Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

(I'm sorry if there's something like this already on this site or the internet, but the looking around I did not show anything that helped with my problem)

So I have been trying to connect Nanoloop to the computer through my Gameboy, a link cable, and the USB-Midi Adaptor that Oliver made. I am running Nanoloop 1.6.3 and a Macbook Pro OS X 10.8.5. Using my Gameboy Color, I tried to transfer a bank to my PC, and followed the directions that are on the Nanoloop website. However, the first time I tried, the software said it could not find an adaptor connected. I tried multiple other times, restarting the process, and the same message appeared each time.

Today I tried again with my brother's old Gameboy Pocket just to see if that would make a difference. I got a different message, but this one raises more questions:

nanoloop MIDI adaptor found


useage:
nlmidi01 -parameter filename

available parameters:

-send filename
-receive filename
-sync
-midi
-midireceive

-MIDI, -MIDIRECEIVE and -SYNC (in caps) sets the respective mode as default

It is recommended to use suffixes '.nl1' and '.nl2' for nanoloop 1.6 and nanoloop 2.5 files.

logout

[Process completed]

So it obviously recognizes the adaptor and is telling me what commands to send, but I don't know why it would not allow me to send the bank or do anything for that matter. Keep in mind this message appeared before I sent ANY commands, and the terminal would not allow me to send any after the message. Any advice? I'm using a modern, "knockoff" link cable, could this be the problem? Sorry for the TL;DR post, and thank you for any help you can give.

nitro2k01
Offline
Sweeeeeeden

That message means the adapter itself was not recognized as being found. It has nothing to do with the link cable or the Gameboy at the other end. Go into OSX's audio and MIDI settings panel and report what you see there. You might want to post a screenshot of the audio MIDI settings window. (Shift+Apple+4 then space then select a window with the mouse, if I recall correctly.)

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA
nitro2k01 wrote:

That message means the adapter itself was not recognized as being found. It has nothing to do with the link cable or the Gameboy at the other end. Go into OSX's audio and MIDI settings panel and report what you see there. You might want to post a screenshot of the audio MIDI settings window. (Shift+Apple+4 then space then select a window with the mouse, if I recall correctly.)

Thanks for responding! I restarted the process today, got the same message, and then opened up the MIDI window.

This is going to sound incredibly stupid, but for some reason the computer is not taking my screenshots (yes, I pressed the right buttons... It would show the window with the pixel numbers but not save the pictures anywhere). So in the meantime, the MIDI window DOES recognize Nanoloop MIDI in the MIDI studio, and when you click on it, it just lists the ports (Nanoloop), the name, and manufacturer. I can't change anything in the window, though. All it says is that Nanoloop MIDI exists, basically. If there's anything else I can do, let me know. I'll send screenshots when my computer allows me to.

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

Here's the screenshot. The Gameboy being plugged into the computer was messing with my computer's functioning properly for some reason. Sorry for the crappy quality (I had to settle for Tinypic, ugh).

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

Sorry, I feel really lame for bumping this, but does anyone know how to get my computer to fully recognize Nanoloop? I haven't been able to get it to work , and the MIDI settings don't seem to have changed.

oliver
Offline

Parameters are passed along with the command, e.g. you type

./nlmidi02 -receive myfirstbank.nl1

and then press enter.

Communication is one-way, data are sent/received blindly and there is no error-checking. Steps for saving / loading data have to be performed in the exact order as described.
It is also highly recommended to do a "round-trip" and load a saved bank back to an other bank on the cart. This is currently the only way to confirm that data were transferred correctly.

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA
oliver wrote:

Parameters are passed along with the command, e.g. you type

./nlmidi02 -receive myfirstbank.nl1

and then press enter.

Communication is one-way, data are sent/received blindly and there is no error-checking. Steps for saving / loading data have to be performed in the exact order as described.
It is also highly recommended to do a "round-trip" and load a saved bank back to an other bank on the cart. This is currently the only way to confirm that data were transferred correctly.

Thanks for responding! I tried again a few times today, making sure the steps were followed in the exact order as on the website, but I still got the same message that I posted earlier on this thread. And, like I said earlier, I still can't even type in the terminal at this point because it automatically ends the process. The Audio MIDI settings on my computer haven't changed, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change anything. It claims when the cable is plugged in that Nanoloop MIDI is online, but there aren't any settings to change. Hopefully I'm not being confusing or too vague, but this is all that I am able to tell you.

Sorry for yet another bump, I've been preoccupied with other stuff and haven't been messing with this until now.

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

I believe I've had this exact problem.  In my case, I was trying to execute the nlmidi program by double clicking or right click run etc instead of navigating to the file in the command line and then entering the commands to start the program.  If that's not what you're doing then I apologize for implying that you're as dumb as I am.  ;P

Last edited by egr (Oct 28, 2014 10:49 pm)

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA
egr wrote:

I believe I've had this exact problem.  In my case, I was trying to execute the nlmidi program by double clicking or right click run etc instead of navigating to the file in the command line and then entering the commands to start the program.  If that's not what you're doing then I apologize for implying that you're as dumb as I am.  ;P

Ok so I was doing the exact same thing, so thank you for pointing that out. tongue

I finally got the program to work and begin the process, however, when I transfer the file and the little music note shows up on the Gameboy screen (in the top left corner), from that point it stops working. "Saved" never shows up in the nlmidi program, and the file is nowhere on my computer and is still on my Gameboy. Am I doing anything wrong here?

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

Probably not. It takes a lot longer than you would expect for data to be transmitted.  Let it sit for a good 10 minutes or so and see if it completes.

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA
egr wrote:

Probably not. It takes a lot longer than you would expect for data to be transmitted.  Let it sit for a good 10 minutes or so and see if it completes.

Oh ok. I was just being impatient then. tongue thanks for your help!

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

I tried again, and I've been waiting for about 45 minutes, I'm still stuck at the music note, with no indication from nlmidi that it saved. Is there anything I can try doing? Should I keep waiting?

oliver
Offline

if you get to the point where nlmidi says "Ready to receive data." and then press A+B+UP on the Game Boy, nlmidi should start counting the received kilobytes and say "1k saved". a second after the note shows up on the Game Boy, nlmidi would say "...done".

if nlmidi does not count at all, no data are trnasferred and it's probably a connection problem. please make sure the adaptor is plugged in this way:

the mist toggles
Offline
NorthTtrrrway

i often struggle with similar data transfer situations.
it always works out when i manage to use the right adapter and secure a perfectly steady connection throughout the WHOLE process.
also make sure that the connection is perfect, already from early stages that you may consider less important.

so, basically, if you have the latest red adapter, a proper cable, plug them properly and not move them during the process, everything should work.

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

Ok so I just want to say that after putting this off for awhile, I finally got it to work, and just successfully sent my first bank to the computer. I'll try to send it back to make sure it completely saved, but thanks for everyone's help with this! I don't know what I was doing wrong in the past lol tongue

EDIT: Just sent the file back to the Gameboy and it remained intact, and I re-sent it back to the computer. Now I'll finally have some space on my cart for new songs, thanks guys!

Last edited by Wholesome Family Music (Jan 15, 2015 12:52 am)

Wholesome Family Music
Offline
Ohio, USA

Upon transferring files, I permanently corrupted one because I was stupid and accidentally skipped a couple directions... But the rest worked....