USB MIDI?
Dave Higton (1515) 3555 posts |
@Rick Murray:
You raise a very good question. I don’t know the answer. If Jeffrey Lee, DavidS, the guys from ROOL, or anyone else, knows: please speak up! I bet Dan Ellis would know… |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Maestro is a tad smarter than that – it takes the velocity from the configured loudness (which, okay, is usually “loud”) and then tweaks it slightly.
and:
There are many things I would like to do to Maestro (on the fly volume changes and sustain pedal up/down being the main two); however I don’t have the time and I’m not sure if it could easily be extended to support this. |
Craig Lynch (1859) 33 posts |
Adding dynamics (drawing ‘hairpins’ would certainly be a bonus) and sustain would be brilliant! Perhaps tidying up the way the notes are presented, such as joining together quavers (and quicker notes) too. Also, http://youtu.be/thSI3VqEizg – (: I tried mucking about with the registrations as it was playing on the Electone; |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
:-) Please don’t get your hopes up for me doing it anytime soon. A have way too little free time as it is. :-( I see you have a PC (from the first video, looks like some sort of netbook). Take a look at http://musescore.org/ (for Windows, OS X, Linux) and you’ll see what I am currently using. ;-)
Was that one of the demo tracks? I don’t remember anything that long or complicated. Sounds nice, though. Have you tried playing with the volume options for the MIDI channels? As an ugly/rough hack, it might be possible to do loud/quiet by splitting the music across two staves (one for quiet, one for loud). Far from ideal, but… in lieu of a better way… |
Rebecca (1663) 107 posts |
Hi Rick, I’m still planning to attempt some sort of Record / Playback thing. I just have not had a lot of time lately. I took another look at your miditest program this morning and reckon that I best build a working knowledge of pointers and indirection before I go much further! |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Does anybody have a copy of the Acorn MIDI module (ie as on the epic-wide User IO/MIDI podule, etc) they could send me? I’d like to poke around it. |
nemo (145) 2579 posts |
I have an Acorn MIDI podule… so I should have the module… somewhere… probably in the loft. Mark me down as source of last resort. |
Wouter Rademaker (458) 197 posts |
Rick, doesn’t Liquid Silicon stil have MIDI Support, wich includes the latest MIDI module? |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Been there, tried that (last night, actually). “Due to the very small Acorn/RISC OS market and the increasing costs involved in running a web shop, we have decided to close the online ordering facility and post any stock we have available on ebay. For anything not listed yet, we can take payment by Paypal – please contact us for details.” And eBay… Zero items to list. |
Wouter Rademaker (458) 197 posts |
http://liquid-productions.org.uk/index.php/contact-us ? MIDI Support is e-mailed to you, so it probably made on demand. |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Before we start – it’s an alpha version. Probably FULL of bugs and quirks. Basically – it is a clone of the Acorn MIDI module, only it talks USB. ;-)
There are two test programs included. One is a version of my midi diagnostics converted to use the module instead (well, it just calls MIDI_RxByte a load of times) and the other plays the bass line of “(Dear) You” over and over. Please note the following before attempting to use:
A brief note about the data read method. When the module starts, if there is a MIDI device, it will set up callbacks every 10cs to read from the MIDI device. The data will be parsed and copied into a 1024 byte buffer. When this buffer fills up, reading from USB will stop, and data may be lost. The buffer is not circular, data reading will be paused until such time as the content of the RX buffer has been read, upon which time the pointers will be reset and the callback for reading will be restarted. Things I learned today (aka random rants):
End note: I don’t know if or when I will do more work on this module. I did it mainly for legacy stuff to have a way to talk to MIDI devices on newer hardware plus to have MIDI support on the Beagle/Pi/etc with a known existing API, but I would ideally like to create something with a cleaner and simpler interface than that supplied by Acorn’s module. Suggestions and ideas welcome. |
Raik (463) 2062 posts |
If I should have some time this weekend, I’ll get my keyboard from the attic and try a little. But not sure. Many thanks. |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
New version of the MIDI module. Works on the Pi with, and without, Colin’s updated USB driver.
No new functionality, other than “this one works”. ;-) |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Also… I have written a 24 page user guide. I’ve just hacked it to sort-of reflect the current status of the module. It is a PDF file, 106Kb. http://www.heyrick.co.uk/random/usb-midi-0-01-user-guide-preliminary.pdf |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Just out of interest – is there a repository of Maestro format music anywhere? Anything more than the generic demo tunes? |
Peter Duncan (1657) 23 posts |
Just sent you a zipped file of Maestro tunes that I picked up somewhere to your website email address. I think they are public domain/freeware. I don’t know of any repository of Maestro tunes. |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Thanks, Peter. Looking forward to it. Just a note for all – if your machine freezes up while using the MIDI module, it likely has not crashed, but is instead waiting on data. Just unplug your MIDI dongle and RISC OS will come back to life. And don’t forget to report the problem to me! ;-) |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
New version of the MIDI module.
Updated user guide: http://www.heyrick.co.uk/random/usb-midi-0-01-user-guide-preliminary.pdf What’s new:
Limitations:
At any rate, this is a better version of (USB)MIDI that is now a fair bit more usable. I was annoying Mom with the many Maestro tunes Peter sent me… Awww, Mooooooom! You did watch Cagney and Lacey, right? and Argh! How could you not remember Treasure Hunt! Hehehe… |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
New version of the MIDI module. http://www.heyrick.co.uk/random/usbmidi_alpha4.zip Same user guide, if you don’t already have it: http://www.heyrick.co.uk/random/usb-midi-0-01-user-guide-preliminary.pdf What’s new:
Tested with:
I am not planning any extra work on this for the time being (asides from bug fixes) because the next step is multiple devices which is a big job. I have one week of my holiday left, so I’d like to enjoy that before the grind resumes… …anyway, apart from SysEx support, the module should now do most of what I wanted it to do. More will follow, just not imminently, okay? :-) |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Does anybody use this? Comments? The next thing I’d be interested in finding is sequencing software for RISC OS – even if an old project, I could have a crack at converting/updating it? Any thoughts? |
Craig Lynch (1859) 33 posts |
Well, I’ve had good play about with it.. seems to work well. :) Used an unmodified !Maestro to play several of the example files.. MIDIWorks2 checks for Acorn MIDI version 3.14 before even attempting run and then having tweaked the check it just complains about 32bit as I’m playing about with this on the Pi. shrugs Hadn’t attempted MidiWorks before now. Worth buying a copy of aemulor to try it out? Craig |
Andrew Hodgkinson (6) 465 posts |
Anyone tried MelIDI? Cos that rocks :) |
Rick Murray (539) 13872 posts |
Might have passed my evaluation period for the Pi demo (been busy with other things), but I am running RISC OS 5.21 of around 5th August 2013 – sources downloaded then, built myself. Loading aemulorpro_demo, it is 50:50 whether it will run or stiff the machine. If it runs, it will make the mouse pointer vanish and will then stiff the machine the moment I do anything, at all, with Aemulor. If I place it in the predesktop startup, the machine will stiff at startup, and given the Pi doesn’t see it’s keyboard at early boot, there is frantic pressing of Esc to get in before Aemulor is run. Is this a known problem? |
Michael Drake (88) 336 posts |
I’ve never used any MIDI software, but the MelIDI author, Stephen Borrill went on to set up Precedence Technologies. I’m not sure if MelIDI was 32-bitted. |
Stephen Borrill (2338) 3 posts |
And lo, I find this forum thread :-) MelIDI was 32-bitted back in 2006 in conjunction with Liquid Silicon (Alan gave me a few pointers (pun not intended) and did testing). Unfortunately, real-life got in the way and it all fell dormant. However, I’m now looking at open-sourcing MelIDI and it’s pretty much ready to go. I’ve only got a RISCOS 3.71 RiscPC in regular use, but I do want it to run on the RPi too (which I also have). I bought a USB MIDI adaptor, so I’m hunting for a MIDISupport compatible backend driver. I also need to check on the distribution status of the newer frontend MIDI and MIDISupport modules. I may well have many other questions later, my knowledge is a bit rusty :-) |