I'd prefer the blue, cause it looks like it "just works", but I'm not going to complain. This looks like a solid buy to put next to the X2GS enclosure.

looks great. What color is that on LCD? Is this white?

How about an on/off switch? 😀

mihai wrote on 2021-08-02, 19:54:

looks great. What color is that on LCD? Is this white?

no that is the blue display

Nice project! Question: what is exactly dropped or different from this lite version compared to the normal MP32? Also is the launch price still valid?

Yoghoo wrote on 2021-08-02, 22:23:

Nice project! Question: what is exactly dropped or different from this lite version compared to the normal MP32?

MP32 started as a project in 2018, and has been refactored often, without release :
i published first photos in 2019 : MP-32 : Pi based MT32, GM, ... module
It was a larger mainboard, dream chip based, large display, large enclosure,...
It evolved into an MT32 style enclosure in 2020,
and finally in a more compact form, compatible with MT32PI in 2021
Only this last version will be available as a product

Yoghoo wrote on 2021-08-02, 22:23:

Also is the launch price still valid?

yes, at this moment
enclosures will be available in about 2 weeks

I was hoping to see MP32 made with MT32-like case .. honestly I was expecting to buy just that .. oh well I'll review my plans 😭😭😭

I have a few Pi 3A+ here,..
Currently still refining the 3d prints
After this I will make a few complete sets in red and blue, if there's interest in this .
The complete set will be ready to go, and will contain :
- MP32L pcb with OLED display and buttons, fully soldered and tested
- Raspberry PI 3A+
- 3D printed enclosure in black + red / blue (depending on your choice)
- 16gb Micro SD card (sandisk), preloaded with suitable config (without MT32 ROMs)

PM me for quote, including color and shipping options
(or contact me through https://www.serdashop.com/contact)

Received my MP32L today. Thanks dreamblaster!

Only had to change the screen rotation as it was upside down. For reference this can easily be done in the config file mt32-pi.cfg (rotation = inverted).

Tried a couple of GM and MT-32 games which worked perfectly. Only got the dreaded "Unexp MIDI status" on the screen when starting a game. This is a mt32-pi problem though and not from MP32L.

My setup is like this: AWE64 -> DB15MIDI -> Stagg SMD2 S-Series Metal MIDI Cable (2M) -> MP32L. Saw some comments about cables etc but don't believe this to be a hardware problem in my case. Also saw a similar bug reported already (https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/issues/152) so hope this will be fixed soon.

I am 3 sound cards later and could not make the error message go away 100%. I agree in hoping it is resolved eventually.

Yoghoo wrote on 2021-08-10, 17:14:

Only got the dreaded "Unexp MIDI status" on the screen when starting a game.

Which game? Does it happen once or several times during the music?

So far, zero people experiencing this have given specific examples of games for me to investigate, and the reports are too vague, therefore nothing can be fixed.
The rtp-MIDI issue you linked will be to do with a different, unrelated area of code.

In general, "Unexp. MIDI status" means mt32-pi received some garbage from the host - literally corrupt/invalid MIDI data. It's just a warning, not a fatal error, and unlikely to be an mt32-pi bug unless it's a false positive caused by some edge-case (but I need to be able to reproduce the error to find and fix that). It is intended to help debug broken MIDI interfaces or host software. So there are three options:

• If the warning appears once, but the music plays fine otherwise, just ignore it. The MPU probably spat out some garbage when the game initialized it and triggered the warning.
• Find out why the software/game is sending bad data and try to fix it (speed/CPU cache issues? MPU incompatibilities?)
• Change mt32-pi so that it never reports any MIDI errors. Arguably, real MIDI synthesizers only tend to report SysEx-related problems on their LCDs and not issues with other MIDI commands, so maybe I should do this, as it would reduce the number of false bug reports.

d0pefish wrote on 2021-08-10, 17:32:

Yoghoo wrote on 2021-08-10, 17:14:

Only got the dreaded "Unexp MIDI status" on the screen when starting a game.

Which game? Does it happen once or several times during the music?

Tried 3 games so far:

• Duke Nukem 3D
• Star Wars: TIE Fighter
• King's Quest V

All 3 gave this error message at the start. Saw it a couple of times during the start of Duke Nukem 3D.

If you want me to test a certain game or debug something let me know.

I can't speak for others, but I only ever see that unexpected midi status message, when I forget to slow my system down before playing something. So it's 100% a speed thing for me, as I never see it when I turn off caches etc.

Blood still gives that unexp for me even when I run setmul and disable l1 cache.

As does doom.

RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-08-10, 18:00:

I can't speak for others, but I only ever see that unexpected midi status message, when I forget to slow my system down before playing something. So it's 100% a speed thing for me, as I never see it when I turn off caches etc.

Just tried this with Duke Nukem 3D as well. Using a Pentium II 233Mhz. Downclocked it to 133Mhz and disabled the L2 cache in the bios. Also used cpuspeed with a throttle of 1 (from 8 ). Making the game absolutely unplayable slow. But even then it show this error.

Wasn't paying attention but this ...

Fixed
The MIDI level meters could get stuck under certain circumstances (issue #142).

... is what I always encountered when leaving the unit on alone for half an hour or so. When I would come back the level meters were all over the place and this could only be fixed after a reboot of the unit.
Nice that this has been addressed now.

Doom and Duke are well-tested with mt32-pi. I've tested these games with it so frequently over the past year that I am sick to death of hearing them 😀
Hence, this is making me suspicious of PC/sound card hardware, and there's not much that can be done if testers are going to be shy about giving precise details of system specs.

The other games mentioned have not been tested well, so I'll check them out when I get some time.

I'm going to ask this again - as it is important.

Does "Unexp. MIDI status" happen once at game startup, or multiple times during the music?
Does the music sound okay otherwise, ignoring the message?

I imagine that bullet point 1 in my previous message is happening - burst of garbage from MPU when initialized by game, thus warning can be safely ignored.
Can only guess though until I can put together a PC and try to reproduce it.

d0pefish wrote on 2021-08-10, 18:30:

Does "Unexp. MIDI status" happen once at game startup, or multiple times during the music?
Does the music sound okay otherwise, ignoring the message?

As stated above: happens 1 time with 2 games during start. Happens multiple times (during start) with Duke Nukem 3D.

Most of my system specs are above as well. But to sum it up:

Pentium II 233Mhz
384Mb ram
AWE64 sound blaster
SoftMPU
MP32L
Dos 7.01

Sound is okay I guess otherwise. Don't have a baseline as I never owned a MT-32.

For me, every time, cold boot, blood 1st game loaded.
Soundfont chosen before I even power on the PC.
Same with doom, again soundfont.
And monkey Island, which is mt32 by default on the lite, (I don't change to soundfont) and music loop causes the same but only very briefly.

Any time I got Unexp. MIDI status errors, the music would sound normal to my ears.