KVR Audio

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:26 pm

Hello,

I found this DIY project http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid.html 2 or 3 months ago in a KVR thread and decided to give it a try....
This is maybe the reason why i don't write music anymore... (I hope so...)

For those who don't know what a SID is, it is the sound chipset of the old commodore 64.

I've just finished my box.... which is not as nice as the one on the website but i'm happy to have made it working.
This was not very complicated to do. But it takes much time...
And costed more than expected.

Here are some pictures of my new (and only one) hardware synth

And it sounds great !!!!
Now i have to make a song with that !!!

Xavier

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:31 pm

Wow wow wow! I have been wanting to build one of these for some time...Very nice work you've done!

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:32 pm

Scot Solida wrote:Wow wow wow! I have been wanting to build one of these for some time...Very nice work you've done!

Hi Scot,
In fact, you were the one who posted the link 3 months ago !!

So thank you

valdiorn · Post by **valdiorn** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:45 pm

Wow congrats! I love the sound of these boxes and the SID chip, have been thinking alot about building my own, but decided to wait until I start my computer engineering studies next year, just so that I know a little more about what I'm doing and don't screw up

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:08 pm

Cool, someone else made one of these a couple months back, they posted an ultra cool demo of it too. Great sounds, fun little box... Enjoy

tk421 · Post by **tk421** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:26 pm

That looks awesome! How difficult would that be for someone with no relevent experience? Since I only have used VSTs, how does it output the sound and what equipment do you need to play it? Does any MIDI controller work and do you even need to coneect it to your PC?

Rozzer · Post by **Rozzer** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:32 pm

F*ckin cool Ixox

I've always wanted to do one of those, but I think my electronics skills aren't up to it

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:50 pm

Thanks...

tk421 wrote:How difficult would that be for someone with no relevent experience?

It's not hard to build if you have some minimal knowledge in electronics (and computer science if you want to have a custom control surface... i had to change the code and recompile it to have the filter part of the SID available without the full control surface).
Read, read and read again the web site and its forum and you'll know quickly if you can do it.

tk421 wrote:Since I only have used VSTs, how does it output the sound and what equipment do you need to play it? Does any MIDI controller work and do you even need to coneect it to your PC?

It has midi input to control it... and audio output.. like all commercial synth boxes of this kind.
It works without any PC. (but with a keyboard) the control surface "Step A" (Cf website) allows all parameters to be changed.
A PC will be required to load the preset.

LBN · Post by **LBN** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:10 pm

If you want hardware SID sounds but can't afford a SidStation and don't have the electrical skills to make a MIDIbox:

http://hardsid.com/

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:48 pm

Oh... you got a PSU built into the box. Does that mean you use a MOS8581 with the C64 PSU, however custom power connectors? I always forget that this thing needs to be powered, haha.

You also built the "minimal LCD" design with added controllers. Were they hard to reprogram? I still fear that I'll totally mess up if I should build my own mbSID and want ADSR filters. And I can't build the maximum version, cause I only have 1 SID, however I'd like to have the versatility of the SIDstation (then again, there's a VSTi that can help, but it can't generate presets for upload/download yet - so I can use the most minimal version with LCD easily).

Anyway, nice work. Respect to those who actually build such things (or a Mixer desk like on the Ucapps page - woha!).

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:27 pm

Compyfox wrote:Oh... you got a PSU built into the box. Does that mean you use a MOS8581 with the C64 PSU, however custom power connectors? I always forget that this thing needs to be powered, haha.

No C64 PSU here, 2 simple voltage tranformers. More expensive but easier to put in the box. (and very easy to plug into the module).

Compyfox wrote:You also built the "minimal LCD" design with added controllers. Were they hard to reprogram?

The assembly code is very well documented. And i only had to change constants....

Compyfox wrote:I still fear that I'll totally mess up if I should build my own mbSID and want ADSR filters. And I can't build the maximum version, cause I only have 1 SID, however I'd like to have the versatility of the SIDstation (then again, there's a VSTi that can help, but it can't generate presets for upload/download yet - so I can use the most minimal version with LCD easily).

You can build the full control surface with only one SID. (except the buttons to chose the SID of course)...

Compyfox wrote:Anyway, nice work. Respect to those who actually build such things (or a Mixer desk like on the Ucapps page - woha!).

Thanks...

satchnut · Post by **satchnut** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:33 pm

Congratulations dude!! It's been my lifelong dream to build a Midibox (well, since a couple years ago). Glad you got it working right.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:38 pm

cool looking machine, @ixox ... will you be posting any sound clips?
your VSTplugins look very nice too ...
will try them out tonight .. been looking for a flute vst

thanks

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:06 pm

Ixox wrote:No C64 PSU here, 2 simple voltage tranformers. More expensive but easier to put in the box. (and very easy to plug into the module).

There wasn't a "how to build a PSU" on the page, was it?

What about the Preset Banks. Where did you put them? YOu maybe have some pics of the board and the chips?

Ixox wrote:The assembly code is very well documented. And i only had to change constants....

Ah I guess I stick to the minimal LCD version, maybe 2 chip version if I don't need additional controllers and the like. I'm not good with programming stuff. Then again, the SIDstation has only 1 chip, too. And it sounds that good. And my music style is not related to C64 sounds either. So I don't necessarily need the bigpack.

Ixox wrote:You can build the full control surface with only one SID. (except the buttons to chose the SID of course)...

Like I said... the SIDstation only has one chip, too. And I'm fairly sure I'll only use this thing for basses and random C64 arps.

So I guess a normal 1U 19" rack would be more than enough. heh.

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:43 am

Compyfox wrote:There wasn't a "how to build a PSU" on the page, was it?

Nothing to build, you just have to plug a transformer (9V for the 8580 and 5V for the core module) on the power in of each of the 2 boxes... But then you have to deal with dangerous high voltage which is why it isn't recommended.

Compyfox wrote:What about the Preset Banks. Where did you put them? YOu maybe have some pics of the board and the chips?

A picture of my custom board (you can see it in the box in the first picture ubove). It includes 2 memories (the 2 little chips) to store 2 * 128 presets.... I can upload a bank to one of the bank and still have the other one for me...

Xavier

my new hardware : MidiBox SID...