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Overkill with 8 SIDs?


Johey

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As mentioned in another thread, I'm considering building an MBSID of some kind. Currently the MB-6582 is the most interesting option. One thing that I wonder though is, can I really utilize 8 SID chips for anything good? Thats 24 channels! I haven't used any SID featured machine with more than one SID ever, so I have no idea of the posibilities it will arise. That's why I ask.

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Using it in lead-engine mode will result in "only" four channels of stereo polyphony... But unbelievably awesome four channels, these are... :-D

So, 8 SIDs are no overkill at all, and there is at least one MIDIboxer around here, who has built two MB6582, one with the 6581 classics, the other with 8580/6582... :)

Many greets,

Peter

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Cool! More reasons than "only" because you can. :)

While speaking n00b, I have a follow up... You say you can use multiple patches at once if I snap it up correctly. Is every patch assigned to one MIDI channel each? How many patches can you play simultanously?

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You have four MBSID V2 engines at your disposal, and can switch the control surface to work on one or up to four engines at once.

Each engine in "Lead Engine" mode is capable of playing on one MIDI channel (or sharing it with other engines for polyphony, "SuperPoly" mode)

Each engine in "Poly" Mode is capable of playing on up to six MIDI channels, so you can saturate the available 16 MIDI channels nicely - it is all configured in the ensemble and is recallable easily...

Did I ever mention how awesome the MB6582 is? ;-)

Many greets,

Peter

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No better than that? I don't want one anymore...

Or better known as...

Awesome! Very elegant solution. All eight chips will actually be used for goods. Now I'm convinced :). Ordered an eightpack of SIDs today as a first step. Can't decide which one to go for; the MB-6582 or the module based one... Matter of taste I guess.

Will be neat to play SID with my MIDI enabled guitar by the way. :)

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In my opinion, you won't gain much by going modular over the MB6582. If you want a custom control surface, you can still use the 6582 baseboard. I recall TK made mention that the next version of MBSID will still use PICs to control each pair of SIDs (but will add the LPC as the "main" CORE). That means the MB6582 baseboard will still potentially relevant. It may require more modification than a modular approach at that stage, but it still quite compact compared to a modular approach.

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Don´t wait, it will probably be a good while - and as m00dawg said, most likely some components will be reusable...

Personally, I am hoping for the ability to chain two (slightly modified) MB6582 baseboards to one LPC17 controller core to achieve a 16-SID polyphony :)

And my hope would be, that the MB6582 CS can be reused in conjunction with a new graphical display... Whatever TK. develops, it will be very time-intensive...

Many greets,

Peter

Edited by Hawkeye
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I hadn't thought of that but being able to chain 6582's would be a neat feature :) Graphical interface is kinda nice but I don't mind text-mode. Aside from that, some of the really neat things I would have thought TK might have added to MBSID are in the MBCV2 and having it separated makes it more flexible. *shrug*

Oh well ok I know TK also talked about avoiding the ADSR bug with magic in the next version :) But since that can be mitigated I'm not sure what else he would add to an already really solid synth.

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While we're on the "hopes for the future" topic :P

Is there any active thread (which is actually watched by TK) where users suggest additions for the next firmware? I have 2-3 simple things in mind which would come in handy and don't necessarily need to wait until V3, if you people think they are as useful as I think :)

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As far as I can tell, TK just spots the one he likes. There is a thread about adding some additional MIDI OUT clock capabilities, for instance. It's not within a firmware requests thread. I have a feeling his official answer would be if you want something, write the code for it :)

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Of course that would be it and I'd do that if I knew how to do that :P

Anyway, I wasn't trying to get anyone make me something, I just want to throw 3-4 ideas on the table, and if he likes some of them he can include them in a future release and we could all benefit ;)

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I have a MB-6582, and in every way it exceeded my expectations of what I thought I would be. It really sounds great (I have 8x 6582), and the programming is shockingly deep.

I have messed around with layering multiple lead engines, and it really sings when you do. I find that on the whole, the machine excels at ridiculously big leads, very dark bass sounds, gritty sound effects and dubstep wobbles.

I produce techno, and I often find that when my track is missing that little extra bit, I'll muck about with the MB-6582 and come up with a percussive part or two that give me just that little bit of dirt that I need. Be forewarned that sometimes the SID gets sloppy with really busy percussion bits. I think this is part of the nature of the SID itself, not the PIC implementation. For this reason I always record the MIDIbox to its own audio track and record multiple takes.

Sometimes I bring it out with me for live gigs. It consistently turns heads, and I get to tell everybody I built it myself.

@ytsestef: I suggest you throw your ideas out in this thread. Since you don't have a MIDIbox SID of any sort yet, you can't be sure that the ideas you have aren't already implemented in some other way. TK may or may not chime in. Once there has been some discussion, and if TK has not yet said anything, then send him a PM to draw his attention to the thread.

I've made a few suggestions over the years. Some have found their way to the UI, and others were shot down (like "it already does this if you press shift").

Edited by nebula
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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.

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No better than that? I don't want one anymore...

Or better known as...

Awesome! Very elegant solution. All eight chips will actually be used for goods. Now I'm convinced :). Ordered an eightpack of SIDs today as a first step. Can't decide which one to go for; the MB-6582 or the module based one... Matter of taste I guess.

Will be neat to play SID with my MIDI enabled guitar by the way. :)

where can I order an eight-pack of sids also?

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