Category Archives: MIDI

ReBirth RB-338 v.2.0

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I’m not a big sequencer as I’m just terrible when it comes to music. But apparently on Wikipedia Propellerhead had set the download free, although download links now are inoperable.

After a lot of googling around I found it split up on one of those annoying download sites. So I spent the night waiting for stupid timers, training an AI to sport automobiles & intersections (lol redlight camera training), and as a reward I got the download.

ReBirth on Qemu under Windows 95

I installed it on the floppy version of Windows 95 on Qemu where it needed IE 5.01, Direct X, Winsock 2 & Windows 95 SP1 updates (among others…) and yes it works!

Included in the downloads is some assists so you can run it on Windows 10 x64 if you are so inclined.

Also there is some MacOS X images, although I haven’t tested them. I need to drag my G5 into my office to try it, but it’s getting late, and I want to go home.

I put the download up over on archive.org. You can download it here:

https://archive.org/details/ReBirth-338v2.0

Update:

Since this time my upload to archive.org has been deleted. I was also trying to remove all the google accounts I have and when I changed the email address away from google all my uploads became ‘unknown’ so maybe they are hidden? Anyways over on Wikipeida just use citation #19, and you can download it there.

Adding DOSBox’s MPU401 to Qemu 0.90

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I thought this may be something cool, if not kind of pointless. Anyways the MPU401 UART can be run like a traditional serial port with an IRQ, in intelligent mode, or just as a ‘dumb’ device you can just bit bang to talk to MIDI devices. So while playing with DOSBox I thought it’d be fun to take it’s emulation and plug it into Qemu.

And this is the end result.

It’s far from perfect, when it works it does tend to work well, although it fails to work with things like Return to Zork, but it does work with DMX’s sound code in DooM and the MPU401 driver for Windows 3.1

While doing this I was originally struggling with mapping the IO ports. Qemu has some functions to map in the memory model to assign a function that will trap read/write space. In this case base is 0x330 the base of the MPU401 device.

register_ioport_write(base, 8, 1, mpu401_ioport_write, s); register_ioport_read(base, 8, 1, mpu401_ioport_read, s);

I was thinking that the port 0x331 needed to be mapped in the same way, but it turns out after looking through more of the source, it’s actually a word aligned access. So in that case you can use a switch to see which port is actually being accessed.

static uint32_t mpu401_ioport_read(void *opaque, uint32_t addr) { switch(addr&0xf) { case 0: return(MPU401_ReadData(addr,0)); break; case 1: return(MPU401_ReadStatus(addr,0)); break; default: return(0xff); break; } return(0xff); }

Pretty simple, right?

And from there it’s a matter of mapping the DOSBox MPU code, along with the Windows interface code. Since I’m not using intelligent or IRQ mode, I just amputated the code where applicable.

If anyone wants to look at what I did to merge into anything else (and probably do a better job!) it’s on sourceforge as mpu401.c.

Otherwise the binary is available on sourceforge:

Download Qemu090b

Just got a Roland Soundcanvas SC-88!

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Roland Soundcanvas SC-88

Roland Soundcanvas SC-88

As annoying as it is that Windows 10 won’t drive my el-cheapo USB-MIDI interface adapter, I have to say that even loading Windows XP into VMWare Player, and then loading DOSBox is a pleasant enough experience when connecting to the Roland.

Pluses include the built in power supply, RCA jacks, and of course it just sounds snappier compared to the Yamaha MU-80.

I’ll have to capture samples from both, to compare and contrast.

I have to say that for a mere 2,400 Yen I’m really enjoying this fine piece of hardware!

I’m unsure of the difference between the SC-88, the SC-88 Pro, the SC-88VL and the SC-88ST, and of course the SC-88ST Pro.  I just know I’m lucky that mine arrived OK and in working order!  Thanks ps38152000, whomever you are.

MIDI Mayhem on Windows 10

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So I know it’s ‘probably’ the super cheap generic USB to MIDI dongal I got on the cheap, but it just doesn’t work on Windows 10.

Using DOSBox, I get the following output when cycling between devices on the console:

MIDI:Opened device:win32
MIDI:win32 selected Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth
MIDI:Opened device:win32
MIDI:win32 selected USB2.0-MIDI
MIDI:Opened device:none
MIDI:win32 selected MIDIOUT2 (USB2.0-MIDI)
MIDI:Opened device:none

As you can see it clearly can see the USB device, but when it opens the device it fails. And yes I’ve tried Administrator.  And for the hell of it, I fire up Windows XP on VMWare, connect the USB dongal, and amazingly:

MIDI:Opened device:win32
MIDI:win32 selected USB Audio Device
MIDI:Opened device:win32
MIDI:win32 selected USB Audio Device [2]
MIDI:Opened device:win32
MIDI:win32 selected Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth
MIDI:Opened device:win32

Yes, I can open the out port just fine.  So now I run a virtualizer to run my emulator to drive a physical peripheral… Ugh.  Has MIDI been this messed up all along and I never noticed?

Oh yeah, the GS Wavetable Synth works fine, as did MUNT before I uninstalled it, thinking it was somehow interfering with anything.

I know I’m using this fine device, the QinHeng USB MIDI adapter, which apparently is notorious crap, but my recently acquired Yamaha MU 80, works fine with it on Windows XP.

QinHeng USB MIDI adapter

QinHeng USB MIDI adapter

Ugh.

Giving up on the MT-32

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What do you mean, giving up?  Well I’ve been trying to buy one, and I’ve lost every auction.  So I figured I’d check up the emulation scene and see what is up.  Then I heard this video:

And this one.

Notice anything?

Or at least to my ears, MUNT, sounds the same as the real thing!

So, how to use the thing?  Well in Windows Vista onward (8/8.1/10..) Microsoft decided to hide the MIDI selection tools, making this a mission to see what mapper you are using.  But using DOSBox it’s easy to see which is which.  In DOSBox run:

mixer /listmidi

0 “CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth”
1 “Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth”
2 “MT-32 Synth Emulator”

In this case the MT-32 emulator is #2 on my system.  Then to select this device, just type in:

midiconfig 2

And you are in business!  Fire up the UI and you’ll see:

DOSBox active on MUNT.

DOSBox active on MUNT.

Then configure your application for ‘general MIDI’ on port 0x330, and you should be good to go!

DOSBox DOOM v1.1 general midi

DOSBox DOOM v1.1 general midi

And, how does it sound?

Now for comparison, here is E1M1 with VirtualMIDISynth with SGM-V2.01 sound font.

It’s impressive when you put them next to say the Adlib.

So maybe it was a good thing I kept on losing the auctions… But it’d still be neat to drive a real MIDI peripheral on a modern machine.  Maybe I’ll win, one day.