MiniWave Help

[howard.music]

Hi all, new to the group. I hadn’t used my MiniWave in some time and fired it up over the last weekend and discovered a couple of new problems.

First there is quite a bit of noise that is accompanying the output sound. It is kind of faint and in the background, but when applying effects, like reverb, it becomes very noticeable.

Second, when I switch to the second bank where the Socket Rocket is, the first eight banks don’t seem to work - there is no change in the sound when sweeping the waves in those first eight banks.

Has anyone ever come across these problems and as a DIY novice, are these things I can fix myself?

[werock]

Regarding the noisy output, the first thing to do is check the easy to do things - have you tried a different cable? Also check the wiring to the output socket from the PCB, and the socket itself. It should be easy to check those as it looks like it's a panel mounted jack.

If it doesn't turn out to be the wiring/jack, then you'll need to do more debugging, so that would depend on your DIY skills.

I don't have a mini wave so can't help with the socket question.

[howard.music]

Thanks! I’ll take a look at the jack and check cables, the obvious things that I didn’t even consider ... thanks so much!

[diophantine]

For the Socket Rocket, I'd suggest visually inspecting it and ensuring that all pins are properly seated in the socket. Maybe even take it out, and put it back in to be sure.

I fixed one a couple of months back with a "dead" Socket Rocket - one row of pins wasn't seated right in the socket!

[howard.music]

Sometimes it’s the simple things - will have look! Thanks!

[howard.music]

Thanks again all. Checked these things but still seem to be having trouble. Hard to describe, but the noise, listening a bit more carefully now, seems like it is attached to the sound of the wave, like an artifact or an accompaniment of the wave tone. It is attached some how around the periphery of the sound. Don’t know how to describe this. The Socket Rocket was installed correctly and seems to be attached OK. Also on a few banks, the saw tooth seems to overwhelm the wave on the eprom, and I can’t hear the wave that clearly. Maybe I need to send it in for a look.

[Navs]

I used to have a Megawave, not Miniwave, but here's my guess:

if it used to work, are you using the same, or at least a suitable, input signal to drive/scan the tables?

If yes, is it possible that the input mode is not correctly set for the input you're using, e.g. uni- or bipolar?

This might explain some of the noise, i.e., you might be generating an 'out of range' signal. Can you check the output with an oscilloscope? Even a software one would do at audio-rate, just to see which tables you are addressing, for example to rule out the 'noise' actually being some sort of quantizer table.

If it's not that, how does the Miniwave work - does it switch between a set of ROMs like the Megawave? If so, it could be a duff multiplexer? I'm getting out of my depth here, so I'll stop

Here's the Socket Rocket manual for comparison:

Socrock_manual.pdf

(10.47 MiB) Downloaded 17 times

[soup]

Have you tried re-calibrating it? Mine has fallen out of calibration before, I don't know if was due to entropy or something getting jostled but if it's out of calibration it will scramble the wave forms. You only need a multi-meter to calibrate. Instructions are here...
http://blacet.com/MWmanualBasic.pdf

[howard.music]

Thanks. Maybe recalibration will work. Just have to find a multimeter now ... thanks!

[howard.music]

Reading the instructions on calibration, I think that this could be the answer. Navs mentioned that using a different input signal can be the cause of the distortion - the manual also mentions this - good call! I just now also need to find an oscilloscope to check out the sawtooth wave and adjust RT1 and RT2 accordingly. Then the volt meter for RT3 and RT4 to set them at 0 and 5 volts respectively. Hope this works. Thanks so much Navs and soup!

[Navs]

Good luck, hope it works out!

The Megawave has a simple LED system that lets you set the amplitude and offset.

I imagine that even without a scope or voltmeter, one way of calibrating is to use a saw to 'look up' a sine and then trim till you get the cleanest, buzz-free approximation of said sine.

[howard.music]

Navs/soup, I downloaded an oscilloscope app, I think it is produced by Onyx, and although I couldn’t get it to recognize the line input from a mic converter for the iPhone, put a headphone ear next to the actual iPhone mic, tried to get the wave to look like a sine wave by adjusting RT1 and RT2, got a pretty good approximation of a sine wave, and guess what, the noise is gone! You guys are awesome, thanks so much! The voltmeter arrives tomorrow and will tweak RT3 and RT4 and hopefully the waves in the Socket Rocket will sweep in those first eight banks. Thanks again to both of you for your help!

[Navs]

Acetronic!

[howard.music]

Sorry guys, a total noob for this type of stuff. I got a multimeter and set it at 20v, but where on RT3 and RT4 do I apply the red and black tips? There are three places where I could potentially apply the tips to get a voltage measurement. I have touched all the tips in various combinations and I always get a zero voltage reading on the meter. Initially I was able to get a reading, but only zeroes now. Any ideas?

[Navs]

Which multimeter do you have? Maybe we can look at the settings it has. Mine is very basic and just allows for me to choose DC or AC measurement, not a range.

Do you have a spare battery lying around? Any old PP9 or AA jobbie. If you stick the red probe on the +positive terminal and the black probe on the -negative, you should get a reading of, e.g., @9V.

[e-grad]

I got a multimeter and set it at 20v, but where on RT3 and RT4 do I apply the red and black tips?

I have 4 MW thus I should have 4 manuals. However, I can't find any of them.

From memory and the basic manual online. You should have points (IIRC TP1 etc) on the board one for each trimpot. The red tip goes to one of these point, the black tip to goes to COM. If you not sure where COM is hiding just insert a patch cord into one of the jacks of your MW leaving one end unconnected. The tip of the unconnected jack is signal and the lower end goes to COM.

Measuring V can be tricky. Sometimes 10V rather will show up if the DMM is set to 2V instead of 20V. Start with 20V but change to 2V if there's no result displayed.

[howard.music]

Thanks guys. First I found that when measuring the volts from a battery that the connection of the cables to the multimeter was not so good so had to firm that up. Thanks Navs for that basic check! Then I tried the different settings on the meter that e-grad suggested (thanks!) and was able to find measurements at 200m, and just used that as a guide. I think I have the MiniWave calibrated now and sounds great! Thanks for all the help you guys have shared - I really appreciate it. Just FYI here is a picture of the meter I am using:

[Navs]

Excellent

[diophantine]

Glad it is working now! Have fun!

[howard.music]

Yeah, having lots of fun - just a simple patch of running a sawtooth in and letting a clock-synced woggle bug step or woggle cv sweep the waves is providing hours of endless fun! I think the Socket Rocket is a lost cause though - the first eight banks not working, or perhaps I am not understanding what those banks are supposed to do. In any case, it is a lot of fun - thanks again to everybody for their help to get this calibrated and working great again!

[diophantine]

Yeah, having lots of fun - just a simple patch of running a sawtooth in and letting a clock-synced woggle bug step or woggle cv sweep the waves is providing hours of endless fun! I think the Socket Rocket is a lost cause though - the first eight banks not working, or perhaps I am not understanding what those banks are supposed to do. In any case, it is a lot of fun - thanks again to everybody for their help to get this calibrated and working great again!

Cool! Do you have a Frac Wogglebug?

Every bank on the Socket Rocket should work normally. Manual here: https://web.archive.org/web/20111112230 ... Manual.pdf

Can't hurt to pop the Socket Rocket out and pop it back in.

I suppose if you were feeling ambitious and confident you could try swapping the two EPROMs and seeing if the SR works in the socket A and if the MW works in socket B.

[howard.music]

Ah, it’s the regular Wiard 300 wogglebug. Yeah, I think the Socket Rocket is done - popped it out and back in, and the same result; the first 8 are out. At least I got the last 8 still. Anybody making new ROMs?

[mamonu]

The data for other ROMs is available.

One difficulty these days is finding an EPROM burner in order to make them more widely available.

I slept on this and now Hylander is not offering them anymore. or the Miniwave expander PCBs

It would be great getting some new EPROMS in there...

[diophantine]

Ah, it’s the regular Wiard 300 wogglebug. Yeah, I think the Socket Rocket is done - popped it out and back in, and the same result; the first 8 are out. At least I got the last 8 still. Anybody making new ROMs?

This doesn't definitively mean the problem is with the ROM, which is why I suggested trying to swap them. But without swapping them, just to make sure it isn't a problem on the PCB or with the socket, my first test would be: set Bank = 0 and Wave = 0 and measure the voltage at pins 1, 2, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 of both ROMs. The measurements should be the same on both ROMs. Then set Bank = 15 and Wave = 15 and do the same.

Synthcube may have some Socket Rockets; they may not have dealt with that part of the Blacet stash, but can't hurt to ask them, I suppose. I know when John was selling the last of the MWs he was offering free SRs with each of them... I told him to save the one from mine since I had another ROM I was going to use. So I do suspect that there's extras in their stash...

[diophantine]

The data for other ROMs is available.

A few are still proprietary, including most of the Matthew Davidson ones. But yeah, there's still a bunch of others that are available online.

I slept on this and now Hylander is not offering them anymore. or the Miniwave expander PCBs

Damn, I didn't know this! When did you last talk to him? That's a bummer...

Thankfully I got 2 expander boards from him and 17 ROMs, but there's some other ROMs that I wouldn't have minded checking out...