Some general Questions regarding using the xoxbox

[3phase]

Hi all,

I am just about finishing a selfsourced xoxbox.. I had to do the casing my self because no quick way to get to the intended housing... but thats finished now and i will see tomorow if it is running straight away...

I made a test with the new transistors in position Q9 of my old original 303... they sound different even when having betas above 350... but the different sound was pleasing to me... i will investigate that a bit mre in my xox unit ...after confirming that its working i will place sockets for positions Q8-10 and see what combinations do what..

lokking into the availible manuals left a few questions open...

there is no syncing via USB...ist that wright?

In case thats wright i wonder why..is it a limitation of the design or is it just a operating system question?


Somwhere in the Forum i ve readthat the sokos OS 1.9 dont worls in midi sync..is that wright? Is there an updated version around?

And how does the Sokos OS behave in general? HAve many users went for this custom OS? Or is it risky?

The 2 features that that the slide/acc switches are only temporarely and that you can save where you want..having pattern copy this way, are most important for me... Swing is nice as well..but i guess thtas the part where timing problems can come from...


Has anybody done a merging of OS systems or are ther OS versions around that just have little improvments like the save where you want routine??


In the end of the day this probably makes the biggest workflow benefit...


As i understand you need the control software to dump patterns..but as i read in the forum it is not working at all..
and not on a mac... .. another bootcamp case...

Is this old info and somebody has fixed that allready? If yes it would be nice if somebody could supply me with links..


Thanks,
Sven

[adafruit]

as far as i know, there is no syncing via USB in any OS, only MIDI
there are different OS's with different capabilities. you can pick and choose or write your own

[3phase]

I would love to write my own but...the long bad learning curve..

i started my xox yesterday..was working ...
Is there any version that has the tb303 relatime input for timing information?
I think thats a most vital aspect of the original 303 sequencer...


greets
Sven

[guest]

i think there is a tap tempo feature

and if you hit notes while in pattern edit mode
while it is playing
i think it changes to those notes

[alex_dubinsky]

If you have feature suggestions, you should mention them in the SokkOS thread. I'm sure Sokkan will consider them. (Although, I'm not sure how sync-over-USB would work. What program would know to generate the sync signal? Better to just get a USB MIDI adapter. But, adding sync-over-USB would probably be pretty easy. A cooler feature might be to write a USB driver that makes the x0x look like a MIDI device when connected to a PC. But then again... what's the point except you save yourself a cable?)

As i understand you need the control software to dump patterns..but as i read in the forum it is not working at all..

eil put together and merged a bunch of c0ntr0l patches. (http://forums.ladyada.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8640) They don't make c0ntr0l dancy and fly, but they fix some very fundamental bugs. Ladyada... how about we make it the official 1.1?

[adafruit]

i was kinda hoping to never work on c0ntr0l so anything anybody does with it is totally official as far as i'm concerned

[Amberwolf]

As far as MIDI sync over USB goes, well, apparently it takes some doing to make a good USB MIDI driver, as many of the early ones I tried that most companies came out with for even "pro-end" USB MIDI adapters had terrible timing problems, usually during CPU-intensive moments on the PC, since USB tends to take a lot of CPU time if there are a lot of transactions. MIDI is definitely transaction-intensive, even if not high-bandwidth--and it's very important that every bit of data be timed right.

When sending lots of channels full of RPN/NRPN, CC, Note, and Clock data, it's hard to find good MIDI adapters. The one on the old GadgetLabs 8*24 PCI card was good, but they never made WDM drivers for it so it never got past Win98 (well, Mostek, a user, made XP drivers but not a MIDI driver, last I'd heard). My MAudio USB FastTrackPro does great on the audio, but only ok on the MIDI--I can get lost notes and CC/RPN/NRPN data if I jam it up with lots of data all at once, either incoming or outgoing, regardless of driver version.

If all you want to do is get the data/pattern/etc dumps done via USB, rather than as sysex over MIDI, I guess that could be done, but I don't know what it would involve. Sokkan is probably the best person to ask about that, from what I've read here.

If all you want is to clock the xox from USB, well, that'd require at least a USB MIDI driver (potentially much more), for most programs output their clock data only as MIDI, sometimes as SMPTE over MIDI (I think), and sometimes as SMPTE over it's own channel via specialty controllers or separate channels on audio cards, and sometimes just as an audio-sample-rate clock like SPDIF. The latter two, if using "industry standard" methods, would require a hardware modification to the xox to get the data into it, plus an OS change to it to translate that data to system clock. Over USB it would just need the OS change, but you'd also need a program on the PC to act as a "driver" for your audio/MIDI programs to see as the device to send sync data out of or into.

[3phase]

thanks for answers...

i will do feature suggestions in the sokos thread... i really miss the realtime step input of the real 303...

..

I see now why there is no midi via usb... You are wright that good midi drivers seem to be a real challenge..

But you mention dumps via sysex? with the original OS?

regards
Sven

[Amberwolf]

I don't have a xox, so I don't know if it supports that, but most midi devices I've used will dump and receive sounds, banks or other info piece-by-peice or bulk (entire unit info) via sysex. Hopefully xox supports it as well.

[eil]

You can load/save patterns with c0ntr0l via USB. The patched version that I posted (see the "c0ntr0l update" thread in this forum) fixes a couple major bugs with that, but there might be one or two left.