also
Offline
Thanks for your help guys. Going to work on getting my head around GoatTracker for now until I have enough money. herr_prof, That is exactly what I have been looking for, thanks a lot.
Offline
West Yorks, UK
hey OP the guy who says you cant use mssiah without modding shit is off his face.
You dont need to solder shit if youve got some midi hardware with knobs that send cc's (like a midi keyboard with faders on or whatever) And the sound is of course a c64. 4mat and all are very right when they say a lot of the character comes from the idisynchrosies of the programming the sid via tracker/ editor interface, but that guys like a veteran of the scene! Most (vaguely chip oriented) people will just hear that classic PWM occasionally clunking timings and go, mmmm C64!!!
on the cheap/ easy route you have mssiah/ goat tracker/ (++sid duzz it?? not sure)
on the cheap and hard (and maybe not worth it) you have cybertracker.
and all the rest fall into paying a load for some discontinued or small run synthesizer hardware using the sids as hearts; sidstation (too expensive, limited compared to sammich) hardsid (just sits at your PC in a rack with like no controls) sammichSID (discontinued) and MFB xxxx (midibox SID x 8; daunting if noob with building electronics, sourcing the parts seems the scary bit)
so really it is not an easy solution for you; either man up and learn SID music programming and a tracker, and pony up and prize someones sammich/ sidstation out of their hands or buy a load of stuff to build the expanded midibox sid.
i say, download goattracker, and try buy mssiah. use both until youre sure u will or wont get into trying to learn Goat. then save up and get hold of a midibox sid of some kind 
Offline
West Yorks, UK
+ am i the only one who feels that the mode machines thing is vaguely scam-like in some way? deffo setting off alarm bells since i saw that. maybe the fact its pretty clearly heavily derived from xoxbox and sammichsid. and the demo video was the biggest let down ive ever seen.
Offline
Jelly Stone park, MD USA
Domu wrote:
+ am i the only one who feels that the mode machines thing is vaguely scam-like in some way? deffo setting off alarm bells since i saw that. maybe the fact its pretty clearly heavily derived from xoxbox and sammichsid. and the demo video was the biggest let down ive ever seen.
Yea it does seem like a rip-off of the MB, but not having access to the internals, hard to judge. Could be legit, original work; but at that price I'll stick with DIY.
SmashTV has the MB6582 board set for $50 and parts kit for $136 w/PICs, so for around $300 you could case it up (depending on how much it costs to source 8 SIDs). BUT if you have never used a soldering iron, well there will be a steep learning curve. You could do a stereo MidiboxSID for allot less BTW (This is basicly what a SammicSID is)
Offline
West Yorks, UK
exactly. it seems aimed at people who never knew / couldnt get a sammich kit, for a steeeep price
Offline
NC in the US of America
If you are really invested in the whole "I write better when I play it on a keyboard", you could always just record your keyboard playing and then transcribe that to goattracker.
Offline
Boulder, CO
yogi wrote:
SmashTV has the MB6582 board set for $50 and parts kit for $136 w/PICs, so for around $300 you could case it up (depending on how much it costs to source 8 SIDs). BUT if you have never used a soldering iron, well there will be a steep learning curve. You could do a stereo MidiboxSID for allot less BTW (This is basicly what a SammicSID is)
The SmashTV parts kit doesn't include any of the front panel components which would have to be sourced by yourself, so that would be some extra time and money sourcing all those parts and actually putting the whole thing together. Then add getting a nice enclosure for it, it's really not as cheap as you might think.
Offline
Jelly Stone park, MD USA
AdamGetsAwesome wrote:
The SmashTV parts kit doesn't include any of the front panel components which would have to be sourced by yourself, so that would be some extra time and money sourcing all those parts and actually putting the whole thing together. Then add getting a nice enclosure for it, it's really not as cheap as you might think.
Just pointing out options. Even at $500, you end up with 4 stereo channels of pure SID goodness! Haven't seen a ready-made screamer that can match it.
But yea, you can sink a ton into the case easy. But there are cheaper options, just has to do with how creative you are and what you find acceptable. I like to build my own cases, black metal and oak; old skool Moog. Check out MFOS, Ray uses masonite for prototypes. Could even do away with the CS and just set it up as a midi sound module, all control via the DAW.
The modular design of the MidiBox HW lets you build in stages if you want. As little or as much as you like. The SammichSID is just one configuration, aimed at easy build.
Bottom line for me is: this stuff is a fun thing. DIY =FUN, if you are not into DIY well then a COTS box is the best choice.
EDIT: here's a posting of a new build
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl … WfibbFvovU
Original Post:
http://midibox.org/forums/topic/18035-t … ound-demo/
Last edited by yogi (Jun 8, 2013 6:36 pm)
Offline
Milwaukee, WI
Also of note, the MB6582 is designed to be housed in a specific PacTec enclosure. It's only like $20 or something... but you still have to get a panel. 