Master - Slaves?

[ThomasT]

Hi Thorsten!

Can the Master-Slave concept be realized with the MIOS?  

Cascades Midiboxes may work, but they don't behave like _one_ big midibox. E.g. I want one display that shows the status of any potie/motorfader on all midiboxes.

I have two (old) midiboxes and two displays. If I add another one handling only 8 motorfaders, their status would never be shown on the displays. No navigation without extra cursor buttons would be possible. And so on.

I would praise you for this project, too. But I will do when I have understand it and know it's possibilities...  ;)

Greetings Thomas

[TK.]

Hi Thomas,

fine to hear from you again! :)

Sure, MIOS already provides multicore capabilities, but only in one direction (unidirectional). After I noticed that bidirectional transfers lead to a high CPU load and would require additional hardware, I came to the conclusion that the already implemented "MIDibox Link" feature (see Concepts->MIDIbox Link) is sufficient for a "big MIDI system"

I just have added some more infos to the page (since this question has been asked several times). Here an excerpt (however, the complete answer could fill a book ;-)

"If a big MIDI system with a complete menu navigation for multiple cores should be realized, the use of MIOS is highly recommented, since this operating system is much more flexible compared to the old PIC16F firmwares. Here a possible solution:

The first core provides the menu navigation interface. It sends control messages to the last core which handles with the output elements like LCD, LEDs, LED digits. Other core modules between the first and the last one can insert additional output messages into the MIDI stream if necessary.

Optionally, the first core could convert incoming MIDI events to control messages and send them to the other cores in order to access the soft-overtake function of pots, to move motorfaders, to change the patterns of LED rings directly. It could also send messages which assign MIDI events to pots/faders/encoders. In this manner, several setups (banks...) can be managed by a single core to reduce the programming effort."

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[EvilTez]

Hi Peeps :)

So would it be possible to have one core looking after the user interface, 8 motor faders and 64 led ringed encoders.  The second doing the same but with 2 40 LCD's for the motor faders.  The last core using a graphical lcd shows you the information for the selected controler (like midi channel destination and controler name) and uses its buttons and encoders only for navigation and user assigned keys?  

Can banksticks connected to all the cores connected be accessed?

Evil Tez

[ThomasT]

Hi!

>fine to hear from you again!  

I'm still alive...

For your interrest: the midibox works very good in the studio! All costumers and friends were impressed.

And I'm noone who handle things with care and touch them only with velvet gloves.

There are some problem but they were known before. (serial motor driver).

But there are a funny sideeffect. Since all motorfaders return to 0 during startup, I see at a first look if someone was in the studio (used as our rehearsal room, too)....

>however, the complete answer could fill a book

Is this not the right way to earn money from a uncommercial project... ;)

But good to see that it works. Perhaps it's worth to replace the whole electronic...does somebody need two midibox cores?

[TK.]

Hi Thomas,

thanks for the feedback! :)

Btw.: Greg's PCB is still compatible to MIOS, you only have to replace the crystal and the PIC. And you have to add Pull-Up resistors to the end of the 74HC165 chain - thats all :)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[TK.]

So would it be possible to have one core looking after the user interface, 8 motor faders and 64 led ringed encoders.  The second doing the same but with 2 40 LCD's for the motor faders.  The last core using a graphical lcd shows you the information for the selected controler (like midi channel destination and controler name) and uses its buttons and encoders only for navigation and user assigned keys?  

Can banksticks connected to all the cores connected be accessed?

Sure, that are nearly no limits! :)

But keep in mind that you have to program the control software by yourself. I'm only able to provide example codes (more are coming soon, also for multichip setups!) and some applications which are used by myself. And I can give a couple of tips, how to solve particular implementation problems with MIOS... but everything else has to be done by people who at last build the hardware.

Best Regards, Thorsten.