Commodore Remix

yes... I just recieved the last of the components I've been waiting for to begin assembling the MIDI Box FM synthesizer.

I've found an old soundcard with the OPL3 sound chip from Yamaha (YM262M) and it's associated D/A converter, and everything is laid out, ready to get started at!

For those who is currious and want to see/hear it, visit:
http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm.html

When this project is done, I've decided to get myself involved in designing another FM synth for the MIDI Box platform... the good old YM2151 that was used in many arcade machines (marble madness and outrun to name a few)... it's a really nice and warm sounding little devil of a soundchip, and the system will be focused on unison use of it's 8 voices in a very userfriendly manner (for bass and leads)... I have downloaded the datasheets and stuff, and ahead waits the challenge; the challenge of electronics design (I'm a complete noob! ), and hundreds of PIC RISC assembly code lines... aaaahh! it's going to be like in the good ol' days... full hardware control, memory space limits, optimizations and stuff... ol' coding "ticks" have started to show themselves again in me!

I'll post sound examples as the project goes ahead, for those currious.

Aaaah! dear diary... job well done! ... all four PCBs has been soldered. Funny thing was, that soldering the two surface-mount chips (the Yamaha YM chips) was a hell of a lot easier than I first had imagined...

But of course I had to end up realizing, that a few items were missing... just typical! ... I miscalculated when purchasing EEPROM RAM chips... needed eight, thought I had 4, so recently bought 4 extra just to realize that it was THREE I had at home... damned! ... and for some reason, a tiny little capacitor was also missing... so now I have to go ordering stuff again

Don't forget to post some mp3s and pics if you can. I'm looking forward to hear yours.

PsychNerD wrote:Don't forget to post some mp3s and pics if you can. I'm looking forward to hear yours.

Sure thing! ... I'll post some pics on sunday i hope. The last cap I needed I salvaged from an older MB CORE module, so I should be ready to go now. Still need that EEPROM chip, but as each of the eight EEPROM chips can store 128 patches, I guess I'll just have to do with 7*128 patches in memory to begin with

About the MP3s... were you refering to the OPL3 synth, or the project I'm preparing to do in the future? ... I'll post examples of the OPL3 of course, but you can find several made by Thorsten on the MIDI Box homepage. of course I'll post examples as my own project step forward, but it'll be a while until I reach a stage where I can get some sound out of this project...

Only sure thing I can say at the moment is, that my own project will be towards a unison mono synth, and that if things turn out the way I want it to, will be extremely easy to program, yet still also extremely powerful in it's unison implementation. I would like for it to be tailored against certain types of sounds like Unison leads and punchy FM basses. Now, I've had the old KORG DS-8 synth from the 80's (my first keyboard actualy), and this keyboard use the same chip as in the FB-01, and I can tell you out of experience with the DS-8, that when it's playing in unison it will fire some REALLY powerful sounding leads and basses off that sound extremely creamy!

Both of them! I know that this chip made a lot of tracks but I'm curious to hear what you will get out of your design and components...

UPDATE!

After having quite a problem getting this MIDIBox FM synth working (pestering Thorsten for a day and a half ), we got it working... and oh dear, oh dear! ... this thing can be EVIL!!! ... it's DIRTY! and have a life of it's own, almost like SID...

Here is a piccy I've taken right now, before posting this... It's still not mounted into the casing, and looks messy still, but it WORKS!



I've not done much with it yet, but here is a "little" taster:

http://razmo.ziphoid.com/MBFM_LEAD.mp3

I'll put up more, when I get the time to fiddle some more with the device... this thing surely will be used a lot! ... it's ideal for screaming techno...

...been messing around today with creating an adaption for this thing in SoundDiver... everything works until now (exept for several crashes thanx to a buggy piece of software grrrr!) ... fiddled a bit with some parameters... those I've implemented so far..

here's a soundclip more from this process:

http://razmo.ziphoid.com/MBFM_Demo2.mp3

So you bought this FB01 for the parts and the case ?

You really building an interesting piece of gear! Thanks for the samples.

PsychNerD wrote:So you bought this FB01 for the parts and the case ?

You really building an interesting piece of gear! Thanks for the samples.

No... I did not buy the FB-01 for the purpuse... I wanted an FM machine with warm sound and punch, but found it a bit limiting, especialy in the number of paches it can hold... and then I realized that the casing was perfect for this project... It had 5v digital power, and +/- 5v analog power build in, had the holes readymade for MIDI sockets and AUDIO outs... and the size fitted nicely... so that's why it went into this casing.

MB-FM can store 1024 patches, 256 Multis and 128 Drumkits... all at once... I really neat feature.

http://razmo.ziphoid.com/MBFM_Demo3.mp3

A few more sounds...

Okay, forget what I said... sounds too good. I am feeling the GAS coming up in me.

Well... I've been playing around with the MBFM synth, and surely it has it's annoying limits here and there, but what it lacks in some areas, it certainly make up for in others, and in any case, it's a unique engine behind it, that you will not find in any ther FM synth for sure.

The sounds I've linked for has all been made during tesing of the adaption I'm doing for SoundDiver: