sharing a control surface

MIDIbox FM
1

ok, so i now have parts for 2 fm’s, (2 cores, 2 opl3 boards), but only parts for 1 control surface. So, I was wondering how I would go about using the one control surface for both cores. I would probably need to make patches on 1 core and use sysex to send them to the other one right? Would i want an IIC module for that or is there some other way of doing this?

Another option i have been considering is making 1 fm without a cs and getting a novation midi controller. I’ve been looking at the novation remote sl 37. Does anyone have any experience using something like this with a fm?

2

I don’t think there is a remote control feature in the midibox FM synth application -

but with a little effort it should be possible to build a remote control app able to control two

target FM boxes with SysEx.

This would require an additional core of course, and maybe two I2C Midi I/Os.

Programming skills are required too :slight_smile:

3

So, the CS would be connected to that core and then the other cores are connected to the IICs right?

I was looking through the manual, and it seems there is a sysex dump option in the CFG menu. Maybe that could be made to work the way I want.

Also the programming required would be in assembly right? I only know c…

4

Actually, you’d have a core with CS, MIDI Out connections to the FMs, and MIDI IN from the Sequencer or other note generating device.

5

i drew a picture just to make sure we’re on the same page. This is what your talking about right?

6

That’s about it, yes…

Such an application could be built on top of the MB64 codebase, and would probably require not too much effort.

7

I ordered parts for another core, and 2 iic modules, and having started working on the cs and the case.

As far the code goes, I need to learn assembly. I only know c…

But to get started, the code on the core with the cs needs to be modified to send stuff to the correct IIC module, as well poll the IIC modules to see if it has received anything back from the cores right? Would it be worthwhile to use the RI# pins of the IIC modules so polling is not needed?

8

i was digging around more on ucapps, and after reading about mbnet, i was wondering if i couldn’t just use that. I realize that the pic18f452 doesn’t have the ecan peripheral like the pic18f4685, but can the fm run on the pic18f4685? Because according to this http://ucapps.de/midibox_network.html mbnet is more efficient, and based on my understanding it shouldn’t require additional hardware (iic modules), but may still require a 3rd core. Would this also work?

9

I’ve accidently run my Fm on a 685 and it works. IIRC i used the mios for the 452, since the FM-app didn’t run properly otherwise.

In the WIKI it says:

PIC18F4685 and PIC18F4682 are not 100% binary compatible to PIC18F452. RAM from 0×60-0x7f is not directly accessible. BANKED accesses have to be used instead.

This might be a problem, but i have not found anything wrong so far.

But AFAIK the Pin on the 685 which supports CAN is already used for something else…I can’t find a proof in the docs, though…

10

can tx/rx are on pins 35 and 36, which also double as lcd data lines 2 and 3. They are also used for connecting to the opl3 board in the fm. So it probably wouldn’t work unless things were moved around. Maybe i’ll just go with iic.