EsotericLabs Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 Hello, Now look what I found: http://www.serdashop.com/waveblaster Seems like a cute little widget for any Midibox project needing a GM soundboard. PCB with a SMD sound IC, takes 5V power and ttl midi in and out comes sound. We could stuff it in a MBSEQ for onboard sounds. Or in Midio128 for an advanced midi file player. Or... or.. I'll get one and give it a try! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuriken Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 Nice find. Curious what the sample quality is. But it's probably not that great with just 4Mbit of ROM. Love to hear a demo when you get it :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted March 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 (edited) jaja, will do! Edited March 27, 2014 by EsotericLabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted March 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 (edited) Soooo. I found an envelope in my mailbox today with this little cutie. That's amazingly rapid delivery, even though Belgium is not far. It is very compact, only 4x4 cm! Here's a pic next to my dirty keyboard! Couldn't resist and ABC'ed the Dreamy soundboard with some other gear. I just threw a standard midi file at it, recorded it in Cubase 7.5 with no mixing, effects, compressors or fiddling whatsoever (44kHz100, 16 bit). The midi file is the (in)famous Dragostea Din Tei... Its contestants are the GM basic sound set of Halion Sonic SE of the Musikmesse Award Winning Cubase and the legendary vintage unobtainium-chipset Yamaha DB50XG. Halion Sonic was the least convincing to my ears: a bit muffled dull sound, like a blanket on my speakers. The DB50XG is still a great piece of gear with a well balanced, transparent but slightly classical overall sound. This tiny little Belgian gem stands the test! Not bad at all!! It is punchy and sparky, with a definite modern 'electro' presence to it. Comparing to the DB50XG, I would tweak the mix or the EQ settings a bit to soften the hihat and the edge of the synth bass. But at only 30 euros its a steal and it is plug and play onto the j4b of your lpc17 midibox! Verdict: Cool little widget to spice up your MB-SEQ, MB-NG, MIDIO128 or any box you like. I'll definitely keep working with it and do a midi implementation in NGC. Here are the mixdowns, so you can hear them yourselves! DB50XG_mixdown_04.mp3Dream_mixdown_01.mp3HSSE_mixdown-01.mp3 Edited March 27, 2014 by EsotericLabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niklasni1 Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Sounds pretty good... how much can you edit the sounds on this thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sauraen Posted March 28, 2014 Report Share Posted March 28, 2014 I've been looking for something like this for a while--specifically just looking for DB50XGs, but this would work too. It would fill a gap between the old-school but all-controllable sounds of MIDIbox FM and my high-end orchestral samples. That said, if it's just basically a hardware soundfont player, I have a large (~1 GB) collection of similar old-school soundfonts I can always load up into a DAW and make music in. That's not quite the thing for live performance, though. tl:dr; Cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted March 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2014 (edited) I think the sounds are in ROM. But it has two 128-sound banks, reverb/delay chorus/flanger, 4 band EQ and a surround effect. So there is lots to toy with, I heard the EQ is great. It's all under NRPN, so it's programmable. I ll dig thru the midi impl, see what it can do. It's a small Belgian company, so a ten piece bulk order might make them happy. Edited March 28, 2014 by EsotericLabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sneakthief Posted March 28, 2014 Report Share Posted March 28, 2014 (edited) Here's another version from the US for $34.95: http://moderndevice.com/product/fluxamasynth-shield/ More info: http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-61315.html Edited March 28, 2014 by sneakthief Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted April 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2014 (edited) There are some more soundclips of the little synth board out there, tunes from famous video games. http://www.wavetable.nl/files/comparison/games/Descent/Intro/Descent%20-%20Intro%20%5BDreamblaster%20Synth%20S1%5D.mp3 http://www.wavetable.nl/files/comparison/games/Doom/E1M1/Doom%20-%20E1M1%20%5BDreamblaster%20Synth%20S1%5D.mp3 Or check them all out at http://www.wavetable.nl/?cat=4 On a stabilised 5V PSU, it operates with really low noise, under -96dB. Once my SEQ CS is ready (waiting for a formulor package) i'll make a real tune with it! Edited April 17, 2014 by EsotericLabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted May 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2014 A small demo on youtube. The boardie even works with arduino. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EsotericLabs Posted August 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 And another one wil cool bass resonance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPKu0NKddRQ&feature=youtu.be'> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yogi Posted August 10, 2014 Report Share Posted August 10, 2014 Thank you for the info. Ordered a Fluxamasynth after reviewing all the great links here! Had seen the Fluxamasynth (what a name!) but had thought it was more like a VS1052 chip. Those sound samples changed my mind. For a very long time, off and on, I have wanted to build a Waveblaster GM voice but never could 'commit' to a db50XG. This little board, combined with a MIDIO128 front end will rock! Still would like a XG synth but this guy will be a nice alternate. yogi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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