slowflood
Offline
screwston, texas

(Preamble - I know MIDI, kind of worked with LSDJ one time, use an emulator to test my GlitchNES custom .asm, and am otherwise dumb.   This may be a dumb question.   )

What all can actually be done with LSDJ MIDI?   Just clock sync, or are there more possibilities (for example, muting individual tracks, etc).   I have not found much documentation on what can actually be done once you get the ardurinoboy up and running.

And then from there, could it possibly be done in an emulator?   In theory you could plug a core compliant MIDI device into your emulation box and make something happen?   Perhaps not.   

Are there any documents on LSDJ midi and what control signals does the cartridge listen for?   And is it all versions of the ROM that do it, or just the ones marked ardurinoboy?

I've seen a lot of tutorials about building an ardurinoboy and whatnot, but very little regarding the actual signals that are transferred.   Is it just clock sync, or full on MIDI mapping?

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US

moved to "nintendo handhelds"
the tutorials section is for sharing info you have that others may find useful, not for asking how to do something (or if if it's even possible)

catskull
Offline
NUMBSKULL

Honestly, the best answer to your question is just in the code itself: https://github.com/trash80/Arduinoboy

There is some documentation there as well.

In regard to a virtual arduinoboy, BGB does have link protocol, so it is possible. There was some talk of that a few months ago, I'm not sure what ever happened with it (probably nothing). So that is definitely totally possible.

unexpectedbowtie
Offline
Glasgow, Scotland.
slowflood wrote:

What all can actually be done with LSDJ MIDI?   Just clock sync, or are there more possibilities (for example, muting individual tracks, etc).

Like others have said, the details are in either the LSDJ or Arduino documentation. But in short, it's way more than clock sync. You can send MIDI notes out - either relative to the current LSDJ note, or a fixed note value (once you translate hex tongue)... as well as sending MIDI CC messages.

Here's a video on how to connect up LSDJ with MIDIOUT to control something like a Volca:

I personally use MIDIOUT all the time to add some more interesting synths and drums into my recordings.

slowflood
Offline
screwston, texas

I'm actually trying to put MIDI into lsdj, rather than the other way around.   
I *think* this may be what I'm looking for:

http://littlesounddj.wikia.com/wiki/Multiboot_MIDI_Sync

So rather than having the LSDJ out controlling the volca, have the volca controlling the LSDJ.   Not even sure if this is possible, but I'm trying to explore it.   Looking for less of a way to use it as a live performance instrument, and more of an easy (pushbutton MIDI?) way to mute and unmute individual tracks within LSDJ.    I'm not sure if that's the proper terminology, as I'm researching this for a chiptune-making buddy Ten Pixels Tall and know very little about LSDJ.    I believe there are four different channels that can be tracked, and there is a way to toggle between them to mute and unmute during playback.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to simplify the process to a button press through Midi.   However, the midiout also looks like a gamechanger for chiptunes as well, if you can sync up something like a volca or midi anything to a LSDJ.

unexpectedbowtie
Offline
Glasgow, Scotland.
slowflood wrote:

I'm actually trying to put MIDI into lsdj, rather than the other way around.   
I *think* this may be what I'm looking for:

http://littlesounddj.wikia.com/wiki/Multiboot_MIDI_Sync

So rather than having the LSDJ out controlling the volca, have the volca controlling the LSDJ.   Not even sure if this is possible, but I'm trying to explore it.   Looking for less of a way to use it as a live performance instrument, and more of an easy (pushbutton MIDI?) way to mute and unmute individual tracks within LSDJ.

LSDJ doesn't listen or respond to MIDI notes or CC commands - just the clock. If you want to use the Game Boy as a performance instrument responding to the above, check out MGB.

https://github.com/trash80/mGB

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

With keyboard mode you can mute channels and many other things. Look up "keyboard" in the Sync section of the manual.

catskull
Offline
NUMBSKULL

Arduinoboy will convert the midi data to the keyboard data. From the manual:

LSDJ Slave Mode Midi Note Effects:
48 - C-2 Sends a Sequencer Start Command
49 - C#2 Sends a Sequencer Stop Command
50 - D-2 Toggles Normal Tempo
51 - D#2 Toggles 1/2 Tempo
52 - E-2 Toggles 1/4 Tempo
53 - F-2 Toggles 1/8 Tempo

LSDJ Keyboard Mode:
36 - C-1 Mute Pu1 Off/On
37 - C#1 Mute Pu2 Off/On
38 - D-1 Mute Wav Off/On
39 - D#1 Mute Noi Off/On
40 - E-1 Livemode Cue Sequence
41 - F-1 Livemode Cursor Up
42 - F#1 Livemode Cursor Down
43 - G-1 Livemode Cursor Left
44 - G#1 Livemode Cursor Right
45 - A-1 Table Up
46 - A#1 Table Down
47 - B-1 Cue Table
48 - C-2 to C-8 Notes!

Prgram Change to select from instrument table
Default Midi channel is 16. You can change in the top of the main source file in the archive.

unexpectedbowtie
Offline
Glasgow, Scotland.
catskull wrote:

Arduinoboy will convert the midi data to the keyboard data.

My God. I didn't realise this. I must have missed that update. (he says, hoping it wasn't years and years ago).

catskull
Offline
NUMBSKULL
unexpectedbowtie wrote:
catskull wrote:

Arduinoboy will convert the midi data to the keyboard data.

My God. I didn't realise this. I must have missed that update. (he says, hoping it wasn't years and years ago).

It was. smile

unexpectedbowtie
Offline
Glasgow, Scotland.
catskull wrote:
unexpectedbowtie wrote:

My God. I didn't realise this. I must have missed that update. (he says, hoping it wasn't years and years ago).

It was. smile

:'(

catskull
Offline
NUMBSKULL

There's also this thing: http://www.lskeyjay.com/product/ls-key-jay/

It's basically a custom PS/2 keyboard built specifically for LSDJ. Though won't work with midi, but aside from that it sounds like it's what you want.