[sdiy] Cellphone Melody Chip

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Tom 'n' All.
         Being your resident prophet of doom, I bring more bad news. After 
finding, what appears to be the mother-load of yamaha data sheets, I 
discovered a flaw or two in the MA-x chip family.

It would appear that on the smaller versions, (the 4 voice and 16 voice) 
there is a sodding great hardware sequencer jammed rather inconveniently 
between the input decoding logic and the FM synth(s) There is no direct 
control of the synths available. This was just a cursory observation 
through bleary eyes. There might be a way to send data to the sequencer one 
event at a time but this would be a hassle and slow things down surely.

It isn't till you get to the big, 64 voice module that you get all the cool 
stuff. A mux allows you to send real-time events to the FM synth and you 
get their so-called "Analog Lite" bullshit. Which is really a "Yamaha" way 
of saying. "Now your phone can play Techno and Hip Hop." (Yes the web page 
actually says that.) It's basically a low pass filter. It says not if the 
filter can ring.

And for that matter, Since the one data sheet I don't have is for the MA-5, 
I don't know if there's one filter per voice or just one filter. 
Analog-lite? They should have called it "Information-lite"

These things still have potential of course. I would tend to use the 
4-voice version with all 4 voices in unison as a DCO for example. But I'm 
wondering if they wouldn't be more trouble than they're worth. I'm still 
paying off the last few grains of sand I bought so I'm not sure if "cheap 
as sand" would be all that cheap in the long run. Specially if you have to 
buy them in the same way you buy sand. By the truck load.

But if anyone discovers the magic needed to make these things sing for 
their supper I'd be most interested.

Be absolutely Icebox.

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