low-gain
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
bleo wrote:

OK, school me: why would one want to make a 1X12 thru 1X8?


as in.. why would anyone need such a device?

Because not all midi devices have Midi Thru jacks.

We'll use Piggy as an example:

you have 1 midi output.. but 8 midi channels to take advantage of (or 16 via channel switching)

Lets say you have 8 synths that have midi but aren't Multi-Timbral (meaning they can't have more than 1 track being sequenced at a time).
Perfect example.. Roland Juno-106. Kick ass synth. Polyphonic, but not Multi-Timbral. And i dont think the concept of Midi Thru was
established quite yet.



1st question... What is a Midi Thru? (answer copied from wiki)

"MIDI-THRU ports started to be added to MIDI-compatible equipment soon after the introduction of MIDI, in order to improve performance. The MIDI-THRU port avoids the aforementioned retransmission delay by linking the MIDI-THRU port to the MIDI-IN socket almost directly. The difference between the MIDI-OUT and MIDI-THRU ports is that data coming from the MIDI-OUT port has been generated on the device containing that port. Data that comes out of a device's MIDI-THRU port, however, is an exact duplicate of the data received at the MIDI-IN port.

Such chaining together of instruments via MIDI-THRU ports is unnecessary with the use of MIDI "patch bay," "mult" or "Thru" modules consisting of a MIDI-IN connector and multiple MIDI-OUT connectors to which multiple instruments are connected. Some equipment has the ability to merge MIDI messages into one stream, but this is a specialized function and is not universal to all equipment. MIDI Thru Boxes clean up any skewing of MIDI data bits that might occur at the input stage. MIDI Merger boxes merge all MIDI messages appearing at either of its two inputs to its output, which allows a musician to plug in several MIDI controllers"


To sum it all up...

It basically multiplies the number of "midi out's" on what ever device you plug it into(in this case,piggy on gp2x) so that you can use more than midi controllable device.


the 1x12 part is cool because if you have 8 synths plugged in you can plug 4 more on to sync to midi clock.
So thats 12 devices slaving to the gp2x.. which is pretty sick in my opinion.

Last edited by low-gain (Apr 22, 2010 7:15 pm)

BLEO
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Geneva, NY

No, I know what a MIDI thru does, I just don't get the part about the jumper to make it drop down to 1x8.  Why disable 4 ports? Or would they become some sort of magical port after that... like MERGE?

low-gain
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
bleo wrote:

No, I know what a MIDI thru does, I just don't get the part about the jumper to make it drop down to 1x8.  Why disable 4 ports? Or would they become some sort of magical port after that... like MERGE?


ooooh..

Well the jumper is simply to simply cut signal going to the buffers and set them to a "hi" position. there are a couple of buffers that are on the last bank of 4 midi out's that are apart of the bank before it and so typically it's not good practice to just leave them sitting there idle. it can cause noise issues or instability issues (with regard to the rest of the package)... So when the jumper is installed to just the 1x8 mode then the inputs on the remaining 4 banks of buffers get a +5V sent to them to keep them from running idle.. And you simply leave their outputs (including resistors) disconnected (or simply, they become "DNS/DoNotStuff"). It will all be explained in the documentation pdf.

Last edited by low-gain (Apr 22, 2010 8:48 pm)

BLEO
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Geneva, NY

ahhhh... cool.

Theta_Frost
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Milwaukee, WI

I can dig this!  I just think we need to change all this GP2X business to PSP... wink

e.s.c.
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IL, US
Theta_Frost wrote:

I can dig this!  I just think we need to change all this GP2X business to PSP... wink

one step at a time, man smile

herr_prof
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NO FIVE STEPS! NOW!

Theta_Frost
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Milwaukee, WI

Haha, herr_prof's got it. big_smile

low-gain
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
Theta_Frost wrote:

I can dig this!  I just think we need to change all this GP2X business to PSP... wink


i dont see why people have such a big issue w/ the gp2x.

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis
low-gain wrote:
Theta_Frost wrote:

I can dig this!  I just think we need to change all this GP2X business to PSP... wink


i dont see why people have such a big issue w/ the gp2x.

Well, for my part the issue is finding one for a reasonable price. The only Gp2x still in production is the Wiz, and AFAIK the MIDI doesn't work with the Wiz, so your only option is to track down a system which is now discontinued and which only had a very limited production run in the first place.

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

i see them on ebay all the time for like $70-100

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US

one thing that ive noticed with the gp2x that is a little anoying is how loose the serial connection is, though i doubt using mini usb would be an improvement for connection stability...besdies that, the only issues ive run into with gp2x & piggy->midi was that one track i wrote seemed to crash the piggy->midi (or its data conenction at least) by having i think 5-6 tables running at once on 4-5 channels of midi..this is easily solved by unplugging and replugged the piggy->midi though, so no big deal..i rewrote the structure so fewer of the channels were changing chains at the same time and the crashing stopped

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
e.s.c. wrote:

one thing that ive noticed with the gp2x that is a little anoying is how loose the serial connection is, though i doubt using mini usb would be an improvement for connection stability...besdies that, the only issues ive run into with gp2x & piggy->midi was that one track i wrote seemed to crash the piggy->midi (or its data conenction at least) by having i think 5-6 tables running at once on 4-5 channels of midi..this is easily solved by unplugging and replugged the piggy->midi though, so no big deal..i rewrote the structure so fewer of the channels were changing chains at the same time and the crashing stopped


That might be a good thing to let firestARTer know.

herr_prof
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or better let to let marc know!

herr_prof
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low-gain wrote:
Theta_Frost wrote:

I can dig this!  I just think we need to change all this GP2X business to PSP... wink


i dont see why people have such a big issue w/ the gp2x.

GP2x vs PSP THROWDOWN

1. Battery Life + sleep mode so you'll never lose a project to bad batteries again.
2. Psp have much better audio
3. You can find psps anywhere so more gig reliable.
4. A real D-pad. (I dont actually care about this but some do)
5. Since its a psp, you can run a program like pspseq and make pig sample fodder on the go. You can also hack together a wav recorder.. and it has wifi access!

Other than that i LIKE the glp2x.. i just think it would be better for midi users to have more options.

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US
herr_prof wrote:

or better let to let marc know!

thats the hard part, is it software or hardware that is the issue? ill recreate the crashing save, so i can send it to whoever can help look into it...may be that i was just trying to cram too much midicc out at once smile