Artesia Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 heres the innards of one of waldorfs first products; the microwave rack rev. 18 voice analog/digital hybrid wavetable synth from 1990 odd..a supprisingly potent little box if you program your own sounds and wavetables on it :) ..and the real filters sound quite nice ..tho not as fat as some. also in spite of the fact that the editing interface is a little scarce ..its not actually too bad to navigate for programming ! Also make sure you backup your patches on this synth; it appears to use battery backed ram & may loose your presets if the battery dies !in all seriousness mind; these are well worth having & sell for peanuts atm.. and its not that far off being like the big daddy keyboard version... (...one day i shall have ;) )(1x) motorola - mc68000ps (16 bit, 12mhz processor (70,000 transistors ;) also used in the first apple mac & atari st)(1x) es2 - 0390bqd1 (8923 1021) (the custom waldorf voice asic ?)(1x) st - ef6850 (for interfacing serial async. data with 6800 cpu bus)(4?) toshiba - tc55257bpl-10 (SILICON GATE CMOS 32,768 WORD X 8 BIT STATIC RAM)(2x) st - 27c512 (512k (64kx8) uv erase eprom)(9x) analog devices - ad7545akn (cmos 12bit buffered multiplying DAC)(9x) ti - rc4558p (dual gen. purp. opamp)(1x) motorola - tl071 (opamp, gen. purp, low noise j-fet)(4x) cem - 5508h (octal sample & hold)(5x) motorola - tl084cn (4 input j-fet opamp)(8x) cem -3389 (the good bits... (1x) 4-pole vcf & (4x) vca on chip) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goblinz Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Hmnn.... Roughly how many peanuts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 in the region of 100-200 uk pounds atm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpmacklin Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Thank you Artesia. The last two of your "internals" post have been great inspiration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAncientOne Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 A quick warning: stick some labels over the windows on those EPROM's. Daylight will erase them as well as UV, just a bit more slowly. A camera flash gun can do the same - almost as fast as UV. If it were mine, and it had been a few days in open light 'topless', I'd be thinking of reading the EPROM's for safety backup, then re-writing them.Thanks for posting this. I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for on, definitely, having seen the build.Best wishes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 its just taking photos of stuff ;)..yes funnily enough it has crossed my mind lately to borrow a friends eeprom burner and back afew things up; as the matrix 1000 & afew other things also use them. the case went back on the microwave pretty sharpish mind ..as ive heard of this tendancy too.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 btw on picking these up ..there are two revisions of the first microwave I ..one has the cem 3389 filters (the older smooth blue chassis here) ..and the latter with the funny textured paint, has the cem 3387's, the same ones that are in the wave monster. however this later revision is reputed to not be as smooth sounding.Also the microwave II has no analog filters at all; its all digital. and in this instance probably be better going for an XT ..its like a mw II on steroids, has a ton more knobs & a fair few more bells and whistles.pick these odd sounding monsters carefully, look after them and theyll serve you well :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashiman Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 I read @ another forum that a cdplayer with industrial 12bit dac received reference status by german hifi magazine , oh . :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 ah the hifi crowd ...if you told them plain earplugs painted green with neat little silver tassles would improve their sound ...theyd take your word for it & buy them in droves (at 8000% the cost price ;) )..tho yes there is a nice quality to 12 bit dacs :) ..notably the early prodigy records where produced & sequenced entirely on a roland w30 keyboard which had 12bit dacs and a nice crunch to it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAncientOne Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 The early Philips/Marantz CD players had a 14 bit D->A with samples cranked out at 4 times the normal bitrate. They sounded way better and smoother than their contemporary 16 bit machines. This of course was in the days before bitstream type converters, and where the laser trimming of the 16 bit D->A's was well inside the bit accuracy. The best advantage was that they could throw away the horrible 'brick wall' anti aliasing filter, with all it's attendant passband ripple problems and ringing, and replace it with a nice smooth simpler filter, rolling off from the much higher frequency.A lot of the quality effects in some of the high end converters come from creative use of dither in the low bits. A pattern locked dither can introduce artefacts of its own, but careful pseudo-random amounts can sound better. The old near legendary Cambridge converters used stacked Philips chips - four if I remember.And we all know why "24 bit audio" is a lie, don't we?For reference, by the way, dither and jitter are separate things.I agree with the comment about the 12 bit Rolands - a positive accurately timed 12 bits can sound more nameitive than time splattered 14 bits or more. I'm with you on the earplugs line: a friend has just spent £200 on some braided speaker cable - and the makers say it has to be 'run in', which I think is a crafty way to get outside the guarantee period. Don't get me started on zero feedback triode class A amps...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Wellington Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 I got one of these in for repairs last year. (Some bad caps and a bad regulator and a couple blown CEMs.) It was originally a 220v unit that made its way here to the States. Anybody know where I can get a 110v power supply for this thing?Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 wanna play swapsies ? ...mines got a 110v transformer on the back ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 ah yes the whole early 16 bit dac gaff...on the note of 'bit dithering' ...bob katz the mastering producer had alot to say about this in a recent book of his & in recent articles.. yup random dithering of lower bits is the way to go.. it actually helps retain sub-bit audio information !24bit ? ..do tell :)whilst im quite well aware that consumers rarely manage to make use of the 90db headroom 16 bit audio offers & that alot of shoddy consumer devices fail to even practically use this headroom ..what else is to be told ? :) ..i've probably read past it already.. but i wasnt awake that day :)mind 24bit, excessive samplerate recording is useful from a sound engineers perspective; it gives lots of leeway & down dither to chisel out an exceptional quality 16bit mix ...and in live situations allows for the full headroom of 130db or so ...for silly dynamics capability's & plenty of leeway for live digital mix busses.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashiman Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 picking on the hi-fi crowd as one crowd I'd avoid that, much to read out there, written by EE's. Sure, if you dont understand shit, they rip you off like no tomorrow thats how it goes.On the other side of the coin, I bought the 1994 Prism dScope from a former newspaper writer, for about 50 Usd on ebay, the new version goes for 12000... The TDA1540 and 1541 are bugged, the dynamic element matching never worked out as expected. The only top tier gear using TDA afaik are the Quantec ... R2r, Laser trimming is better. Double precision, phase optimised oversampling is also good ;D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashiman Posted January 28, 2008 Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 where to find that Bob Ludwig multibit dither phrase? You have it in electronic form can you copy it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted February 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2008 Exchanged 110/240v transformers successfully with the chap in the post above :)nice to know there are folks on ucapps you can blindly trust to do exchanges like this; Thanks :)one thing i will say tho; is pack heavy things like transformers securely ..especially when traveling between continents ! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Wellington Posted February 13, 2008 Report Share Posted February 13, 2008 Sorry about the packing job... I had wrapped the transformer in bubble wrap and was expecting it to be packed in one of those cardboard priority mail boxes we get at the post office. It got put in an envelope instead. :-[ Glad it got to you though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted February 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2008 not a worry these things happen... it got here tho :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted February 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 btw.. not a Dig at the packing Doug..Tho for the benefit of everybody; heres what a loose transformer does to a transatlantic envelope... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 I recently had a guy send me 10 soldering iron tips in a normal paper envelope. The post sorting machine choked on them, and they arrived bent, in a ball of sticky tape with a note from the post office.. Yup, bent. I'd love to see what the machine looks like :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted February 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 LOL ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugfight Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 ...heres what a loose transformer does to a transatlantic envelope...hehe, i used to work at UPS, and we usually reserved such treatment for packages marked "FRAGILE"afaik, that's italian for "throw it" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artesia Posted February 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 im waiting on another package from las vegas atm; with a rev 4 Roland MKS80 in it ;) ..customs in the us sat on it for TWO WEEKS ! (*expletive*) ..now its uk customs turn to delay it & poorly repackage ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nILS Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 Man, that looks like the packages we used to get from our relatives in evil capitalistic West-Germany back in the 80s :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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