What's everybody doing with these things?

[Goblinz]

I'd be interested to know what people are (planning on) doing with their finished SID projects and if anybody is using them professionally.

Personally I'm building mine as a learning excercise and as a way to learn a bit about PIC programming. I'm starting to learn how to use fruity loops on the PC and bought an old Yamaha Portasound-780 midi keyboard as a controler (£12 of ebay :D), when I got the keyboard I found that it had a very rudementary 2 oscillator FM synth buit in and fell in love with manipulating the sounds that could be produced.

I stumbled upon uCapps whilst looking for some schematics for a midi theramin (still not found any) and was so impressed when I heard the SID mp3 tracks (i think it was the zombie nation one that did it) that I decided I had to look into building one (I've had a bricked C64 in storage for ages so I'd be a fool not to). I spent ages looking at the uCapps site and reading, but the whole thing seemed a bit daunting untill I found a link to Wilba's MB-6582 on hackaday. I signed up and realised that it's a real privalage to be a member of such a helpful group of people who are offering their time, skills and expertese all for free to help people build these things. Suddenly the project seemed a lot less daunting.

I'm just at the ordering stage at the moment and am going to build a 1 SID no-control surface synth to get a grips on how things work, before moving on and building one based on Wilba's design. Hopefully by the time I get the first one built I should have managed to source all the SIDS and other bits to build a version of Wiba's beast.

When I get the SID synth built I'm looking at using it along side Fruity Loops to make music, more as a hobby than anything else. I'm really into psy-trance, both progressive and full on, but my real home in music is in the goth scene. There's atype of music called EBM (escuse me if you're familiar with this) which is a bit like trance music, but with lyrics, a hell of a lot more bouncy with a real industrial side to it; Some good groups that play EBM are Rottersand, Combichrist, Apoptygma Berserk, Icon of Coil and VNV nation. The beauty of EBM is that a lot of the time iit uses has really, really, really dirty synth lines (check out some of Apoptygma Berzerk's earlier stuff and you'll see what I mean) which sounds like the SID synth will be more than capable of producing.

I don't think I'll ever look at producing music professionally or doing live performances, but am looking forward to having a lot of fun when I get this thing built.

So, how did everybody else get into this? Who's using these thing's professionally for either producing tracks or live performances?

              G

[rutgerv]

Hi,

I just finished an 8xSID synth (+ 8 moog filters) and put it in an 19" enclosure. It's running on the new MBSID V2 beta 8 software since yesterday and I plan to use it for a couple of gigs with the band Autumn: www.autumn-band.com. I've been asked to replace their keyboardist (Jan Munnik) for a couple of gigs, so I've been working on the songs and sounds for the past few weeks and the SID synth seems to fit in nicely for some leads and fx.

With my former band Orpheo (www.orpheo.nl) I've been playing on another synth that was a DIY project. It's a semi-modular analog synth (monophonic).

So, yes, I think these DIY synths can be used for studio and live purposes.

Greetings,

Rutger

[DrBunsen]

schematics for a midi theramin (still not found any)

Jaycar.com.au have a kit for a midi theremin.  You could also check out the PAiA.com theremax, which has CV and gate out.  You could add a MIDIbox to that and have MIDI out.

[cosmosuave]

I plan on using mine in the studio and for live pa gigs with Ableton Live and a Nord Micro Modular... Currently building one and have just finished the core, 2 sid, and the din modules...

[dubka]

Just started using it on remixes - I'll post any upcoming releases.

Might even use it live to recreate the sounds from the album I produced earlier this year.

www.myspace.com/cazalsuk

You can hear the sid (panned right) doubling the lead guitar in To Cut A Long Story Short.

Oh yeah, and I sit on my own playing heroic C64 melodies a lot too  :-)

Very inspiring little synth - glad I made it.

Martin

[glitched]

This is actually a really good discussion because some people build the mbsid just for the fun of it (weirdos)! 

I really enjoyed making mine, but haven't recorded one single note.  I think I'm probably still in the discovery phase, but maybe I'm not.  Even if I don't use the "NES_SID" very often, it's still a great conversation piece.  ("WTF is that thing?")

[faton]

Hello, I plan to build my own because I need a SID synth for my creations, and I can't spend 790€ in a SidStation from Elektron...

http://utopikprod.free.fr/index.html

If you want to listen my old electro compos

[bugfight]

Hello, I plan to build my own because I need a SID synth for my creations, and I can't spend 790€ in a SidStation from Elektron...

http://utopikprod.free.fr/index.html

If you want to listen my old electro compos

very nice stuff, faton.

can't wait to here what you do with the sid...

[ris8_allo_zen0]

With a SID and a SEQ my intent is to learn music in a non-conventional way (I already know about synth theory, scales...). I'd be happy to make some nice songs too, but there's no hurry :)

RAZ

[kieran]

i'm a bedroom producer.. have been on and off for near 15 years now and have played on national radio and at several raves back in my native adelaide - I'll integrate my mb6582 into my setup and use it for both some of its characteristic arps, as well as some other 'gee, i didn't know that was a c64 sound' type stuff. it'll integrate with my other synths (access virus, juno 106, electribe ea-1) and drums (tr707, electribe er101) hooked through my emagic unitor 8 in a mess of 8x8 midi cable nirvana.. but i still need a desk and am thinking of getting a Korg zero 8, which will be a great control surface for my all my hard synths as well as softsynths etc. Am also thinking of building a MBseq - which I first began collecting bits for in 2002!  :P I just love playing and twiddlin knobs!