Had MB6582 soon for a year... Now what?

[Johey]

So last Christmas I finished the construction of my MB6582. It was what I though the optimal synth for me, as I'm a big sucker for C64 game and demo music. Now it has passed almost a year. I've played around with it now and then, but just realizing it doesn't sound as I want. Heck, this should sound 8 times as good as a C64, right? Well, I cannot even get it sounding like one.

 

Have anyone used the MidiBox SID for making chiplike music? Or is it used only as yet another all-in-one synth for ambient leads and fancy drum n base? I need inspiration and hints on how to use it the way I want to. Maybe 8 chips are too much for me. Maybe what I need is something like the MSSIAH?

[monads]

Maybe 8 chips is too much.  I'm still wrapping my head around the sammichSID since I finished the build.  There's a lot of options in this little box so it's hard to focus.  I still think I'd like another sammichSID kit though.  To build it of course ;)   My ideal setup would be using one unit dedicated to stereo leads and using the other's 'multi-engine' for rhythm/percussion or other programming.   I'm sure you can already accomplish the above with your MB6582 build.  But I'm hungry...Wilba release some food for 2014?

[Johey]

Yes you can use the mb6582 as it was four sammichSIDs... Oh well, at least for leads, drum and base. Multi and supersaw I don't know... They might require all cores themselves, but maybe you can select which to assign.

I don't think this is the problem though. Maybe it's hard to explain what I want, likely because I don't really know... :) But ok. What I really want probably is a tracker, like goattracker for instance, but with 24 channels and MIDI. That would be the definition of awesome.

 

I have only played around with the default patchset. Maybe I can do more of what I want by creating my own wave tables. That might be the next step in the evaluation.

[Hawkeye]

Hola,

 

can recommend using the Lead Engine mode on the MB6582 - it is awesome to have 3 OSCs in a patch and still enjoy quad stereo polyphony... it still sounds like a C64, but is enhanced due to more voices... also you could try to play with the LFO and MOD sections there, combining low and higher frequency lfos on stereo panning, filter cutoff and (slight) frequency detuning... All in all, the MB6582 has fantastic sound sculpting options, which I really started to appreciate and understand only after having the hands on a few other hardware synths in the last years...

Also, definitely try to build your own patches from the init patch, only you know, what you want to hear... :)

 

Many greets,

Peter

Edited October 16, 2013 by Hawkeye

[Johey]

I was actually hoping for you to come cheering me up, Peter - the master of actually using the MB6582! :) I guess you're right about creating your own patches. That is something I must spend some time with.

 

How do you prefer creating your patches? In some computer based patch creation software or right on the machine using the control panel? Then, do you save the patches in a bank or do you send them from your sequencer over sysex? The latter I haven't even tried and don't know if it is even possible... Why I ask is because I think I need some hands-on tips so I can focus on creativity rather than looking for how to do things...

 

Btw... I've bought and sold a number of hardware synths the last two years. Never found one that sounds like I want. Heck, I'm not even sure I like synths. Still, I really love the C64 sound. I've made a handful of SID tunes the last 15 years, so I know I like that. :) Other than that, I rather play my balalaika than my Minibrute (though the x0xb0x is quite fun to play with for half an hour now and then). Hope to fall in love with the MB6582 for real soon though.

[jjonas]

I've found the randomizer (RND if I recall right) to be a good way to make new patches -- not just atmospheric noise :-)  The MBSID randomizer is a lot better than e.g. on Waldorf Blofeld which allows you to randomize only "everything", whereas MBSID allows you to limit randomization to different sets of parameters, which is much more useful. Most of the randomized stuff will sound awful, but sometimes you just strike pure gold, and with just a little tweaking you get great patches (atmospheric or not).  I've found that once you come up with a nice patch, the patch kind of composes itself into a tune! The same applies to guitar effects BTW :-)

 

I don't know how well these tips are suited for getting chiptune sounds though; I've been mostly making other stuff than chiptunes. For me the sid sound is just a part of our band's general synth-rock sound (or whatever), mostly not even the dominant part.

[Hawkeye]

Thx!

 

Yes, the randomizer is great - by using it often, you will hear the fantastic sonic possibilities of the MBSID plattform - it can sometimes not sound very SIDlike, more like a full-blown synth, but some sounds, especially those with that that special raw Squarewave-SID-sound remind of the sounds of the old masters (Rob Hubbard, Chris Huelsbeck, Jeroen Tel, ...). They often added special programming to their "patches", which is not super easily to be reproduced (you would need to automate some CC comands to achieve the same effects or dive super-deep into the modmatrix).

 

When I built my MB6582, I did not install the defaults bank on it at first, it was a jump into the cold water, and me was totally confused by all the possibilities... and I still haven´t explored them all, yet - by now I am on patch A86 and creating every new patch is just fun :smile:. So I would recommend to start with a fresh bank, and just experiment. I only use the nice knobby hardware interface, trying to avoid computers where possible :smile:. Also I only save the patches on the banksticks, no DAW integration. For a live song, I then write down, which synths need which patches for any given MBSEQ V4 song, even if changing to the proper patches could be automated within MBSEQ.

 

One last tip - add a decent delay or chorus software or hardware effect to the raw sid sound - it will make a great difference :-D.

 

Many greets!

Peter

Edited October 17, 2013 by Hawkeye

[Johey]

Now I'm away abroad for the weekend, but next week I will hopefully have a few hours for playing around with the MB. I am grateful for the tips! Will try the randomiser, but I like to have control, so I will likely spend more time actually trying to understand each parameter.

 

If I can take control over the wavetables like I can with a SID tracker, I think I actually can find it useful.

 

One question which might be in the manual but I must have missed when I read it: I assign a MIDI channel to one or more cores. That I understand. Now I can play four sounds without doing a program change. But can I also assign different patches to different keyboard keys within one channel? Useful for playing drums for instance. Now I'm talking about the lead engine. I could use the drum engine, but if so I would like to use the patches only, not the sequencer. Don't know what is good practise or even possible here.

 

Maybe it was a mistake installing the preset bank. Perhaps erasing it would be a good idea, or at least more it away from A. Yesterday I saved my first patch! Very much like the tutorial patch by some reason :) but with modwheel assigned to cutoff (which by some reason affected left and right channel very differenty, although both channels were selected, but that's another story).

[Hawkeye]

Hola :)

 

Yes, imho you can limit patch responsiveness to a midi note / keysplit region:

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_manual_fs.html

search for SpL and SpU

 

For your usecase, you would go with drums on the first engine, with a split region nailed to the lower keys, and three lead engines with a split to the upper keys, all engines on the same midi channel - that should work fine. An engine can only hold a single patch, but you have four of them ;-).

 

You might want to try a computer editor (e.g. Rutger´s or Ctrlr) for Wavetable (also Bassline Sequence) editing - as there are a lots of parameters to be entered, it might be quicker with a mouse.

 

Enjoy! :-)

Many greets,

Peter

[Johey]

Okay, thanks! That feels a bit limited, doesn't it? Or do I misunderstand? This is how I do a typical SID tune in a tracker for one single SID: First I do the drum n bass track on channel 1. Here I typically use two or three different instruments alternating. In the next channel I do chords (or rather arpeggios fast enough to sound like chords). Here I use to or three instruments (one for each chord type, like major, minor and septima). Then on the last channel, I typically do a melody with one or two instruments.

 

All in all I typically use five to ten instruments on one single SID chip in my tune. Limiting myself to a total of four instruments on eight chips feels like the opposite way to what I was hoping for when building the machine. :)

 

Though, maybe the drumkit engine is somewhat close to what I want. And I understand one instrument is more powerful in the MB than in a SID tracker, so I might be able to use one instrument for what I normally use several, so the comparison might be a little weak. Anyway, assigning several patches to one core should be possible... That's my humble opinion. :)

[Sauraen]

Others may be more qualified than me to address this, but AFAIK the point of the MIDIbox SID lead engine is to let you use multiple voices (and/or multiple SIDs) to make one "instrument" sound, whereas on an actual C64 you would use one voice to make multiple "instruments" or sounds on an alternating basis.

 

However, look at the Multi Engine, which will let you do 24-voice polyphony with a MB6582. You could even do multiple "instruments" being played at different times with one channel by sending a ton of CCs to set up all the parameters every time you wanted to switch instruments (possibly every beat!), if you're willing to program that into a DAW.

 

As far as the wavetable, I refer you to the lead engine's manual:

"The term "Wavetable" is used by the C64 community for a synthesis method, where the waveform and frequency of a SID voice is modulated so fast, that the resulting output sounds like a new waveform, which is originally not provided by the soundchip itself. The parameter changes are stored in a table - that's the reason for this name - the technique is not related to "wavetable synthesis", which is based on audio samples.

MIDIbox SID provides a very generic wavetable sequencer, which can not only control the waveform and frequency, but any parameter which is also accessible via NRPN"

It's basically a 32-step 4-destination sequencer for parameter changes. This is not the same as creating a fourth voice for the SID to play (which some trackers allow you to do).

[jjonas]

Just like Sauraen said, by designating maybe just one core for more "refined" and complex patches, using drum engine on one and multi engine for the rest (2 cores with multi patches = up to 12 different sounds) should be worth trying. If you're looking for a more chip like sound, the up to six simpler sounds of one multi patch (which works better if you set the respective core mono) might even be more apt for that purpose than one or two more complex stereo patches.

[Johey]

I am glad I started this thread. This gave me valuable insights in the multiengine. I only thought the multiengine was a way of making the MB a 24 voices polophonic synth, but that is obviously wrong. I will play around with that.

 

Thank you for all suggestions! Now I think I know what is the next step. :)

[TK.]

If you're looking for a more chip like sound, the up to six simpler sounds of one multi patch (which works better if you set the respective core mono) might even be more apt for that purpose than one or two more complex stereo patches.

 

I second this!

 

For chiptunes the usage of simple sounds with different timbres for the instrument lines is essential, otherwise the mix won't work.

 

In order to simplify the usage of multi-engine patches, I would propose to assign each instrument to a dedicated oscillator. This can be done in the CFG menu, item "VAs" - change it to O1 for the first instrument (I1), O2 for I2, O3 for I3, etc... Mono mode should be enabled as well (if you prefer Poly, then it's another story: you could assign it to the left or right SID)

 

Advantage: now it's also easier to assign filters to oscillators which are directly assigned to the instruments. E.g. enable the left SID filter only for O1 (played with I1), and the right SID filter to O4 (played with I4) - now you can control the filter with ENV and LFOs and WT without conflicts.

 

Last but not least the MIDI configuration: in the ensemble, you could assign each instrument to a dedicated MIDI channel.

But sometimes it's better to use keyboard zones on the same channel instead.

E.g. if you want to play a melody line with three different timbres (-> instruments), then just assign the instruments to different zones in the ensemble INS menu (SpL and SpU item), and transpose the zones so that they play in the desired octave range.

-> now you can play the instruments from a single "piano roll" in your DAW.

 

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Johey]

Ok folks, this is fantastic! Now I'm actually starting to feel like I'm controlling this thing. :smile: It's all about the multi engine, yes. Thank you peoples!

 

Edit: Oh my gnome! I've just learned about the ADSR bug, the hard way. It's so obvious. Though, I might have overcame it by setting the sustain value to 14 instead of 15. With 15 the bug affects about 1/5 of all notes when going wild over the keys, but with 14 I haven't succeed trigging it even once. It'll eventually bang my head again for sure, but currently I feel it's gone. :D

Edited October 21, 2013 by Johey

[jaytee]

Not sure if you're aware, but there's a "Gate Stays Open" toggle somewhere in the menus. Basically it means that once you start playing, the VCA gate never closes, which lets you use an EG assigned to the filter for your envelopes. Most elegant way I've found to get around the Adsr bug.

[Johey]

Yes, I found that one... But do you mean I can use a custom envelope instead of the SID ADSR in some way?

 

Unfortunately it does not seem to work for the multi engine, but it might be a good thing to look at for the lead engine.

[jaytee]

Well, you can't control the amplitude except with the buggy SID ADSR as far as I know. The idea is just that you'd use the filter and the software envelopes in lieu of any kind of amplitude envelope.

[monads]

I second this!

+1. I was experimenting with this setup last night. I basically setup a default Ensemble with each instrument (mono) dedicated to a midi channel and a corresponding default Multi Patch. In the ConFig menu I setup Ins1-3 to the 'L' VA, and Ins4-6 to the 'R' VA. Simple sounds is the key to blend the mix, otherwise you'll get frequency clash. Using the Filter helps, but you only get a single Filter per SID chip/3 oscillators.

[Hawkeye]

The multi engine is really cool!

 

In the end, it all depends on what you are trying to achieve and which sound your are looking for.

 

Personally, i like the lead engine a lot, because it gives me the chance to refine the c64-style sounds with sub-oscs, slight detuning, stereo fx and have one filter per engine at the disposal. If you have too many different sounds/patches active, there is a chance everything drowns and you are likely to get a frequency clash in your mix, exactly as monads said.

 

But what it is all about, experiment and find what you like best! Enjoy! :-D

 

Many greets,

Peter

[Johey]

Yes, I'm working with the machine this way now. It is good that these things are possible at least, however it gets quite obvious it isn't designed mainly to be used that way. :) But no, I should not complain. I'm very happy I finally made it sound like a C64. :)

 

Next up to learn is the drum engine. At least the patch part. The sequencer is not yet of interest for me as I'm sequencing with a computer, but you never know. Eventually it might be handy.