Dip
Offline
Sweden

Hi,

I have been trying hard to find a way to get midi in to VICE (OS X), right now for the purpose of controlling SID-Wizard (but not only that). Arrgh.

In VICE manual it says that it support some midi cartidges. There are no links on where to find them. The ones they mention I can not find on the net (Passport, Datel, Maplin, Namesoft, Sequential).
I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to work, since in order to get midi in to VICE, there need to be some kind of midi configuration of VICE itself.

If I get this to work I will eventually get a real c64, but I prefer to work on my mac until the music is almost complete.

Thank you for your help!

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

I thought SID Wizard's MIDI capabilities were still to come, are you sure they are implemented yet?

Dip
Offline
Sweden

Thanks for the reply. I want to be able to use MIDI running VICE with any c64 application that allows it. So even if SID-Wizard does not allow MIDI I still need to get MIDI working.

akira^8GB
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New York City

You're not finding any cartridge images on thr internet because the cartridges you are mentioning are MIDI interface hardware, and do not have any sort of ROM attached to them. What VICE means is that any software that supports one of those MIDI devices, should work on VICE.

I haven't tried this ever but I presume any configuration to happen should be inside the C64 software of your choice so you better be trying some MIDI-capable software like Triad's MIDIslave. I doubt VICE needs to configure anything, it probably just takes raw MIDI input from whatever MIDI input signal your computer has.

From SID-Wizard's author: "I couldn't finalize the hardware extension HerMIDI mentioned in the Manual and the presentation. This will soon follow as a hardware release...". So SID-Wizard might support MIDI but only using this custom, as of yet unfinished, interface.

Last edited by akira^8GB (Aug 30, 2012 7:09 pm)

Dip
Offline
Sweden

OK, so SID-Wizard will not work MIDI-wise with emulators, if I understand you correct.

I found the "Resource Inspector" window in VICE. In there under Peripherals/Cartridges/MIDI you can edit some settings. Enable, Name, Port Names, Type (Passport, Datel, Maplin, Namesoft, Sequential). This very much looks like a built in midi function, but no VICE midi ports show up in my system.
Maybe I need to put in command line text in to VICE "Monitor" window, but since there are the above mentioned settings I would assume that those settings were enough.

In MIDIslave I select Sequential as interface, and I also choose that one in VICE. I get this in the Console window:

MIDIdrv: Opening MIDI client 'VICE'
MIDIdrv: Error - Error creating MIDI client!

Is there a forum for VICE and/or a wiki?

However, MIDIslave a the first try got some input, midi feedback. Turning of and on MIDI Enable in VICE changes the speed of the feedback, so I guess that is a good sign.

Thanks a lot for your help, and sorry for the trouble.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City
Dip wrote:

OK, so SID-Wizard will not work MIDI-wise with emulators, if I understand you correct.

No, SID-Wizard will NOT work with MIDI yet, real thing or emulator. It will work when the author finishes  his MIDI interface, specially used for SID-Wizard.

This very much looks like a built in midi function, but no VICE midi ports show up in my system.

They won't!! VICE will not open up a MIDI port in your system. VICE will capture a MIDI port FROM your system.

In MIDIslave I select Sequential as interface, and I also choose that one in VICE. I get this in the Console window:

MIDIdrv: Opening MIDI client 'VICE'
MIDIdrv: Error - Error creating MIDI client!

Something has to be wrong with the settings. There's no VICE forum, so I guess you are left to ask at CSDb, which can be a bit daunting for non-scene people.

Can you explain your configuration a bit better? Where are you trying to send MIDI from? What are your plans? This would help.

Meanwhile, I'll see if I can get anything MIDI to work with VICE in my computer.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

Alright, I tried this real quick and it worked just fine. Are you sure you are configuring things well?

I went through these screens and enabled MIDI:


As you can see, VICE is already recognizing my MIDI controller (and its MIDI ports).

Then I loaded a MIDI software (MyMIDI) and hit the pads in my Akai MPD26 and it played audio just fine (albeit with delay).


If you are trying to send MIDI from your DAW, it will NOT work until you use some sort of virtual MIDI cable patch on your system.

Dip
Offline
Sweden

I tried it now, same settings and it works fine! I am quite used to MIDI disappearing on my system anyhow (OS X).

I plan to use the SID to create sound landscapes/bursts/noise for live use, with acoustic instruments. I am planning on using a chiptracker, editing in realtime, not synced by anything else than hitting "restart song". MIDI would be for being able to remote control the chosen application, but not to play notes. But computer keyboard might be better still.

I picked SID-Wizard since it had documentation and short commands for pattern editing, but I rather start out with SoundMonitor. Since I can not find documentation for that one it seem impossible to figure it out (arpeggio etc.) Maybe I can go back to SoundMonitor once I learn SID-Wizard.

In any case, the delay makes it useless for normal live playing. If I find that my concept works, I will get myself a real c64. I assume that since it is hardware sound chip there will be no delay with the real thing. And I assume that there is nothing to do about the delay in VICE.

Thanks a lot!

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

Glad you got it working, perhaps OSX was being a bitch in this case, I ran VICE in Windows 7 64-bit.

Maybe you should consider the Chipsounds VSTi.  It works excellent, is very accurate and emulates more than just one chip. I think it would work a lot better with what you want to do!

Dip
Offline
Sweden

Yes that would be the smart way, but I want limitations can be turned to features, glitches, unpredictable behavior, limited control, chaos. That sort of stuff. A modern professional VSTi and a DAW eliminates that. If I still would use a VSTi I am more appealed by VOPM http://www.geocities.jp/sam_kb/VOPM/ or Chip32 http://www.geocities.jp/sam_kb/Chip32/index.html big_smile

ant1
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uhajdafdfdfa

in settings > sound settings you can set the latency in miliseconds

Dip
Offline
Sweden

Yes, thanks, I saw that but the lowest buffer size is 100 ms (OS X), which is way too slow for live playing. You need to get down to at least 20 ms to not be distracted. Or am I missing something, are there other ways to lower the latency?

ant1
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uhajdafdfdfa

ah, that sucks, my version of VICE (winvice-2.2-x64) goes down to 20ms

akira^8GB
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New York City
ant1 wrote:

ah, that sucks, my version of VICE (winvice-2.2-x64) goes down to 20ms

Mine does too but anything below 80ms is useless and choppy and makes VICE shut sound off altogether (and my computer is pretty damn powerful).

ant1
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uhajdafdfdfa

haven't tried because i like to use residFP and my computer is not great but i would thought a MAC can handle it with at least fast sid... dunno, never tried! i'll take your word on it

Dip
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Sweden

I got a 2 GHz Intel Core i7, 4 GB ram. Still I get overload messages from VICE. But there are not any options to set anything lower than 100 ms. But from the screenshots above it seems like akira^8GB has a PC.

Do you know anything about Frodo? Is it the same SID emulation?