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SPAM/EBAY: SidStation for sale.


program_insect

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How well does the noise gate reduce the SID noise? I always wondered this, as it's not like standard noise. It jumps around all over the place. I don't know if you're familiar with my SID projects, but I was going to sacrifice the SID Stations (to use their microcontrollers/OS) to run a new SID-on-FPGA that a friend and I are building which will use SSM clones for the filters. The reason the noise gate is enticing to me, is that I could just build one into each of my SID Station Racks, and keep them more or less as-is. We've nearly decided to go another route to control our FPGA SID, so it may be cool to keep the current ones intact and have extra SID power. :) I've never really bothered to check for myself, or ask anyone before, but if it works well enough, I'll be willing to give it a try. Also, do you need to adjust it a lot depending on the patch, or can you more or less just run it at static settings?

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Well, the noise gate is "somewhat effective". This particular gate seems to have a very touchy threshold control, so frequent fine-tuning is necessary. Also, the noise level changes a lot from patch to patch, depending on which oscillators are currently routed through the filter, and the filter's cutoff level. However, once the threshold has been adjusted, it's nice to have the gate before the 'station in the signal path, so that your ears don't go numb from the sid noise while you're working at other synths. I suppose the same result could easily be achieved with the mute button on the sid's mixer channel ;) I have gotten some interesting release-phase effects by adjusting the threshold *just right* and putting an instant release on the gate...release stutter stylee.

 

 

By the way, that sounds like an interesting project...I'm sure you are aware of the open-source MidiBox project (www.ucapps.de), which offers some code for a SidStation-esque OS. It seems like it would be a shame to cannibalize your SidStations just for their program code and peripheral circuitry.

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Thanks for the info. Yeah, that's actually the "other route" I was referring to. I'm aware of that page, but haven't checked it out thoroughly yet to make sure their OS will do everything we're looking for. We could actually just write a new one since we have all the development tools for the microcontrollers we're using, but if something already exists, why create it again. Knowing my friend, he wouldn't be content to drop a prefab noise gate into the SID Stations, so we'll probably end up building them. I'll probably have to pick one up though and see what kind of generalized settings we can use that will be -good enough- for general use. (we won't be adding any dedicated controls on the front panel as the panels are already complete.)

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The MIDIBox OS may not be exactly what you need, but the cool thing is that it is open source, so you can download the code and make some modifications/extensions to suit your needs, and then recompile your own custom version of it. At least, it will save you having to "reinvent the wheel" with low-level MOS control software.

 

On the issue of noise, you could even use the custom OS to control a home-made noise gate and have it auto-detect threshold settings...have the gate triggered by frequencies dependant on the current MOS settings...who knows...

 

Anyways, have fun.

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Sure looks nice, I will get one some day. Right now I just orderd Sid sample cd. This would kick ass, since I grew up on Commodore 64 and Atari 800, remember those days of loading games through tapes?.:) I also remember a little program for atari where you could type something and it would speak for you, pretty cool for that time. Truly a classic.

 

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No, I got it from this guy:

 

http://stores.ebay.com/HardSoundz

 

I don't know if that's the same dude, but his feedbacks were pretty good so I gave it a shot. I had experience in the past where I got 10 disk set of same loops. Now I do little more research before I buy. I've listened to some demos of sid, and it rocks, totally cool concept.:p

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