Midi for Mini vMac

About Mini vMac and all other 68k emulators, including SoftMac, Executor, and MESS.

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jariseon
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by jariseon »

happy to hear you got it working. midivmac indeed exposes two hardcoded virtual midi ports, named Mini vMac Modem and Printer. Routing them <-> physical midi interfaces requires a separate external app, such as osx Midi PatchBay app or SubtleSoft's MidiPipe [1]. that is a bit cumbersome, so i've been thinking of patching in optional config file support to enable direct connection setup in midivmac.

as for dumping complete banks, i noticed that 05r/w combi and program dumps are fairly large (well, at least in retro midi speak). their transmission may thus require throttling or splitting up into smaller packets to avoid choking up some midi interface driver implementations. to see if that's the case, can you pls try capturing a program dump from midivmac first with snoize's wonderful SysEx Librarian [2], and once captured, transmit it to korg using that app. if that works i can patch in throttling as well to ensure the dumps get delivered more reliably. cheers.

[1] http://www.subtlesoft.square7.net/MidiPipe.html
[2] https://www.snoize.com/sysexlibrarian/
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adespoton
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by adespoton »

Just for reference, I seem to recall back when I was using a Korg and Mac Plus, if I attempted to send more than a handful of patches to the Mac, some of the data would get dropped.

Nowadays, I keep Midiflow and MIDI Wrench on my phone and run them in-line to monitor signals and adjust on the fly as needed.
skate323k137
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by skate323k137 »

jariseon wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 2:34 pm happy to hear you got it working. midivmac indeed exposes two hardcoded virtual midi ports, named Mini vMac Modem and Printer. Routing them <-> physical midi interfaces requires a separate external app, such as osx Midi PatchBay app or SubtleSoft's MidiPipe [1]. that is a bit cumbersome, so i've been thinking of patching in optional config file support to enable direct connection setup in midivmac.

as for dumping complete banks, i noticed that 05r/w combi and program dumps are fairly large (well, at least in retro midi speak). their transmission may thus require throttling or splitting up into smaller packets to avoid choking up some midi interface driver implementations. to see if that's the case, can you pls try capturing a program dump from midivmac first with snoize's wonderful SysEx Librarian [2], and once captured, transmit it to korg using that app. if that works i can patch in throttling as well to ensure the dumps get delivered more reliably. cheers.

[1] http://www.subtlesoft.square7.net/MidiPipe.html
[2] https://www.snoize.com/sysexlibrarian/
It would be nice not to have to use OSX Midi Patchbay, but it actually does seem to do the job quite well.

Thanks for your help and work; I followed your instructions and it does appear to work. I did the program dump from midivmac, saved it, and sent it to the Korg, both with sysex librarian and it appeared to take. Before I sent it back however I captured another file, the program dump received from the Korg when the app requests it. Both are very large and cause errors in the korg app in midi vmac as you predicted; I would guess throttling would help, but you would know better. If we can straighten out these messages we have a fully working and free 05R/W editor, which actually doesn't exist as far as I can tell (the CRTLR panel has comm issues too, and the only other one I know if is paid).

Here are the files:

http://photosuckit.com/ProgramDumpFromKorg.syx
http://photosuckit.com/ProgramDumpFromMidivmac.syx

(if using chrome, this is a plain http server, and you may have to right click to save them at all, as well as dismiss the discard notification).
skate323k137
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by skate323k137 »

Here's a video of it all working together so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nX1r9lqJo
jariseon
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by jariseon »

cool video, thanks! seems to work pretty well for single patches and param edits. enjoyed the MT32 video as well. nice work with resurrecting the SE.

the captures you shared are very helpful. ProgramDumpFromMidivmac.syx seems fine but ProgramDumpFromKorg.syx is missing bytes, confirming @adespoton's earlier observation: 05R/W all program dump size should be 18750 bytes instead of 12502, present in the korg syx. comparing the two dumps side by side, they are otherwise identical except every 5th and 6th byte is weirdly missing in the incomplete dump:

F0 42 30 36 [4C 00] 00 52 27 6E [27 42] 20 4B 00 65
[79 7A] 01 00 61 00 [08 00] 00 00 7F 00 [00 00] 00 4F
...

so yeah, i agree that throttling both in and out streams may well fix the bank issues. i'll have a look and update here when done.
skate323k137
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by skate323k137 »

Aha, nice. Thanks!

I find that consistency interesting, I wish I had another modern USB to MIDI on hand. This Hosa cable carrying the dump/midi cable from the korg is not exactly professional quality. I'm still baffled as to why the Roland UM-ONE MK2 is blocking inbound sysex, when it sends outbound so perfectly.

If I can get any of my other midi hardware working (most of it is 68k/PPC Era stuff, but I digress) to try to capture the incomplete sysex dump again, I will. Just for sanity sake.
skate323k137
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by skate323k137 »

Are the earlier posts with patch file and build instructions up to date?

I could use a version set to 4 color mode; I am testing older games which used MT32 with both a real module and MUNT. This build of midivmac works with MUNT but games like Thexder need 4 color mode. The VOGONS crew might find this really cool.
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adespoton
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by adespoton »

skate323k137 wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:20 am Aha, nice. Thanks!

I find that consistency interesting, I wish I had another modern USB to MIDI on hand. This Hosa cable carrying the dump/midi cable from the korg is not exactly professional quality. I'm still baffled as to why the Roland UM-ONE MK2 is blocking inbound sysex, when it sends outbound so perfectly.

If I can get any of my other midi hardware working (most of it is 68k/PPC Era stuff, but I digress) to try to capture the incomplete sysex dump again, I will. Just for sanity sake.
One question: which clock are you using for timing? The Roland clock? Sending clock data might affect things even though we're talking sysex here, which shouldn't have anything to do with clock values. I seem to vaguely remember playing with hardware clock vs line clock to get things working better on real hardware back in the day.
skate323k137
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Re: Midi for Mini vMac

Post by skate323k137 »

adespoton wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 9:42 pm One question: which clock are you using for timing? The Roland clock? Sending clock data might affect things even though we're talking sysex here, which shouldn't have anything to do with clock values. I seem to vaguely remember playing with hardware clock vs line clock to get things working better on real hardware back in the day.
Humm, to be dead honest, I'm not sure. But allowing or disallowing clock passthru on the OSX Patchbay didn't make a difference I don't think.

Having some fun with cubase, could have done this on vmac, but why not break out the SE for this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyTUjVV3aBE
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