defMON (Page 26 of 28)

Did I understand that correctly. You have a version of SID-Wizard laying around, that is able to use Scannerboy's sync interface to drive external gear?

Thanks for the info, regarding connectors/cables.

Last edited by frantic (Oct 28, 2020 3:19 pm)

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 But it is outdated, SID-Wizard 1.7.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.

Hehe.. yeah that was kind of funny actually: that they work exactly the same.

Having the 1.8 version with that code in it could potentially be useful, yes. If you do it, i'd like to have it, and in any case it could be relevant to have the 1.7 version that you had already modified

defMON uses CIA timing. The "ticks" that were mentioned here doesn't relate to that, though. That just means the number of times the player code needs to be called to advance one step in the sequence.

So.. there are two factors involved in "speed".

1. The number of player code calls before advancing one step further in the sequence. In defMON the "speed" column in the sequence specifies the number of ticks until next step in the sequence, BUT... it is somewhat non-intuitive. (There is a reason for it actually, but..)  Writing "2" in the speed column actually results in 3 ticks per step. Writing "3" results in 4, and so forth. So the actual number of ticks is always one more (+1) than what is written in the speed column.

2. The time between each call to the player code. This can be controlled with VBLANK interrupt (on C64 it would be called a raster interrupt) or with a CIA timer. CIA timers are much more fine-grained, just like you say.

Last edited by frantic (Oct 28, 2020 7:56 pm)

@martin: Yes, having a speed column built into each track is not an obvious design choice. When I made defMON I tried to opt for the solutions that gave the most flexibility, even if they sometimes resulted in solutions that require some more work on behalf of the user. In some cases that makes defMON outright odd, yes.

You can actually use different speeds in each channel, but they will always do sequence break at the same time. So, if one channel breaks earlier than the others, these other channels will also advance to the next sequence in the sequence list even if there was not yet any sequence breaks encountered in those channels.

Last edited by frantic (Oct 29, 2020 11:18 am)

@frantic: I have digged out the old SW-1.7 version I used with sync out on the userport. I can share with you, but it was made for me personally - so there is a big M64 logo, other colors, and changes in the playback "logic", my first attempts for incorporating functions especially for live act usage And there is a little difference in the user port sync, compared to defmon sync. So in order to provide a version, that works with the defmon sync device - I suggest I rebuild an original SW 1.7 version, without my further changes, and with the start stop bit set for the defmon device:

I compare my sync to what is written on the defmon wiki - there is a little difference:
My version does not utilize a start/stop line, only 1 bit for the sync signal. The signal is set on each player call, and 0ed at return.
The LSDJ sync and nanoloop sync work this way, that they keep position, when no sync signal comes. They "freeze". So my version of the device simply forwards (and translates) a sync signal whenever it comes from the user port. In SW this means when I press play, sync starts, and on pressing stop it stops. Just without a second signal.

Also I have modifed the playback this way, that I can start playing a song (F1). Whenever I feel I need it - I can press F3 which is usually "pattern play". When I press this while song playback (F1), it switches to pattern play of the currently played pattern.
That enables me to have a song where I pre arrange patterns, and can work on each as long as I want (F3), and it will advance to the next pattern, when I press F3 again, after the current pattern is finished playing.

I am not sure anyone would want all this (esp a big M64 logo haha), so I gonna rebuild SW 1.7, and 1.8 with defmon sync. I need to insert just 2 lines additional to my sync: set start bit on play, and clear start bit on stop. Then your version and mine are the same. I can also still use this version, as my device simply ignores start/stop
How can I best share it with you? I will send you the M64 branded version, too just for fun
cheers, M64

Yeah, I kind of like it this way too — even in hindsight, after all these years — but I think one drawback is this:

Swing-speed stuff can get a bit messy from a user interface point of view when combined with the fact that hard-restart instruments has to be trigged one line before the one where it is supposed to be heard. Strictly speaking, one could reasonably argue that this is not the fault of the way the speed column in the sequences works though, but rather a bad consequence of the way hard restart is handled in defMON. So, if anything, one would perhaps have desired a somewhat more user friendly way to trig hard restart stuff. (Like a setting that would configure whether each sound should be trigged exactly where it is put in the sequence, or +/- some ticks.) That would also get rid of the need for that strange "extra step in the beginning of sequences" feature of defMON, which is obviously quite weird. More like a necessary evil, given the way hard restart works, than a feature.

Oh well.. Too late to change stuff like that for the original defMON anyway. Worth thinking about in relation to a defMON sequel though.