Lots of newbie questions - curiously however a little helpless

MIDIbox SID
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Uhm… hi.

Sorry about this little noobish question galore, but I’m kinda new to this whole topic and I’m one of those who wants to triple check anything before I start working on something (or try to egt a new “toy” for my homestudio). I’ve heard the first time of MIDIbox SID while having a topic about “videogame synths” in one of the communities I regulary go to (namely Overclocked Remix). Before that I heard of the SIDstation (which is way over my pricerange, 930+Euro) and the QuadraSID (VSTi). But personally I prefer something that I can touch, has a warm sound through analog cables (it’s just not the same as a VSTi), etc… Or short said “that looks good in a 19” rack".

Well… I read myself a bit through the manuals how to build a MIDIbox SID, but then again I’m totally lost. It’s not the problem with soldering (I’m a trained communication electronics engineer, however a bit out of practice), more like the english manual (which shouldn’t be that big of a problem if I read carefully and I’m actually “not” tired or something). But the thing that scares me off the most though, is the thing with “more SID chips and tweaking knobs”. This is where my brain simply shuts down.

Okay… what I have in mind as “custom SID synth” is the following:

  • 19" rack 1HE

  • would be nice if I have a power on/off button in front with a power supply that is built into the 19" rack, but not necessary

  • good if I have 4 tweaking knobs for attack, decay, cutoff, resonance

  • LCD is not needed unless I’m too lazy to fire up my PC and use the VSTi tool from S.M. (rare)

Looks like this is the “minimal setup” with a custom control device, right?

BUT… there is another problem…

A lot of you are surely using a multi SID system. Then again I have no idea if that gives me any advantage or disadvantage. I know for example that the QuadraSID VSTi uses 4 SID chips, the SIDstation however uses only 1 SID chip. What I want to do is the following:

  • that fast arps you hear a lot in the Turrican C64 OSTs or in tracks from Machinae Supremacy (though they have a SIDstation afaik)

  • having the ability to use multimode (like 2-4 instruments at a time and then bounce everything later. It’s a bit troublesome to create one sound, then insert it into the song, then find another one which fits great then later in the track you add a new one and find out that the sound doesn’t fit with everything else, or everything else not with the sound).

  • Stereo Mode would be nice, but is not needed IMO as external devices and proper panning can liven up the sound anyway (the C64 was mono too if I can still remember).

I don’t want/need a SID synth for live (as in “on stage”) perfomances, as I mainly work with Cubase in my home studio. Just something that sounds nice, and where I can mess a bit around with some knobs if I record some automation parameters (this is why I want a 19" rack). MIDI through isn’t also needed as I have an USB MIDI controller where I can have dedicated MIDI devices - then again… I’m a bit short on ports atm, however most of my racks and my keyboard has MIDI through.

In short words:

I want a simple, however good sounding SID synth, with the possibility to so some little tweaks aside from the mouse. Everything else is just bonus atm, unless 4 SID chip are like “woha, must have”.

Then again I’m fairly lost with the components to build my device. After browsing a bit through the boards I found out that SmashTV offers “kits” that already have everything what I need (god sometimes I can be so lazy - but it’s simpler than running around to get all parts) except the SID chip/FM chip (which I’m looking into, too) of course. However SmashTV is out of stock with the SID kits and I don’t know what’s up with the ID burning of the core boards (aka: I’m lost here).

So my shoutout to all you creative box-creators and builders, can you help a newbie in this topic in building a “custom SID synth” for my needs? As long as it doesn’t exceed 200Euro, everything is fine.

Thanks for the starters help.

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and I don’t know what’s up with the ID burning of the core boards (aka: I’m lost here).

Feel like a chump diving in to try to answer ONE question, but I’m strictly MB64/MIDIMon. :wink:

Compyfox- That should be the header type crap which gets blown into the PIC when you initially program it. I guess it’s mainly in multi-processor boxes where they need to be distinguishable or link to each other. No matter where you get the kits or parts, I personally would recommend grabbing or building a simple board to program the PIC18’s for stuff like that, if you don’t already have one. The JDM is about as simple as it can get. I may have a curse on me or something, but I’ve mangled a couple MIDIBox PIC’s by screwing around with the app (in the actual source code) and getting them to where I couldn’t re-dump a good app over MIDI. The only option then is to rewrite the bootloader and start over, which takes about two minutes if a JDM is hanging around. Otherwise, you may be taking or sending it somewhere just to get that back in it. The instructions for the programming procedure are pretty simple too and well documented. If you try to kill your computers on a regular basis, you may even want to go a few dollars up to one of the multi-programmers that does a wider range of chips as well as the PIC18. I built a “Willem” programmer a while back that does most BIOS chips and some of the old synth and drum machine EPROMs too. People have started mass producing those now, and they’re all over eBay.

Hopefully someone will show up for the other questions soon, but we’re all on different continents and crap. ;D

Good Luck! (and welcome)

George

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Hm… so I could see that ID as kind of “MAC adress” for network cards, I guess. Unfortunately the training to an technitian didn’t cover burning and programming EEPROMs along with a lot of other basic stuff (that’s why I suck reading electric circruits). But yeah. If someone could elaborate on that one a bit, that’d sure be nice.

Thanks for the welcome btw.

Ah yeah… after browins the boards and also the “Boxes of the Week” (woha!), my enthusiasm grew even more, but also the scaryness about buiding such things (cause I simply don’t have any idea at all! But no master fell from the sky anyway).

The boxes (SID and FM) that were most interesting to me were the ones from LO and Dan (d2k):

LO’s mbSID (top box)

Dan’s FM synth, though that’d look good in a rack

Thing on both of it:

  1. I have no idea how to customise my layout (I’m already at stuff that’s interesting if everything works, but I’m just at the start!)

  2. I don’t know where to get a 1U/2U rack with fitting power supply.

Oh yeah… did I load up myself with too much work or is this really simpler as it apears for me atm? (cause if both synths work, I try to build myself a custom mb64 for Cubase, but with faders too).

Uhm… yeah.

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  1. I have no idea how to customise my layout (I’m already at stuff that’s interesting if everything works, but I’m just at the start!)2) I don’t know where to get a 1U/2U rack with fitting power supply.

Oh yeah… did I load up myself with too much work or is this really simpler as it apears for me atm? (cause if both synths work, I try to build myself a custom mb64 for Cubase, but with faders too).

Hey again,

It’s probably as much work as you choose to make it. Thorsten and company have made the circuit and software part of it about as “newbie friendly” as it could possibly get, yet overall, it’s deep enough that you can expand on it and make your own edits or modifications to either one.

The whole design layout/chassis/case thing is more of a “black art”. It could be anything from using an existing case or one that other members have found suitable, to fabricating a totally new one from metal, wood, or plastic. It lends itself to a lot of improvisation and creativity as you’ve seen in the gallery.

Then there is your choice of balance between the software, the electronics and the physical box design. Different users may be focused more on different parts of it than others. I actually started off dreaming of studio tools I wanted, and am now totally wrapped up in learning about the electronics, PCB layout/routing, etching, metalwork, etc., and intend to start focusing more on learning some PIC and assembler skills. Still got boxes on the agenda, but I guess we all tend to do what we enjoy.

As for a rack chassis, I’ve thought about doing a two space for something myself, and had planned to use an existing unit (I’ve got a cheap silver 2U KVM here). I think with anything deep enough, you can probably just bore out holes or a rectangle in most of the face (or remove it), and rivet or bolt a fresh piece of sheet metal over it with your own holes and labels. I’ve got some equipment here where the face plate isn’t even the full dimension of the panel, so if you just cut a rectangle that covered the old knobs or buttons, you could attach it over the front of a rack device and not have to cut the rack screw holes or anything. The difference in panel depth or color at the transition would probably just look like part of it’s design.

I don’t know what the SID guys need on power requirements, but I wouldn’t expect to use the stock internal supply of the rack unit you find. I guess anything which can fit with enough room to breathe could be bolted through the chassis.

For part layouts, you’re best to get an idea of what you want by drawing some pictures or something, and then use a PCB layout app (like Eagle), which will let you see and print the actual shapes of the parts along with the pins and connectors. You can use that same print as a template to punch and mark your front panel holes. I guess that’s mainly for when there will be a PCB parallel to the panel rather than ribbons or wires going to individually mounted parts.

I’ve got to get on to sleep. I’m OK with being awake at 6AM, but I get cranky if I miss the first few minutes of Gunsmoke. :wink:

I’ll probably be back in here tomorrow.               Take Care

-George     

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hello.

first: single height unit rack will be a bit hard i think - it may work though but you might have to solder a few tall caps horizontally.

second: i’d absolutely recommend at least the basic control panel (LCD + 5 buttons + encoder) to be able to control the synth completely without the pc. then i’d go with (considering you wanna stuff it all into 1H rack) filter controls (2 encoders) + combined 5 pots for envelope generators for DCA and for custom envelope. if there’s space for 2 more encoders i’d put (switchable for all 6 of them) LFO controls there too. then, combined with the basic CP i think you have a pretty good control set.

third: one SID chip provides you with a mono output but it has 3 oscillators which are output mixed. that means three “layers” of sounds at the same time. can be three different single - layer sounds or combined. or you can use them for polyphony. so you can play (3-note) chords. any additional SID basically means +3 sounds. i think you’d be happy with four SIDs and it’s really not that much of an extra expense. which leads us to…

fourth: rack enclosings can be expensive. if you intend to buy it pre-made and then the front-panel too then you’ll surely go over 200 euro. other stuff is cheap. or at least can be found cheap.

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fourth: rack enclosings can be expensive. if you intend to buy it pre-made and then the front-panel too then you’ll surely go over 200 euro

No doubt there. :frowning:

That’s why I was recommending ripping something up. It’s really not much more than a box anyway. A good area to look is in outdated network and server hardware. They use the same EIA racks as us, and big corporate and government systems usually have top-of-the-line quality and then throw it away and write it off on taxes when they upgrade, plus the digital stuff ages in a way that no matter how nice the case and parts are, it’s still a piece of outdated crap. You can find some Compaq server hardware like KVM’s and old hub/switches which don’t really function as “stand alone”, or are from old transfer formats that are way too slow to be of any use to regular people today. You might even get lucky on some buttons, lights, etc.

-George

PS- Wouldn’t it be great if old music rackgear aged that way? ;D

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Well I got somebody in my family who’d build me that rack unit. The problem is only “how to build it”.

Okay let’s say I really want to build something with 4 tweaking knobs. According to the manual I have to build the standard box, then then controller with the LCD, then I “have to” construct a 4xSIDs parallel system (can I activate them with the minimal controls too?) and then a DIN module (can I customise it easily so that I only have 4 tweaking knobs?). With the “custom made rack”, I can get off fairly cheap. Even if I’d buy a 1U one.

The main problem on building the mbSID is, if I don’t shoot too far off with it. Okay I could build the mbSID with the basic control pannel and still 4 SIDs (4 mono outs, reminds me of a virus, hm…) and then control it via the VSTi from S.M. and a controller like “Behringer Rotary” or plain automation in Cubase. Also possible. Just have to think about it.

Another question:

If I build a 4xSID Module, can I use different SIDs for that purpose? Let’s say: SID1 is a 65xx, SID2 a 8xxx, SID3 and SID4 also have different numbers? Is that possible? Cause I’m pretty sure I won’t get 4 SID’s of the same branch and built. Also… can I easily “setup” my PICs for that purpose via MIDI programming or do I have them to be burnt beforehand? Or… if I get a 8xxx SID chip first and then a 65xx later, but want the more rough sound of the 65xx, can I easily switch the SID chips without problems or reprogramming, etc?

And the more SIDs in my rack, can I access them separately too? (like MIDI CH1 = SID1, MIDI CH2 = SID2, etc) or can I only access all at once on one MIDI channel only?

Still… can’t I do great music with 1 SID chip already (can anybody confirm if the SIDstation really runs on one SID only?)? Does somebody have some mp3 examples available or are most of the mbSID users 2xSID or 4xSID users?

And… anybody ha photos of a “multiple bankstick” soldered for internal use? Cause like I said… electric circruits are not my thing.

*hm…* Maybe I really set my goal way too high.

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Discussion has been continued in the german forum:

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=5890.0