synth is :-). I am aware, that this feature would require a change to the data structures of the session/track, so for now, I just hope it is accepted on the wishlist for v4+, at least another user reported a similar problem ;-) Thanks a lot! Many greets, Peter

Hi Michael, imho, this is a common problem. Your setup grows, you realize you have to move synths to other OUT ports (IIC, or virtual on USB) - and all old sessions are not updated. What *would* be great, would be a virtual synthesizer "chooser" instead of the MIDI OUT / CHN selector for the upcoming MBSEQ V4+. I had the same problem multiple times and will recommend this in the SEQ thread, maybe other users would like that too... I had the idea for a long time, but now you report the same problem... :-) Sorry, other than that, no immediate other solution other than to write down your setup for every song (i do this on pen+paper, and it works most of the time ;-)). Many greets, Peter

Hi tago, in the end, everything is possible, if you are not shy to code a bit... For the mios32_lcd_device stuff, I suspect it is in here (did not have time to look more deeply): trunk/modules/app_lcd/universal/app_lcd.c mios32_lcd offers some generic functions, that can be refined in your own source code. For example in a more complex project handling an extended graphical display (256x64px, 16 shades of blue), demo here: # application specific LCD driver (selected via makefile variable) include $(MIOS32_PATH)/modules/app_lcd/$(LCD)/app_lcd.mk ... you usually add app_lcd to the makefile as shown above... this is then built and linked from the MIOS module path (trunk/modules/app_lcd). From there, your custom lcd driver (here ssd1322) offers functionality specific to THAT display, based on standard mios callbacks, e.g. APP_LCD_GCursorSet()... Now, you can first look in there, which functions are already present. If you need something specific, you can always extend in your own source... If you look into /playground/hawkeye/mbloopa/screen.c/h, you can see some functions I've written for this custom project to extend basic functionality - you can do the same. In there you will find for example font rendering with 16 grey levels, logo rendering and stuff... Just feel free to code what you need. The basic MIOS functions offer everything to put standard text/fonts/icons anywhere on the connected mios screens. I don't see a reason why you should not be able to display two different visuals on a single screen. Best regards, Peter

Hi there, it is probably most evident when looking into TKs codebase, e.g. this directory contains the graphical fonts: http://svnmios.midibox.org/listing.php?repname=svn.mios32&path=%2Ftrunk%2Fmodules%2Fglcd_font%2F (here you see, how the mios default fonts are definied - these are bitmap fonts, that are directly converted into C datastructures for use - there is also a converter tool, that allows to create own fonts) and then, most interesting: http://svnmios.midibox.org/filedetails.php?repname=svn.mios32&path=%2Ftrunk%2Fmios32%2Fcommon%2Fmios32_lcd.c this shows the standard lcd/glcd routines, of interest will be functions like s32 MIOS32_LCD_FontInit(u8 *font) s32 MIOS32_LCD_GCursorSet(u16 x, u16 y) s32 MIOS32_LCD_PrintChar(char c) and so on... Have fun! Many greets, Peter

You might get an 8x4 or 12x4 (with a bit of hacking) MIDI USB interface with up to 12 DIN outs on a 32-bit MIOS based platform running, when using IIC_MIDI modules, but it is true, 16x16 is currently not obtainable without serious hacking ;-). But then, the inbuilt MIDI router of all modern 32-bit MIOS firmwares (SEQv4, MIDIO128, MBNG...) is really great, you can control it e.g. via a small SCS board without computer. And then, some operating systems will allow to attach multiple MIDIboxes to your USB ports (windows sometimes has problems with MIDI port enumeration, but I've got a MBNG, a SEQ and a custom project (MBLoopa) attached to a single Windows 10 machine and it works somehow). :-) Many greets, Peter

Hi there, a) in lead engine mode, you have 4 voice polyphony, because of the cores being layed out as stereo cores - each voice having 3 oscillators and you can program stereo panning e.g. using LFOs. b) yes, in multi engine mode, you can have 24 voices, each voice being a single sid oscillator and each voice being either panned hard left or right, you might need to adjust in your mixer... Yes, MBSID is awesome! :-) Many greets, Peter

Great jam session, very relaxing music! :-) Many greets and have a nice weekend! Peter

Patience is a virtue and he will answer in time! :-) Other good ways to reach him are via MIDIbox chat (he is idling there right now), or via Forum message. Best regards! Peter

Correct, imho because otherwise some encoder-turning events might get lost. A matrix always has a limited scan time per input line. Normal tactile switches are pressed at least a hundred milliseconds or so, these events will always be captured. But fast-turned encoders might pulse the input lines much faster and for shorter durations. Best regards, Peter

Yes, really awesome music and video! :-) And it it is great to see the TPD on VHS, too! How did you film the part with the camera moving around (on top of the car)? Best regards, Peter

Hi Scott, could you rephrase your question and change the topic title to a title that matches the question? As a non-native speaker, i was unable to understand a) the problem you are experiencing b) what kind of answer you expect from people c) what this has to do with MIOS C programming? Any MBSID release by TK. is working per universal law (it is a kind of a constant in this universe, like eulers number) :-). Best regards, Peter