Rio 6 Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 (edited) As I understand it, the second or triple SID mode is only available in conjunction with the 2SID card and a special wiring, right? Edited January 16 by Rio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dwestbury 25 Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 (edited) On 1/16/2021 at 2:35 AM, Rio said: As I understand it, the second or triple SID mode is only available in conjunction with the 2SID card and a special wiring, right? You could chose to tap the primary Arm2SID and route the cables yourself to get into 2nd / 3rd SID capabilities. However, having the second (dummy) Arm2SID is a more convenient choice for intercepting chip select and routing audio-out for a second SID. There's some fairly useful documentation on the site: https://www.retrocomp.cz/produkt?id=20 Edited February 3 by dwestbury Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rio 6 Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 (edited) In the end, I just ordered a pair of armsid. I am not sure, but you mean the second 2sid is just a dummy for a better routing of a second audio out? Edited January 17 by Rio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dwestbury 25 Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 6 hours ago, Rio said: In the end, I just ordered a pair of armsid. I am not sure, but you mean the second 2sid is just a dummy for a better routing of a second audio out? Basically, yes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jjonas 48 Posted January 30 Report Share Posted January 30 I bought two pairs of ARM2SIDs, here's my experience. The first thing to say is: in my opinion one should not buy one ARM2SID for their MBSID for any reason. Buy two ARMSIDs instead. If it's true as dwestbury says a few messages above — and it would seem to be true — then the other chip in an ARM2SID pair is a dummy which makes no actual sound; instead the sound of the main chip is just doubled. Obviously that doesn't produce a stereo sound, only a louder mono sound. Maybe that's what a C64/128 user needs, but it's the wrong solution for an MBSID. Fortunately I could use the main ARMSID from each pair I bought to make one independent pair where each chip produces its own sound. And that sound is very good, I do recommend it (just check dwestbury's sound samples above). Unfortunately I effectively paid almost double the price for two ARMSIDs because I could use only half of what I bought (ARMSID = 28€ vs ARM2SID = 48€). But that's the nature of DIY sometimes :-) Hopefully this "research" will benefit someone else! As to the installation, it was a drop-in affair — no configuration needed on an actual Commodore 64/128 (which I don't have). Not sure whether it makes any difference, but I'm giving them 9VDC and that seems to work. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Noise-Generator 34 Posted January 30 Author Report Share Posted January 30 Ok, this information seems to be very important, I will remark that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
m00dawg 17 Posted January 30 Report Share Posted January 30 Hmm I think the issue might be related to needing to update the MBSID firmware. Looking at the ARM2SID page, this jumps out at me: "Expander emulation is possible only if the adapter or board supports DFxx addressing on the second socket (e.g. MixSID and ULTIMATE-64)." This would imply to me that MBSID doesn't do this out of the box, but likely could with some modifications. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rio 6 Posted February 1 Report Share Posted February 1 (edited) The DFxx address is only related to the address range of the C64, not to the real PIN Out. Edited February 1 by Rio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Martin Lukasek 2 Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 (edited) Hello, it is quite different. If you use ARM2SID with the second SID2 socket, connect it with provided 6 pin wire, and configure it to SOCKET configuration (it is by default) it behaves in 2 SID sockets as 2 SIDs. No doubling the output, ARM2SID has enough processing power so it can process 3 SIDs inside, so in 2 SOCKET configuration it processes both SIDs (the chip select and R/W is brought to the main chip by the wire) and sends the second SID audio back to the SID2 socket by another wire. Thus ARM2SID in socket configuration with SID2 socket and the 6pin wire behaves exactly as 2 ARMSIDs. You can set in configuration one as 8580 and the other one as 6581 or adjust filters and digifix independently. The option on picture that dwestbury published above with directly connected wires is for implementing ARM2SID to C64 or similar and when you provide all the addressing by wires, it does not need any stereo adapter and it supports stereo or 3SID or FM emulation, but it needs the additional wires for addressing. With the 2 SOCKET configuration, it can work only as a stereo, not dual mono as jjonas says. The second SID2 socket provides input and output for the 2nd SID emulation, even it is an empty socket conversion placeholder. Best regards Martin Lukasek ARMSID technical suppot Edited February 2 by Martin Lukasek 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Martin Lukasek 2 Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 NOBOMI reminded me one more feature that can make the second SID (the SID2 socket) play the same music as on the first one. If you do not send any notes to the second SID2 and play only to the first main ARM2SID, it switches itself after 15s to dual mono mode to provide music on both channels, which can make a confusion, that it plays mono. It does not, it just plays the same notes on the second emulated SID. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jjonas 48 Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 Hi Martin, thanks for your input into the discussion! My message was based on my direct (and relatively uninformed otherwise) experience, where putting an ARM2SID pair into my MB6582 SID synth (connected with the included cable, and replacing two 6581 SIDs which produced a stereo sound) resulted in a mono sound, while putting two "main" chips (taken from two ARM2SID pairs) into the same sockets (without the connecting cable) resulted in a stereo sound. I didn't change any settings in the chips, or in the synth. What could explain this? Do you think it can be explained by looking at the ARM2SID pair alone, or should the MBSID harware and firmware be considered as well? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Martin Lukasek 2 Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 (edited) If you have ARM2SID connected by cable to SID2 and place both to two sockets, it should play stereo the same way as two SIDs. If it does not, then there is something wrong. Was the cable fitted correctly on both sides? Are you able to check configuration in some C64? It should be configured this way by default. Could you give me your order number? I will check it. ARM2SID without cable behaves the same way as ARMSID, it is just a little bit expensive ;-) Edited February 3 by Martin Lukasek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jjonas 48 Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 The order number is 002188 (it was shipped on 12 January). Unfortunately I don't have a C64 available. I think the cable was correctly connected. But I can test it again, both with the cable and without it, and see if it makes a difference in my situation. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dwestbury 25 Posted February 4 Report Share Posted February 4 (edited) This video shows you how to use a C64 to configure your ARM2SIDs for full stereo, using Socket mode. If you want to fast-forward through the “discovery, trial and error”, skip to ~28:00 Once your ARM2SID configuration is saved to the internal flash memory, you can move them into your MIDIbox for Stereo pleasure... Cheers Edited February 4 by dwestbury Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Martin Lukasek 2 Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 I am sorry for my mistake. The default configuration is set to WIRE, so it is necessary to change the configuration to SOCKET, as dwestbury said. You can use any C64/C128 related computer. We had the SOCKET as default configuration initially, but later we changed the default, as it could cause conflicts in some particular wire configurations, while WIRE is always ok, just the second SID is not addressed in the second socket. If you make a note while ordering the ARM2SID to you order, I can send the ARM2SID configured as SOCKET. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Noise-Generator 34 Posted February 10 Author Report Share Posted February 10 Thank you for making this clear, Martin. The question is still unanswered if itˋs possible to use Vice via Asid with a Midibox SID to configure DSP Clone Settings instead of a real C64. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rio 6 Posted February 10 Report Share Posted February 10 (edited) 2 hours ago, Noise-Generator said: Thank you for making this clear, Martin. The question is still unanswered if itˋs possible to use Vice via Asid with a Midibox SID to configure DSP Clone Settings instead of a real C64. Good question, I don't always want to lift the SIDs out of the C64 socket to do configurations or even possible future firmware update for the ARMSID. but I can hardly imagine it because there is a simple protocol behind it. Edited February 10 by Rio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Noise-Generator 34 Posted February 13 Author Report Share Posted February 13 Yes, but in the end this are just 8bit code lines which turn registers on and off. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
fcebreros 4 Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 I'm in the same predicament, I bought the ARM2SID for my MB-6582 but are stuck with the double mono and have no Commodore at hand. It would be great to able to send a string from MIOS studio to change the configuration to SOCKET. BTW the Arm2SID arrived very fast, sounds extremely good , comes in a nice little box and even has a printed manual. Kudos retrocomp. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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