Can you upload MIOS via GM5 or only directly to jacks on CORE?

Parts Questions
1

Hi. I am trying to figure something out…I have a Smash TV CORE that I’m just about done with and will soon be uploading software too. I haven’t soldered the MIDI jacks onto the CORE yet though because I’m hoping to get a GM5 soon. Even if I have a GM5 though, will I still need to connect my computer to the CORE directly to upload software, or can you do that through the GM5? Can you even do it through the GM5’s USB connection or is there something about MIDI that is different from USB?

How does sending midi signals through USB work anyway…does that “encode” the midi signal into USB language or something or is MIDI signal just some simple data (that indicates channel, on/off, and value) that can go on any cable. What don’t I understand? Like, why don’t you ever see any firewire midi controllers for example? Sorry, I’m such a newbie!

I guess I’m wondering because ideally I’d like to have a midi controller that has no PSU or midi cable, just USB :slight_smile:

2

Hi,

I haven’t soldered the MIDI jacks onto the CORE yet though because I’m hoping to get a GM5 soon.

So you are going to connect CORE and GM5 directly?

(just asking, It will definitely work.)

Even if I have a GM5 though, will I still need to connect my computer to the CORE directly to upload software, or can you do that through the GM5?

err… with the GM5 you have a MIDI-Interface.

You have to upload midibox-applications or newer MIOS-Versions over MIDI. That’s the only way.

Simply connect the MIDI I/O of your GM5 with the MIDI I/O of your CORE and upload the software via MIOS-Studio.

What do you mean with “connect my computer to the CORE directly” ?

Can you even do it through the GM5’s USB connection or is there something about MIDI that is different from USB?

err… that goes like that:

[[PC]]------------usb (one cable)------------[[GM5]]=======MIDI (two cables)======[[CORE]]

PC and GM5 are connected over the “Universal Serial Bus”

In information technology’ date=’ Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to connect devices to a host computer. USB was designed to allow many peripherals to be connected using a single standardized interface socket and to improve plug and play capabilities by allowing hot swapping; that is, by allowing devices to be connected and disconnected without rebooting the computer or turning off the device. Other convenient features include providing power to low-consumption devices, eliminating the need for an external power supply; and allowing many devices to be used without requiring manufacturer-specific device drivers to be installed.

GM5 and the CORE (and all other MIDI-devices like Synths, Sequencers, etc) are connected over the “Musical Instrument Digital Interface”

kind of…  think of it as an Interpreter.

A PC talks a lot of different “languages” like IDE, S-ATA, PS/2, AGP, PCI, etc., and USB.

Your Interface simply translates USB into MIDI. It’s a bit complicated, though.

yes…

well… you need 3 wires for MIDI. You need some electrical contact.

So you could replace your MIDI-sockets by USB sockets and use a USB-cable.

BUT! This way you will not be able to use that MIDI-device that has USB sockets where there should be MIDI-sockets as an USB-Device!

look: People are speaking different languages, but in the end, it’s all transferred over the air. Through pressure differences.

But anyway you won’t be able to understand a foreign language.

Good question.

I think that FireWire is simply a bit of a overkill in terms of speed for MIDI.

MIDI is pretty slow, so USB1 is basically enough.

If you think of external FW Audio-Interfaces, a lot of data has to be transferred to the PC.

Another thing could be that the Hardware needed for FW is more expensive. USB is pretty cheap.

These are just assumprions…

no need to apologize.

That is likely to work.

But pay attention: The USB can suppy 500mA of current max.

So take care not to use a brightly illuminated LCD, superbright LEDs, etc.

regards

3

why don’t you ever see any firewire midi controllers for example? Sorry, I’m such a newbie!

I guess I’m wondering because ideally I’d like to have a midi controller that has no PSU or midi cable, just USB :slight_smile:

Firewire MIDI interfaces do exist, although most often it’s as part of an audio interface.  For example, the MOTU 828 series has MIDI and audio, and connectivity via firewire.  Other offerings come from Behringer, M-Audio, and many others.  Yamaha’s mLAN (studio firewire) protocol provides for hundreds of virtual MIDI cables over Firewire.

USB however is definitely the prevailing interface for MIDI.  I think USB ended up being more popular because it started appearing on PCs first.  Firewire was an expensive add-on for PCs, and you still don’t see it everywhere, but you can’t find a computer without USB.  Even Apple, who pioneered Firewire, no longer includes it on the base MacBook.

USB 2.0 later emerged, advertising a 480 Mb/second transfer rate, but it is still outperformed in every way by Firewire 400.

I don’t know enough about the two buses to offer more than an educated guess on this, but I suspect Firewire MIDI would offer less jitter than USB MIDI.

But because all operating systems now have built-in drivers for MIDI over USB, plugging a keyboard controller or other MIDI-over-USB device right into the computer has become a no-brainer for many.

4

Well we all know I have ‘issues’ with USB and it’s inherent jitter, and at one point I mentioned that a firewire MIDI interface might be nice.. The guys from ploytek heard about this and mentioned that firewire is not really suitable for midi due to it’s own jitter-inducing design… Turns out USB is still the best option. (Thanks to ploytek and TK for passing this valuable info on!)

Admittedly, the newer highspeed USB devices and superfast PC’s are making this less of an issue. For example the jitter involved in buss arbitration on USB is a matter of say, a couple thousand CPU cycles… but those cycles happen a lot faster these days, so the real-world-time in milliseconds becomes less, and the issue is less apparent. Of course, it’s still there… but it seems to not bother most people. (It bothers me!)

I have to admit, sadly, that it seems there is no future for realtime IO like ye olde midi/serial/parallel, in tomorrow’s technology. I think that as bandwidths become higher we will see more and more uses of timestamping for these purposes. Unfortunately we are in the transitional phases of that concept, and although some protcols support timestamping (OSC for example), they do not support syncronisation of those timestamps, and there are no (that I’m aware of) standard specifications for how those timestamps can, or more accurately should, be used. Not to mention that timestamping introduces latency… (You have to receive the timestamp before that time has passed, and hold on to it and wait… latency.)

It’s a dark day for musical instrument automation… :smiley:

5

It’s a dark day for musical instrument automation… :smiley:

You know your not wrong at all Stryd_one

Everyone knows pretty much how much i am into DAWs and how much i use them and i can list a whole bunch of developers including some of the huge ones that dont even care anymore about interfacing with the real world.

There whole thing now is to make plugins work great and anything else is just a bonus and everybody should be happy with what they have.

Yes the GM5 stuff is a step beyond what was currently available and yes i have done various test for lots of developers now and the truth of the matter is that in the year 2009 a top flight quad core PC or MAC with stupidly heavy ammounts of RAM and cycles at its disposal isn’t even as tight as a bog standard Atari ST or Amiga hahaha.

May be sad to you and me Strydee but the problem is we (And we have had this discussion before) are very much in the minority :frowning:

Flexi

EDIT*

Just gonna pop up the test results i have had over the last few years when testing computer MIDI timing

These arent that scientific, They are just taken from tests i made for a few DAW developers at the time

I’m not gonna post all the info here way too much hahaha i will just post a kinda league table in order

1 Atari/Amiga

2 Serial/Para PC/Mac

3 ISA PC/MAC

4 PCI PC/MAC

5 USB PC/MAC

6 Firewire PC/MAC

That is the order in which they compared

Kind of says everything in real terms when if you look at the order it is actually matched exactly by release time too

So the older it is the better it performs

There is actually quite a movement at the minute to re-own Atari/Amiga set ups for this very reason hahahaha

6

As a longtime Amiga owner, it’s nice to see us getting something besides bashed.

The problem with “classic” Amiga MIDI is that for most users, there is only one MIDI IN port and one MIDI Out port. Devices like “Triple Play Plus” allowed the one output to be multiplexed into three, but with no additional bandwidth.

There are exceptions, a few of the add-on serial ports could do MIDI baud, but not many.

So the timing was great, but the pipeline was narrow.

Not too well known, the Amiga OS is being “re-invented” on the PowerPC platform. The OS is coming up nicely, but legal problems and limited hardware availability have prevented it from reaching a wider audience yet.

Back on topic, the “CAMD.library” that classic Amigas used to handle MIDI communication has been ported to the new Amiga software, and it’s working well. The “builtin” serial ports of the new Amigas cannot handle MIDI baud rates directly like the  classic Amigas, but support for the joyport MIDI ports is there for most sound cards.

This library offers all the multi client capability you could hope for, and a plugin system for applications as well.

To help the system grow into the future, CAMD on the new Amigas also supports USB MIDI interfaces. Any interface that uses “class compatible” USB commands should work. I have not tested the GM5 chips yet, but I expect they should work fine.

So we have an OS that used to have great timing on the built in MIDI ports, but now working through a “standard” USB MIDI interface.

There was a thread on MIDI interface testing a while back. I added data on how well OS4 performs according to Thorstens application. It was a fair run, I ran everything at priority zero to avoid trying to skew the results. I kinda wish I still had a classic Amiga connected to run the same tests on.

Getting back to the topic, I had a discussion just this week with the name of the USB stack for these new Amigas, and we are working towards adding support for streaming audio I/O for studio applications. This will allow the next gen of Amiga music software to play with digitized audio as easily as it can now with MIDI.

The current Amiga community is small, and well beaten down. But there is still a strong desire to support a computer platform for creative arts. Perhaps one day the Amiga will thrive again.

LyleHaze

7

the problem is we (And we have had this discussion before) are very much in the minority :frowning:

Exactly. I doubt that many musicians have had the kind of setups we do (lots of outboard), where fast and tight MIDI becomes a real issue.. In addition, many computer musicians these days have recently started using these tools… these two things combined mean that people a) don’t know how good the old stuff was (ie, how bad the new stuff is) and b) wouldn’t notice it anyway.

Edited:

0 midibox, baby.

1 Atari/Amiga

2 Serial/Para PC/Mac

3 ISA PC/MAC

4 PCI PC/MAC

5 USB PC/MAC

6 Firewire PC/MAC

Heheheh