Got some new hardware in. Can now use Mu2000 with Sega Master System games in real time.
Sonic 1
https://youtu.be/ZHZUP16OLiE

That's pretty darn cool. I wonder if I could rig that up with my Mega Sg.

Hi all
Newbie here, nice to meet you.
I found myself with some time on my hands while on gardening leave between jobs, and ventured somewhat down a MIDI rabbit hole - only wrt playback for now mind, specifically with video game music.
Am very close to pulling the trigger on an MU2000EX. Couple of questions if I may:
- Re using XM6 emulator for X68000 games. Understood that I can have XM6 emulator output MIDI game music to the MU2000EX, with the MU2000EX then processing and outputting its particular flavor of sound. To use USB for connecting PC and MU2000EX seems a good way to go, but I am gathering this can only be done to output MIDI data from PC to the MU2000EX, but not from the MU2000EX back to the PC as well. Is that right?
And following up - to output from the MU2000EX then... assuming USB is only for inputting into the MU2000EX, I could have the MU2000EX output via optical/SPDIF straight to my AV receiver which has a nice DAC built in. So far so good. But how could I then output the rest of the audio (to have a final audio mix) outside of just the MIDI music? My PC motherboard doesn't have optical audio input (though it does have an optical output), and my PC is connected to my TV directly for HDMI 2.1 features, with PC audio then being sent to my AV receiver via eARC.
Would getting a PC sound card with optical input solve this? Ideally there's an option where I don't have to buy more kit of course.

Thank you so much.

> (to have a final audio mix)

It's called a mixer.

Do you know of any mixers then that can accommodate input for HDMI audio ranging from 32-bit/384kHz Stereo through to multichannel Dolby Atmos, in addition to optical digital input for more typical stereo?

Or is there a cleaner solution. You know, like an internal sound card.

X-Fi Titanium has optical input, as does ASUS Xonar, if thats really the route you want to go down, and assuming you are only playing games in an emulator.

TRIPLE A wrote on 2021-10-07, 22:27:

Do you know of any mixers then that can accommodate input for HDMI audio ranging from 32-bit/384kHz Stereo through to multichannel Dolby Atmos, in addition to optical digital input for more typical stereo?

Or is there a cleaner solution. You know, like an internal sound card.

You could use any sound card with a TOSLINK, there are also external USB sound cards as well.

https://www.amazon.com/LEAGY-External-Sound-C … l/dp/B07VSHCGWD

Thanks, getting there. (I have seen PC sound cards with optical audio input already, hence my mentioning this in original post.)
Assuming I go the route of PC-sound-card-with-optical-input then, what is best way to mix the audio sources from each of a) MIDI device that would be outputting via optical into the PC and b) rest of XM6 emulator audio coming from PC.
Thanks again.

Seems like the sound card route may involve too many ADC/DAC conversion processes. So I might just bite the bullet and get a mixer.

Does anyone know of any mixers that can handle;

INPUTS:
1) optical digital audio (from PC [in the case of X68K emulation this would be sound effects plus whatever else would be output from the X68K audio 'hardware' part of the emulation])
2) optical digital audio (from MU2000EX)
3) analogue stereo audio (from, say, a CM-64)

To then output mixed stream of either 1)+2), or 1)+3), via optical digital out?
Finding it a bit of a minefield out there.
Thanks.

TRIPLE A wrote on 2021-10-31, 18:55:

Seems like the sound card route may involve too many ADC/DAC conversion processes. So I might just bite the bullet and get a mi […]
Show full quote

Seems like the sound card route may involve too many ADC/DAC conversion processes. So I might just bite the bullet and get a mixer.

Does anyone know of any mixers that can handle;

INPUTS:
1) optical digital audio (from PC [in the case of X68K emulation this would be sound effects plus whatever else would be output from the X68K audio 'hardware' part of the emulation])
2) optical digital audio (from MU2000EX)
3) analogue stereo audio (from, say, a CM-64)

To then output mixed stream of either 1)+2), or 1)+3), via optical digital out?
Finding it a bit of a minefield out there.
Thanks.

your problem lies in restricting yourself to optical… most things only have a singular spdif/toslink in.

you can get an analog 10 stereo mixer and feed everything into it, like a rolls rm203 stereo line mixer.

Yes I've seen a few mixers with only one optical in - I guess mine is a particular use case.
There not seeming to be hardware out there that does the job I need, does seem at odds with digital becoming more commonplace... if anyone knows of something that can fit the bill though, do let me know.
Thanks a lot for any help.

TRIPLE A wrote on 2021-11-01, 09:04:

Yes I've seen a few mixers with only one optical in - I guess mine is a particular use case.
There not seeming to be hardware out that does the job I need, does seem odd what with digital becoming more commonplace... if anyone knows of something that can fit the bill though, do let me know.
Thanks a lot for any help.

I responded to you on shmups already, but I think the reason you are confusing people here is that you specificly want a mixer with multiple toslink ports. These days USB Audio has mostly replaced it. USB Audio and Toslink are both digital. Your PC can output over USB and MU2000 can use the toslink. Its's all you need really.

Yes I've seen a few mixers with only one optical in - I guess mine is a particular use case.

No idea what's available in your country, but there are several sound cards with internal mixers and two optical ports- usually the second is an ADAT/TOSlink switchable port. In fact, many older (old compared to 2021, not retro gear!) sound cards probably have this capability too.
This is a modern example:
https://motu.com/products/proaudio/828es

Another possibility and cheaper way to go for home use is an optical to digital (TOSlink to coaxial) SPDIF converter, which can generally be gotten off eBay cheap (again, YMMV depending on where you live). That way you have one coax and one TOS, or if you use two, two coax SPDIF. Either of those combos will be relatively easy to find on an audio interface or mixer - certainly way easier than 2 optical.

Only other thing I can think of is a digital mixer from the 90's that might have multiple digital inputs. Roland, Yamaha, Tascam made such things. I don't think any have multiple optical ports though (or even a single), all SPDIF, AES or ADAT. Can convert both to SPDIF/AES and use, of course.

the motu is an audio interface, and massive overkill for what op really wants, and is not a mixer, but a nice piece of gear tho. Similar is the focusrite scarlett 18i20 but from memory I think its dual opticals are 16channel ADAT only rather than stereo toslinks.

Thank you everyone, all very helpful information to help me on my journey with this

Anyone know what the native sampling rate and bit depth of the MU2000 spdif output is? I found these TOSlink to USB line in devices:

https://hifimediy.com/product/hifime-ur23-spd … -usb-converter/

https://www.amazon.com/Cubilux-Receiver-Inter … Y/dp/B0BQQLFQ59

First one is more expensive but supports up to 96khz 24 bit sampling rate, second one only supports 48khz 16-bit.

Pretty much just want to capture the spdif output from the MU2000 and have windows "listen" to the input so I can hear it through the HDMI output from my video card and also occasionally record a clean digital signal from the MU2000 to an audio file.

I can't find any information about the output, but input is converted to 16-bit, according to the manual, so it's likely 16-bit/48khz for output.

Sound chips in MU2000 are clocked by 33.8688MHz which is 44100 * 768. ADC and SPDIF transmitter run at a clock derived from it too so t should all be 44100Hz based.

Wish there was an SD card to smartmedia convertor it would be very useful on old synths like this. Smartmedia is literally just a flash memory chip with no memory controller and I can't imagine it would be too difficult to use an STM32 or AT32 processor to simulate that. Both are dirt cheap and basically a system on a chip that can interface to an SD card without any extra external hardware.

Been thinking about looking into designing that myself when I get the time, I have no interest in selling sutch a thing but I wouldn't mind releasing production files people could use to have one made by JLCPCB or whoever, the thickness of the smartmedia cards is very close to a 0.8mm (0.04mm thinner than that) and you might be able to just make the whole thing on a 0.8mm circuit board with the contacts as part of the layout.