Here go my fast hands building a Hackme Rockit. Soundtrack is by me, performed on the very same Rockit.

I made this!

Assembly of a sammichFM prototype from a couple of months ago. Some of my finest high-speed action.

sammichFM Assembly from Justin on Vimeo.

Why wasn't I told about this when I was in school? It would have been useful. Surely I'm not the first person to notice it.

I'm getting started on a MidiboxFM project and was curious if there was a VSTi plugin I could use it to control the as yet unbuilt device from my DAW of choice. Turns out that a fellow from Hungary made one a few years ago and it looks to be pretty nice. Sadly, the site he used to host the info and the plugin have been left fallow and all the download links have been broken. It looks like the guy switched to mac a few years ago and stopped development of the project. For those of you that might be interested in this sort of thing, I tracked down a copy of the plugin and I'm happy to mirror all the information here.

MidiBox FM VSTi

Download v1.1 mb_fm_vsti.zip

MB_FM VSTi is a PC-based control surface for your MidiBox FM synthesizer. It
acts like a common VSTi instrument, you can "load" it into your sequencer
apps (like Cubase, Sonar etc.), and you can remote and automate your hardware
FM-synth. This plugin processes midi data only, not audio.

Documentation

Features and Limitations

- Complete midi CC# implemetation for your MidiBox FM synth. See http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm/midibox_fm_cc_voice.txt
for details.
- Very useful for DAW users (Cubase, Sonar, etc). You can save patches directly
to your project file. You can also record realtime knob movements (midi automation).
- An ordinary vsti plugin IS a synth. This plugin CONTROLS a real synth. This
is a big difference!
- This plugin has midi input and midi output(!). It has audio output too, but
no audio data processed. It sends only midi messages to your hardware synth.
- Incoming midi data passed to midi out, without any processing. For example:
if you turn volume knob on your master keyboard, it will transferred to your
hardware synth, but the position of the volume knob in your plugin will not
change.
- You can control wavetable related parameters too, but you can not access wavetable
data this way. Wavetable data can be edited via sysex only.
- This plugin made with Synthedit (www.synthedit.com) :-)

How To Install

Unpack the downloaded archive and copy "mb_fm.dll" to your vsti plugin
directory. Usually "C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Vstiplugins" for Cubase
users or "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Vstiplugins" for Sonar users.

Uninstall

Simply delete the file "mb_fm.dll" and directory "mb_fm".

Patch Management

VSTi plugins has own patch management system. You can load and save patches
and banks via your host application. Some preset patches also included in the
zip file.

Important: After patch change or channel change you should use the "Update
Controllers" button.

Changelog

v1.1 beta

- many bugs fixed
- improved patch management, some presets included
- "Update Controllers" button. You should use it after patch change
or channel change.
- improved compatibility (tested under Cakewalk Sonar, Savihost)
- full midi cc# implementation
- a short documentation

v1.0 beta

- first public release

Not the shitty one that disappointed the fuck out of you as a kid but the new one from Gamervision.

Just testing out a bit of blogful wizardry by posting from Flickr to here.

I built a SID based synth called SammichSID. SammichSID is part of the MIDIbox SID project. The Sammich is amazingly compact, packed with features, fun to make, and easy to use. Read more about it here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=sammichsid

Greatest Rock & Roll song ever written. Hands down, no argument, universally accepted. Guitar, bass, drums, vocals and that's it. No bullshit. It's got the kick on the one and three, snare on the two and four; the foundation of rock music. It swings a little, but not enough to be distracting. The lyrics are about toil and rebellion, but not about real struggle and revolution. It's a perfect anthem for middle class teenage ennui. Or, at least, that's how I felt about it three months ago. Now I'm convinced it serves the roles of thoughtless filler, starting point for psychedelic epics, reminder of simpler times, point of irony, barometer of true talent, and occasional tool of sonic torture.