Trash80
Offline
Los Angeles

Hey there, neat project.

Ledfyr wrote:

* Mono mode - improves/solves the problem with lost or dropped MIDI notes from the Gameboy (use with custom Arduinoboy software, only tested with GBC, see README).

This really shouldn't be a problem, or at least solvable outside of Arduinoboy, it's actually a pretty lightweight task to handle the data stream. The issue may come from the Gameboy itself, or that is the code on the GB, since it is kind of a hack. What version of LSDJ were you using? I am wondering if this was a wrapping buffer issue that was solve awhile back.

Let me know if you need any clarification on my end, feel free to email me.

Ledfyr
Offline
Sweden
trash80 wrote:

Hey there, neat project.

Ledfyr wrote:

* Mono mode - improves/solves the problem with lost or dropped MIDI notes from the Gameboy (use with custom Arduinoboy software, only tested with GBC, see README).

This really shouldn't be a problem, or at least solvable outside of Arduinoboy, it's actually a pretty lightweight task to handle the data stream. The issue may come from the Gameboy itself, or that is the code on the GB, since it is kind of a hack. What version of LSDJ were you using? I am wondering if this was a wrapping buffer issue that was solve awhile back.

Let me know if you need any clarification on my end, feel free to email me.

Thanks for all the info and advice in the mail conversation!

I thought I should clarify the problem with note dropouts some more in this thread. I cleaned the original post a bit and put some info about note dropouts below:

I wanted MIDI sequencing from the GB to be super stable. My goal is to use the GB as my main sequencer. I had noticed some occasional note dropouts, about 1 note every 30-50 notes was dropped). This is not a big problem at all, but I still wanted to try and make it better.

I moved parts of the note handling from the Arduinoboy to the Raspberry Pi and it reduced the dropped notes to almost 0. The raspberry now handles the sending of note-off messages.

It is probably possible to solve this on the Arduino itself, and I think that would be a better solution.

cyberic
Offline
Ledfyr wrote:

I moved parts of the note handling from the Arduinoboy to the Raspberry Pi and it reduced the dropped notes to almost 0. The raspberry now handles the sending of note-off messages.

according to https://github.com/ledfyr/lsdj_mo/blob/master/README
you say that "MIDI notes are often "missed". The Arduino seems more stable, or there are bugs in my code sad"
is it more stable now?

Ledfyr
Offline
Sweden
cyberic wrote:
Ledfyr wrote:

I moved parts of the note handling from the Arduinoboy to the Raspberry Pi and it reduced the dropped notes to almost 0. The raspberry now handles the sending of note-off messages.

according to https://github.com/ledfyr/lsdj_mo/blob/master/README
you say that "MIDI notes are often "missed". The Arduino seems more stable, or there are bugs in my code sad"
is it more stable now?

That is my unfinished repo for using the Raspberry's GPIO port. In that case almost half of the notes are missed. I kind of paused this, dont know how to continue right now.

The fix I talk about in the original post (mono mode) requires a special Arduinoboy version + a Raspberry Pi with MIDIcloro. See info in the link in the original post.

Zen Albatross
Offline
Brooklyn, NY
Ledfyr wrote:

I wanted MIDI sequencing from the GB to be super stable. My goal is to use the GB as my main sequencer. I had noticed some occasional note dropouts, about 1 note every 30-50 notes was dropped). This is not a big problem at all, but I still wanted to try and make it better.

I moved parts of the note handling from the Arduinoboy to the Raspberry Pi and it reduced the dropped notes to almost 0. The raspberry now handles the sending of note-off messages.

It is probably possible to solve this on the Arduino itself, and I think that would be a better solution.

This is very similar to my setup and I've had this same issue with dropped/wrong notes at about the same rate. I've used two different arduinoboys (a scienceguy and one of Lowtoy's kits) with the latest aboy firmware and LSDJ version - same result. I was able to reduce the rate further by setting my midi instrument to only listen on one channel instead of channel 0 (all channels)

From what I understand it is possible to tweak the latency settings in the arduinoboy maxpat to reduce dropped notes, but in doing so you can increase the risk of a crash/freeze.

In any case, excited to try this out - Thanks Ledfyr. Though honestly I wish there was a solution on the arduinoboy itself that didnt involve adding another tiny hardware box to my setup.

Ledfyr
Offline
Sweden

Thanks for the kind words! Did you try the software? Let me know if you run into any problems setting it up.

I've tried fiddling with the latencies but it didnt affect the dropped notes.

I'd also rather have one tiny box instead of two, but a positive thing is that the RPi adds a few features like letting you hook up a USB keyboard along with the GB.

Last edited by Ledfyr (Oct 3, 2016 9:40 pm)