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Emulating MT-32 on an RPi2

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Reply 180 of 292, by gdjacobs

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The UM-One works as will the Dreamblaster X3. I've also used a Digidesign Mbox 2 for testing and it's fine. M-Audio adapters and even the cheap Chinese no name adapters (some assembly required) should be okay as there are patches to work around their problems, but I can't personally vouch for them nor do I recall any confirmed reports of them working in this forum.

You can also disable the first UART (and Bluetooth in the Pi 3) and use it for MIDI I/O. Of course, you'll need a breakout circuit to convert to a current loop.

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Reply 181 of 292, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:

The UM-One works as will the Dreamblaster X3. I've also used a Digidesign Mbox 2 for testing and it's fine. M-Audio adapters and even the cheap Chinese no name adapters (some assembly required) should be okay as there are patches to work around their problems, but I can't personally vouch for them nor do I recall any confirmed reports of them working in this forum.

You can also disable the first UART (and Bluetooth in the Pi 3) and use it for MIDI I/O. Of course, you'll need a breakout circuit to convert to a current loop.

Umm.. Are you referring to the X3M? I happen to have one; so I connect the X3M to the Pi via USB, and to the Retro PC via MIDI In?? How does that work, really? Is there a way to get X3M to do pass through midi through the USB? And if so, can I use the two like a midi module and an MT-32 together, enabling and disabling MIDI passthrough on the X3M somehow? Fascinating if possibe!

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Reply 182 of 292, by gdjacobs

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Yes, the X3M. Yes, that's how I've used it. Depending on the version the DIN port can be reconfigured for input or output. The hardware MIDI engine can be enabled or disabled by SYSEX.

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Reply 183 of 292, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:

Yes, the X3M. Yes, that's how I've used it. Depending on the version the DIN port can be reconfigured for input or output. The hardware MIDI engine can be enabled or disabled by SYSEX.

Do you have a tutorial for this, by chance? What kind of connector is needed, how the software is configured etc.. RPi+X3M in one ultimate MT32/GM module sounds so pure awesome.

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Reply 184 of 292, by gdjacobs

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Serge has it well laid out in the manual.
http://serdaco.com/downloads/X3M/X3M_UserManual.pdf

You need to make sure MIDI routing is the way you need it. Selecting MIDI in or out can be done via the pin header.

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Reply 185 of 292, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:

Serge has it well laid out in the manual.
http://serdaco.com/downloads/X3M/X3M_UserManual.pdf

You need to make sure MIDI routing is the way you need it. Selecting MIDI in or out can be done via the pin header.

My X3M is an older model, one without the DIN selector pins for MIDI In or Out, but I guess this is beside the point, as for my use case the DIN will be MIDI In (which it is, by default) and all I need to do is set routing to Synthesizer AND USB.. That way, I can route the audio out from the X3M and Pi to a simple audio switch, which I can route to the Line In and I will be all set, apparently?

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Reply 186 of 292, by gdjacobs

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I use the PCM out provided by the X3M. Better fidelity and it mixes in the Dream DSP.

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Reply 187 of 292, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:

I use the PCM out provided by the X3M. Better fidelity and it mixes in the Dream DSP.

Do you have any photos of your setup? 😀

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Reply 189 of 292, by Srandista

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gdjacobs wrote:

The UM-One works...

If I want to go this route, I should just replicate Phil's setup with Roland UM-ONE, MIDI coupler and MIDI to Gameport cable, right?

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Reply 191 of 292, by Srandista

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I don't see any laptop here 😀

dsc-5736_orig.jpg

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Reply 192 of 292, by appiah4

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I'm trying to get this working but apparently I'll need a bit of handholding..

Using the root account (and no password) I used the prebuild Pi3 image, booted it, copied the ROMs to the folder and did sudo make install.

Now.. what?

I run qsynth but it just throws an error at me complaining about no JACK output.. Which is reasonable because no drivers seem to be loaded for Pi's internal audio 😵 Is this intentional? Do I need a USB sound card? Can't I use Pi3's analogue out?

Also, qsynth only seems to do sf2 GM, how does MUNT factor in here? How can I run it or verify it's running?

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Reply 193 of 292, by gdjacobs

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Qsynth is a GM emulator. The counterpart for Roland LA synthesis is mt32emu-qt.

I believe I do have that image configured for JACK. QSynth can be reconfigured for ALSA output, though. Similarly with mt32emu-qt, I believe you'll have to reconfigure it for ALSA output. In both cases, this can be done through the GUI. Also, double check the file '.asoundrc' (note the dot in front of the file name) and make sure it's essentially blank. Last, run 'ps -faux' and make sure there's no entry that's JACK related. I don't believe JACK will automatically attempt to start, but I'm not 100% sure.

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Reply 194 of 292, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:

Qsynth is a GM emulator. The counterpart for Roland LA synthesis is mt32emu-qt.

I believe I do have that image configured for JACK. QSynth can be reconfigured for ALSA output, though. Similarly with mt32emu-qt, I believe you'll have to reconfigure it for ALSA output. In both cases, this can be done through the GUI. Also, double check the file '.asoundrc' (note the dot in front of the file name) and make sure it's essentially blank. Last, run 'ps -faux' and make sure there's no entry that's JACK related. I don't believe JACK will automatically attempt to start, but I'm not 100% sure.

Hm.. I see. mt32emu-qt does not appear to be among the installed programs in the debian menu even after placing the ROM files and doing sudo make install, but maybe I'm missing something.

Also yeah it's configured for JACK but I can't just switch to ALSA or OSS and use the Raspberry audio out because there are no audio devices on the system; the kernel modules were not built perhaps?

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Reply 195 of 292, by appiah4

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This just doesn't seem to work for me, for some reason.. I went back to using MT32-Pi: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi

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Reply 196 of 292, by Srandista

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Can't it be set with Patchage like here with FluidSynth (just to use munt)?

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http://web.archive.org/web/20190303142257/htt … spberry-pi.html

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Reply 197 of 292, by gdjacobs

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appiah4 wrote:

This just doesn't seem to work for me, for some reason.. I went back to using MT32-Pi: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi

For the Pi3 image, I honestly can't remember everything that I did, as it was quite some time ago. I do know that I used debootstrap to install, so I don't have some of the Raspbian specific tools.

I was using a USB audio interface and may have forced HDMI output. I also wasn't basing off Raspbian and might not have the Broadcom audio output module loaded as, again, I didn't care about it. Unless you're using an external codec, the default DA conversion for the Pi boards is quite weak even compared to inexpensive USB dongles.

I'm hoping to rebase off a newer build of Devuan using AARCH64, hopefully this weekend. I have been doing some thinking about a more embedded version as well and that buildroot script might be a good place to start. Please let me know if Munt is built with all available optimizations as I didn't see anything in the project you linked specifying additional performance related compiler flags for the libmt32emu package.

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Reply 199 of 292, by appiah4

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I ended up doing a clean install of Raspbian Buster and then following this guide to install MUNT 2.3.0 on it: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/12549/tut … tion-on-rpi-3/2

Everything seems to have worked. EDIT: Works flawlessly with DOSBOX running on the same pi. Now, I need to try it with midi from a USB MIDI interface.

I'll try that out tonight.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.