Accent weirdness

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Budney
 
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Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

I've just completed a Willsyx x0xb0x, everything went smoothly but on completion I noticed that the accent isn't working properly.

When I try and accent a note nothing changes, unless I also slide that note as well. What happens is the note is then played twice in quick succession, the first one being the accented note, but it gets cut short by the slide note. Leads to a weird being effect like when you're mixing two tracks that are slightly out of sync, the first one being a lot louder than the other, but the first note isn't sliding, only the second is.

When I cycle through notes with prev and next, it will accent the notes then only if I go to that note with the previous button, not with the next.

This is so weird! Does anyone know where I can begin testing things to check it all over.

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

record a short and clean audio demonstrating the issue, set the cutoff/resonance/decay/accent to max, envmod low

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

https://soundcloud.com/barney-rosenthal/x0x-test

first one is just the sequence, no accent or slide.

second one i select accent for the first note, as you can hear nothing happens.

third one i deselect accent and select slide for the first note, and it slides

fourth one i select both accent and slide for the first note, and you can hear the weird double hit thing that its doing,
thanks for the quick reply!

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

another thing I've just noticed, if i select accent on a note, lets say note 2, when i play the sequence, the accent light lights up on the note previous, note 1, even though i didn't select it. If i go back to edit the notes and cycle through them, the accent light will go back to note 2. if i then put a slide on note one and an accent on note 2, it'll accent note 2 but in a strange way like its trying to slide note 2 as the same time

the sequencer seems like its ahead of whats actually playing.
the led for number one on the top 16note sequence at the top will light up, but the led on the keyboard layout will be lighting up the note thats next coming in the sequence, not the on that is playing

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

that's really weird
soundwise, the accent is looking good, there's only one thing wrong in the audio, and that's the lack of slide (the pitch changes instantly instead of sliding slowly)

- where is this x0xb0x from?
- who built it?
- are the ICs socketed?
- has it been repaired afterwards?
at this point i wonder if the ICs are the right ones, or what
IC12 (4066, a kind of quad switch) is involved both in the switching of the slide and the accent
4066 is available from many manufacturers with all kinds of tiny little variations, i do have a few "4066" which don't quite work in the x0xb0x
IC9 on the other hand is related to the pitch, it's used like a parallel buffer
again, there are probably variations of that available, and things can go wrong, like, the pitch may be clocked on the wrong edge or something (i'm just speculating here)

another important question is which firmware are you using?
it's technically possible for the firmware to have gone corrupted, slightly, and weird things might happen (altho, it's more likely for it to completely crash)

that's it for now

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

are you sure the accent is okay? nothing happens when i try and accent notes

I have just built it myself, and I'm pretty sure I did everything right, but now I don't know where to look for mistakes, I bought the kit from James at Willsyx.

IC's are socketed yes so I can change them if need be.
I lost one of the 4066 I got in the kit, so I bought another one. Do you think that could be the problem, that I got the wrong type?

So finally managed to get the conbox software to work, flashed it with sokkos firmware to see if that would work. It says it has worked but nothing seemed to have changed, even when I reconnect to conbox it still says firmware is 1.05.

One thing it seemed to have done, now the slide button turns accent on or off as well, really weird!
Last edited by Budney on Sun Sep 11, 2016 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

willzyx, that's okay then
there's just one 4066 IC in the x0xb0x, and it's IC12
yes, that could potentially cause problems (as i said, these sort of IC are available from different manufacturers and have all kinds of variations, not all of them would work in the x0xb0x properly, in fact, i bought some 4066 from a local shop (two kinds) and one of them didn't work at all)

so check the label on your IC12, and tell me what it says
as you're in there, check all ICs on the main board fo in the upper half of the main board (the analog section) if they are the right parts according to the BOM (because some have the same number of pins and shape, and it's possible to swap them by accident)

in your recording, you have accents
soundwise they sound perfectly fine
the only question is if they are triggering when they should
i added comments on your recording

your x0xb0x comes from willzyx, thus it's most probably flashed with the sokkos firmware
there must be a manual somewhere (if not, you could check the original x0xb0x manual, the sokkos firmware is still compatible with most of the stock firmware) or check some tutorial videos on youtube about programming patterns to see if you're not forgetting something (common example is forgetting to save the changes)

so, it's possible that nothing is wrong with the accent
there's definately something wrong with the slide tho, so that certainly needs troubleshooting

checking the ICs in the analog section for proper orientation and proper part numbers (as i explained above) would help
especially check IC9, IC11, IC12
also check for proper components/values: C35, Q30, Q29
visually inspect the PCB around the VCO area for anything that may look suspicious

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

IC 12 is

HCF4066BE
GK5110E5
VW GK CHN

I did find the original one I lost after I made it, I've just swapped it then and nothing changes.

all other IC's, and those components are correct.

Are you sure about the accent? Accent only works when I slide something as well, if i try to accent notes on their own then nothing happens even though the led is on. at 5 seconds, i have accented that note but no accent comes from the output. it doesn't trigger the accent unless slide is selected as well, thats what i mean by accent doesn't work. accent has no effect on anything unless that note has slide as well.

the slide button is now turning the accent button on and off, I tried to reflash the firmware but nothing seemed to have changed.

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

okay, that 4066 looks like it should work
you've checked the components in the VCO section around the slide, and they're fine
well, the slide is not working properly

as for the accent - i don't know what to tell you
there are some weird things in the stock firmware as well as in sokkos (and pretty much all other firmware mods based on them) like.. they let you put an accent on a rest (you can't do that on the 303) and it sounds weird

it's a bit much to ask, but if you can record a little video of how you program the pattern it might help

another option is, if you can import a pattern from a file, and then just record an audio clip of it
i want to eliminate the possibility of pattern programming error, i can give you a reference pattern
i see you're on osx, we have an old version of BANNED which should run on osx
or if you have linux, you could try building the last version, or the pre-built windows version..
then i can give you a reference pattern which you can load into the pattern editor of BANNED and send it to the x0x, then i'll know if there's something electrically wrong with the actual accent circuit or not

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

actually, i already have some suitable patterns uploaded
Armando - Land Of Confusion.nsp
Plastikman - Plasticity.nsp
in BANNED, connect to the firmware and go to the pattern editor, then select a bank and slot, use the Load button to select one of those .nsp files, then, when it gets loaded into the editor it'll make the frame around it red - hit CTRL+S to "save" it onto the x0x at the selected bank/slot

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

okay, I have done what you said,

here is the two patterns you sent me. I let it loop twice, then turn the accent knob to zero, you can hear that the double hit note disappears.

https://soundcloud.com/barney-rosenthal/x0xtest2

I've also uploaded a video, you can clearly see that when I select accent, nothing happens. It's only when I select accent and slide together that the weird double note happens. I think its a problem with the sequencer. Also on the video is the two patterns you sent me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0NaBGx ... e=youtu.be

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

okay, it's not a programming issue, it's definately misbehaving
i'll need to watch the video more and think on it

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

very weird
i wonder if something even remotely related to the accent or slide could be causing a short somewhere
use a multimeter (preferably a fast one, or even better - a scope, if you have one) and monitor the the 12V supply voltage (anywhere on the mainboard)
preferably attach the multimeter with crocodile clips
now, it should be sitting very stable at it's voltage (usually it's not 12 but more like 11.87V)
when you play that Armando pattern, i see something weird happening during or before one of the accents it kinda looked like the neighbour note gets muted, but only when the accent knob was at max (which could be a short causing electric chaos)

try to reproduce that while monitoring the 12V voltage, the reading on the multimeter is typically slow, and it may move up/down a bit, but if you see it fall down more than a bit while you're playing this test - then that might be a sign of something temporarily pulling a lot of current
you can also do this same test for the 5.33V supply voltage.. but i don't think that one moves, since that would cause the VCO to detune, and i'm not hearing it

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Budney
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by Budney »

okay, something even weirder has happened.

i tried to monitor the 12v supply, using r92/r93 and r60.

voltage was stable at 11.9 volts.
but when i would swap between r92 and r93, the problem disappeared and the accent started working again properly.
It'd occasionally flick back to not working, so I figured it was a dry joint somewhere and reflowed the whole vco section.

but it was still the same. it was working for a while, now its stopped working...when i messed about with the resistors just below ic12 things seem to be changing. but i could do with a more accurate approach than wiggling random resistors in the hope that it helps. reseating ic12 seems to do something as well but then it reverts back to the way it was.

this is a recording i managed to get before it went back to its old problem.

it still doesn't sound right to me, but at least its triggering properly instead of that double note.

https://soundcloud.com/barney-rosenthal/x0xtest3

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antto
 
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Re: Accent weirdness

Post by antto »

okay, this last recording of those patterns is perfectly proper
if wiggling components causes the issue to come and go - then indeed it looks like a cold solder joint

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