MB-808
Bad news: I'm not done yet. Good news: I'm not done yet.
STATUS
May 13, 2013. Had the AZ state track meet on Saturday and stayed in Phoenix Sunday for mother's day with my mother-in-law. Didn't work with the kits at all, but I did get to sort through email. I'm down to 109 unread messages in my inbox. I hope to send out the batch four confirmation email soon...
May 3, 2013. I sorted out all messages other than the ones that are addressed directly to me at midibox addict dot com, and now I'm down to 337 messages! (If you have sent a message to anything other than my midibox addict address, I don't know when I'll get to it...)
May 2, 2013. I've been madly sorting through my email inbox. When I started, there were over 7000 messages. After getting rid of all the solicitations from Facebook, LinkedIn, Classmates, ebay and Amazon, I'm now down to 4470 messages. Web mail sucks. I sure miss having MH on my Sun workstation. Sigh...
April 16, 2013. Sorry for the lack of updates, I had some unwanted side-effects from the surgery. My knee was swollen up to about twice it's normal size and I couldn't walk very well. I went back to the doctor a couple times and he used a syringe to suck a bunch of fluid out of my knee. Then, I had to go on yet another business trip, but GOOD NEWS!, that is the *last* business trip I have to take for that project since the contract ended on March 31!!! I had to take care of a couple other minor details (birthday earlier this month and tax day yesterday) and now I'm back to working on this project!
February 18, 2013. I'm recovering pretty well from the surgery, but I'm a bit behind because of that. I have not sent out the fourth batch confirmations or the third batch requests yet. I'll post here when I do.
January 21, 2013. I'm scheduled for arthroscopic surgery on my right knee Wednesday morning. Should be down and out the rest of the week, but back on my feet by next week.
January 20, 2013: Finally got the shop cleaned up from the big flood when the water pipe broke. Thought I lost the jointer, but it's amazing what WD-40 and a Scotchbrite pad can do...
January 17, 2013: Good news, bad news. Good: I tested the Tayda LCD and it works. Bad: They're out of stock now. (They say they will get more...) I bought the last stock and I think I've got enough for everyone in batch three. Since the 4558 op amps are still readily available, I've decided to not include them in the kit, so I'll include the LCD instead and not have to change the cost of the kit.
NOTE: if you gave me a deposit, you're in batch three.
Well, despite good intentions, I have failed to meet my self-imposed deadline of the end of the year. I won't bore you with details other than to say work and family come first before hobby projects, but suffice it to say that I'll get batch three done as soon as I can. After all batch three kits are shipped, I'll get to work on the fourth batch.
Over the three+ years that I have been working on the MB-808, I have steadily pulled back from my involvement in any other projects, and I have reduced my involvement in online communities. As of December 28, 2012, I am now ceasing all involvement with any and all forums, mailing lists and newsgroups. Specifically, I will no longer respond to posts on the Electro-Music forum. Please don't taint their good forum and expect me to take my time to reply. I need to devote what little time I have to finishing this project. The only place to get information about the MB-808 project is this web site and via email directly to me. (Doug at midibox addict dot com.)
If you have given me a deposit and you really don't like how things are going, please let me know and I will give you a refund.
NOTE: I am no longer taking deposits for kits. Kits will only be sold when available.
Signing up for the fourth batch ended on December 31, 2012. Some time soon I will send out an email to everybody on the waiting list for batch four, then give everybody until January 31 to reply to me to confirm that they are still interested. I plan to only make enough circuit boards to cover everybody who is on the list by January 1 and who replies to me by January 31. When I have finished shipping all batch three kits, I will place the order for circuit boards. As soon as the boards arrive, I will send out invoices, and you'll have two weeks from that day to confirm and pay. After the two weeks, all outstanding invoices will be cancelled and any remaining boards will be available on a first-come-first-served basis. (Email me if you want to be on that standby list.) When all of the kits are gone, I plan to have a private ceremony at my house where I will delete all the Gerbers and Eagle files associated with this project.
Hopefully that means everything will be completely wrapped up and done by the end of February, 2013. Good luck to all of us.
My name is Doug, I live in Tucson, AZ, USA. I started building electronics kits in the 1970's. I decided that I wanted to become one of the guys making kits. I took over the MB-808 project a couple years back because I love electronics and I love analog gear, especially anything manufactured by Roland. I'm also a big fan of MIDIbox. I was really optimistic about this project, but was naive about what it would take to get it done. The biggest mistake I made was taking deposits. When I ran into roadblock after roadblock, whether it was because parts manufacturers extended their lead times early in the project, or if it was watching my father-in-law die of pancreatic cancer, or recently because a pcb order was lost, it all just lead to a lot of pain and anger on the part of the good people who showed their faith in me.
That said, here are several points:
Regards,
Doug
doug (at) midibox addict (dot) com
That will get you to the stage where you have a completed PCB with the MIDIbox sequencer and all the 808 voices. For a complete 808 clone, you will also want:
Since this is a MIDIbox project, I will be moving everything over to the MIDIbox wiki so that there will be one source for information. Also, I hope that will help introduce all of you to the other cool MIDIbox projects. Check out MIDIbox.org.
I put this page together as a favor for Moogah (who owns this web site), since he's done us all the favor of making the MB-808 in the first place! If you have any comments or questions about this page, please contact me via email at doug (at) midibox addict (dot) com