Thanks for sharing, neilbaldwin. Time to dust off my ol' NES. 
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neilbaldwin wrote:
KeFF wrote:midisync would be
I would love to but I (currently) wouldn't know where to even start.
A mad idea I was thinking of (and I don't even know if such a thing exists or is possible) would be an optical CV-to-MIDI gadget that you could point at a particular area of the screen and I would flash a small white square on screen in time with the refresh rate of the song. Then these pulses could be turned into MIDI clock (with some smoothing) and so NTRQ would be MIDI master clock to your slave devices.
That's probably insane I know
I've controlled a child's toy by taping a whole load of LDRs to a plastic tray, and hanging this from the screen of my laptop (modplug tracker --> MIDI out --> pure data --> screen) . I know little-scale once did something similar, but I don't really remember any of the details. It's not such an implausible idea, and possibly one of the easiest and cheapest ways of midi sync to implement.
Last edited by ant1 (Jan 10, 2010 2:12 pm)
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WOW MAN!
ant1 wrote:
neilbaldwin wrote:I would love to but I (currently) wouldn't know where to even start.
A mad idea I was thinking of (and I don't even know if such a thing exists or is possible) would be an optical CV-to-MIDI gadget that you could point at a particular area of the screen and I would flash a small white square on screen in time with the refresh rate of the song. Then these pulses could be turned into MIDI clock (with some smoothing) and so NTRQ would be MIDI master clock to your slave devices.
That's probably insane I know
I've controlled a child's toy by taping a whole load of LDRs to a plastic tray, and hanging this from the screen of my laptop (modplug tracker --> MIDI out --> pure data --> screen) . I know little-scale once did something similar, but I don't really remember any of the details. It's not such an implausible idea, and possibly one of the easiest and cheapest ways of midi sync to implement.
BOOM! That's what I'm fucking talking about right there!
That's cheered me up on a dreary (the weather) weary (I've decided NTRQ Song Editor needs a redesign) Sunday
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FERNDALE, MI, USA
e.s.c. wrote:
im liking the sound of this project more and more
same here, excellent work so far. also, welcome to chipmusic.org neil.
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BOSTON8BIT, MA
My god, it's full of sounds... I can't wait for this to exist.
neilbaldwin wrote:
I think NTRQ started out as something to prove but it's actually turned into a very, very usable and fun tool.
I found your blog on a whim back over the summer, and thought that's what this was going to be, largely just a technical demo. What you have so far is amazing and you have no reason for your modesty. :-)
Last edited by Active Knowledge (Jan 10, 2010 6:47 pm)
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WOW MAN!
This always happens. As I was typing that big post a genius idea popped into my head regarding the Song Editor. I've always wanted to get a speed table into NTRQ (it actually has one internally) but I had totally no screen space for it.
On Sunday I thought about the layout of the Song Editor and how it was a bit wasteful to always display the Transpose setting for each pattern (that's the "40" you can see in the columns of the song). And then the solution came to me.
To edit values in the Song Editor, most of the time you're using the (A) button, holding it down to modify the numbers with U/D/L/R. (B) was being under-used so my solution is to normally display just the Pattern numbers but if you hold (B), the Song "flips" and shows you all the Transpose values so you can edit one. Let go of (B) and the song display snaps back to showing Pattern numbers again.
Multiple benefits:
- the width of the Song Editor is halved so I can now have the speed table displayed and editable
- I now have the space for an extra column in the Song which will be used for "master track" type stuff e.g. repeating song steps, setting tempo, setting volume, fading volume
- smaller Song Editor = faster screen updates
- it actually looks better, more symetrical
I had to really break the code to make it work but it's up and running again now (though I have generated quite a list of stuff to fix/check). Here's what it looks like (click the link underneath for full-size);
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New York City
neilbaldwin wrote:
I would love to but I (currently) wouldn't know where to even start.
A mad idea I was thinking of (and I don't even know if such a thing exists or is possible) would be an optical CV-to-MIDI gadget that you could point at a particular area of the screen and I would flash a small white square on screen in time with the refresh rate of the song. Then these pulses could be turned into MIDI clock (with some smoothing) and so NTRQ would be MIDI master clock to your slave devices.
That's probably insane I know
Yes my man, that is fucking insane! Haha
Welcome here by the way.
My suggestion for MIDI sync, if we only want MIDI clock sync and none other fancy MIDI stuff, is that your software could listen (and maybe send) pulses through a joystick port. I guess it should be really easy to implement an interface that would convert this pulse data (isn't DIN sync like that?) onto MIDI clock and viceversa.
Keep up the great work.
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Stockholm
Same here.
Following your development with eagerness, Neil. The NES has been dying to get a native running tracker for a very long time. Your "return" to chipmusic is truly a great thing for this whole community.
Keep up the good work!
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akira^8GB wrote:
My suggestion for MIDI sync, if we only want MIDI clock sync and none other fancy MIDI stuff, is that your software could listen (and maybe send) pulses through a joystick port. I guess it should be really easy to implement an interface that would convert this pulse data (isn't DIN sync like that?) onto MIDI clock and viceversa.
Would the NES be able to handle 1.5KHz on a joystick input?
And it would require some heavy modding I presume to send data through the joystick port.
Besides video and audio there aren't any outputs on the NES. The only option I can think of is a special midi cart similar to MIDINES.
Last edited by tRasH cAn maN (Jan 12, 2010 4:01 pm)
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Abandoned on Fire
tRasH cAn maN wrote:
akira^8GB wrote:My suggestion for MIDI sync, if we only want MIDI clock sync and none other fancy MIDI stuff, is that your software could listen (and maybe send) pulses through a joystick port. I guess it should be really easy to implement an interface that would convert this pulse data (isn't DIN sync like that?) onto MIDI clock and viceversa.
Would the NES be able to handle 1.5KHz on a joystick input?
And it would require some heavy modding I presume to send data through the joystick port.
Besides video and audio there aren't any outputs on the NES. The only option I can think of is a special midi cart similar to MIDINES.
Isn't there and "expansion port" or something on the bottom on the NES (under that rectangular snap-on cover that I used to take off in puzzlement when I was ten)?
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Ha! You're right. I didn't even know of this.
A bit of googleing tells me there was, or at least plans for, a modem thing that would utilize this port.
Maybe that would do?
Of course some one would have to break new grounds and design a midi interface for it and then Mr. Baldwin would have to write code to utilize it...
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I think the arduino shield that someone is making for no carrier might be a good candidate for this.. at least for sync in!
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New York City
There's me being ignorant. I didn't think about the joy port not being able to send data out xD
But the expansion port would be easy to use for MIDI clock I bet!
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well i think you could send data OUT.. for example the 2600 could send data out..