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Short answer: yes

Longer answer: I am on a sync journey for quite some years now. My start was that I am doing electronic music, and I also so much love the SID sound. More exactly - the sounds I grew up with = tracked sounds. Fast forward - so I was able to compose tunes around 2016 with SID-Wizard. And now I wanted to add samplers, synthesizers, etc. So I needed a sync. But there was nothing out that satisfied my "needs". My thing is I want to make music live, and I also want to use the real (old) hardware, and I want to work like I work on the step sequencers of the various synts (303, digitakt+tone,Korgs...,...) on a 16th note grid -> trackers. Then came LSDJ and nanoloop to me

I think I explored any existing music software, all kinds of solutions (mssiah,prophet64 likes, cynthcart and likes, various trackers, midi boys and likes) but nothing satisfied my requirements. Maybe to note: I have a professional electronics background, so for me it's easy to quickly setup and hack sthg with signals.
So I thought of building sthg to sync by myself. First idea was to at least play in sync - so modify the tracker in any way that it outputs any sync signal. SID-Wizard is open source, so I learned how to build it, and played around. I added a signal on the user port that I fed to an arduino. Then translated this to MIDI, analog, LSDJ and nanoloop sync. At this time I think I found this forum, and posted about it, I showed my stuff on facebook That was around 2017 I think. Very exciting, and I was almost there.

The only limitation was, that the C64 had to be master. And I could either use 6 ticks per 1/16th note, or 5. -> 150,37 or 125,31 BPM. So the next 3 years I had the question floating around, can it be possible to sync a tracker ..... And came to the conclusion per se no. So I worked with this sync - I called it user port sync, since. hermit also mentioned it in SID-Wizard 1.8 readme

Now I read a bit about the defmon sync. As it looks, it does exactly the same

So ... yes I do have made a SID-Wizard version that works with the defmon sync device haha - how cool is that! But it is outdated, SID-Wizard 1.7. I can adapt the current 1.8 version - and send you. Or upload somewhere, no problem.

Hi! Since I never had original Gameboy cables, I personally always soldered my own connector to them. Prev I used micro usb for example. When you know the pinout it is not difficult to do. LSDJ for example needs the clock on SERIAL CLOCK (pin5), and GND (pin 6), SERIN (pin 3), and SEROUT (pin 2) to ground. Nanoloop only needs the clock on SERIN, GND to ground ofc, no further groundings. You really need no device for this.
The arduinos output 5V TTL level, they can be directly used to go into gameboys (any sync), and also to use as analog sync.
Same for MIDI - all can be done without further electronics - going directly from the arduino pin to
Gameboy, analog sync, midi sync. Arduinos drive up to 40mA current. MIDI is a current loop. 40mA is enough, and if in doubt you can amplify with a single transistor + 2 resistors (< 1 EUR)

With arduino I refer to the usual ATMEGA microcontrollers (and most others), which appear to me from the photos might be used in the defmon sync device. The code required is pretty much arduinoboy, reading the input from the user port signal (play, pause, 24 ppqn come from defmon instead of MIDI IN).

I am up to to publish all my sync stuff open source, now realized:  my old sync device is also (accidently) and can be used as defmon sync device. The "user port sync" as I had called it I have used with SID-Wizard 1.7 when I was only able to have the C64 as master So there is also a SID-Wizard version I can provide which works with the defmon sync device. !

In Austria a guy wants to sell 2 NL 1.5 with manual (can be downloaded anyway) - for EUR 1.500,-- No buyer yet
https://www.willhaben.at/iad/kaufen-und … 410384336/

lol

Hi! Oh that is indeed very interesting news. I am happy for you, that sounds like a little dream come true hehe, cool. Abt my code - it is so small, that it would fit everywhere. But with this news it's probably useless. For one, I think noone except me would use that , and I like to use the user port for myself, it is easy coding with it. That conflicts with the new interface. What you are up to is more than an adequate replacement also.
Definately I will add a 2nd C64 to my setup, where I for now will run 2 wizards .
One I want to try defmon how I can work with it. For MIDI (and sync) support, I would then need to buy a new interface, whilst I am so glad to have no MIDI in my setup. I am pretty sure I will find a way to add "my" sync to defmon. That is the easy part. I can paste the code here, just for fun, you will see it's nothing But with this it's not done, ... without any controls over the sound (channel muting as a minimum), I would need to reverse engineer defmon a bit more, the playback position, current pattern, things like that, to display them. But that's just my personal way or imagination how I want to work. When I can have that way easier with a MIDI device, the option is still there to add MIDI sync to my device, and have both SID-Wizard, and the new defmon running in sync. Using the upcoming MIDI dream device hehe, that sounds cool to me.

Minimum sync routine:
// somewhere, ie on "pressing play", init tune
        lda #0
        jsr music.init

// ...

// sync routine:
!:  // now wait for: low->high               
        lda $dd01
        and #1
        beq !-
        // wait for high -> low
!:      lda $dd01
        and #1
        bne !-   
        inc $d020     
        jsr music.play
        jmp !--

// in this loop: add: check keyboard, and make a stop condition, and go back to editor

Martin that sounds cool. You know SID-Wizard 1.8 has MIDI IN support, and MIDI SYNC OUT support.
And it supports standard C64 MIDI devices of course. I for example have used the Kerberos interface cart. SW 1.8 can run there now too. It has MIDI and flash in one. With it you would be able to do all SID-Wizard+MIDI related stuff. Also you can use cynthcart ofc.
May I point you to this: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=142049 it's IMHO the "best"  MIDI synthesizer for the C64. Maybe you can get any MIDI interface, unfortunately skip then the UII one , and do some great sound?
The problem I understand is very specific as your expansion port is blocked by C1541UII+ cartridge. What you told about the C1541UII+ cartridge sounds pretty amazing! I do not own one, so I can not really help there.
I focussed here on the synchronization of playback. And exactly to not need any specific hardware cartridge, I tried to avoid MIDI at all

cheers, M64

And - yes there were a lot of complications, mainly related to clean timing. On both the arduino, and the C64 side. When main loop takes too long, polling user port can skip a tick. So you read correct, I am polling

A better version would use a hardware interrupt, but I found it works _so_ stable, that I continued working with a main loop. Polling this pin in a mini loop is just a few cycles. This must be fast. So it is < 10 microseconds.
After pin went high, I wait for pin goes low. Then comes the phase where is more time: call player (< $20 rasterlines time), and display stuff. I know that I can expect roughly 50% of vsync time to be free for me. That is a lot. Then after that I must be fast again, because the next HIGH signal will come soon.

Did I write understandable? I am happy to go into more details. Thank you for your interest!

PS: I have removed all MIDI stuff (via settings file) from SID-Wizard, to make space for my code)

Here I want to share with you more information on the SID-Wizard external sync

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4VytU-6Kc

cheers, M64