Original MR firmware update (beta)

[Scott Pinkham]

I've posted a beta version of firmware for the original MIDI Rocker.
Both Wii and Playstation versions are available. You can get the
firmware from http://www.bytearts.com/beta/beta.htm.

Here's a quick list of changes:
* In Guitar Hero (GH) mode, because there are only 5 LEDs available,
and GH has 6 "channels" (3 pads, 2 cymbals and 1 pedal), the orange
cymbal and the kick pedal "share" LED5 (the orange one) and hitting
either will cause LED5 to flash. (In previous versions you'd never see
a flash for the orange cymbal).
* In Rock Band mode, both the hi hat pedal and kick pedal "share" LED5
as well. For now, you have to use the Windows software to set the hi
hat pedal threshold to set the position at which the hi hat is
considered closed in RB3. The hi hat pedal just changes the sound you
hear when playing drum fills in RB3.
* There is an additional delay when first plugging in the Midi Rocker
-- this delay is to allow the voltage to settle a little more and
should help eliminate any problems with recalling a map.

Note that you can hold the navigation to the RIGHT to create/end
editing a set list in Rock Band, and hold it to the left to simulate
holding down the kick pedal to sort through the list of songs. This
feature has been in the firmware for a while, but I think it hasn't
been needed by most people until RB3.

If you have a chance to try this out, please let me know of any
problems or questions (or let me know if everything works!).

-Scott P (Byte Arts)

[Hugo Gayosso]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for the update, here are my findings.

I flashed it and then uploaded my map to the original MIDI Rocker.
I enabled the hi hat threshold to 20 (the value I normally use).
I left the MIDI note duration to 40ms (previously I had moved it to 50ms).

I played "Space Oddity" from RB3 and the previously reported problem
of notes "Blue Cymbal + Yellow Tom" was not present I was able to play
the whole song just fine.

I decided to go to GH mode and then back and it seems that my map got preserved.

Then I put GH Metallica and switched to GH mode, I noticed the delay
but then something weird happened, it seems that my map was there but
every time I hit a pad the LED remained turned on, if hit another pad
the LED of the new one remained on. I got to the point that I had
almost all LEDs turned on at the same time. Eventually they will turn
off.

I tried to start to play but the MIDI Rocker would not accept any more
hits to the pad while it was turned on.

I failed the song and when the "Failed" menu came up , I hit a pad and
the cursor in the menu moved like if I had hit it multiple times very
fast.

I switched to RB mode and then I had the same experience, every note got hang.

I flashed back the beta 90b and now something weird happened, I
couldn't do a roll on any pad, it is as if every note was delayed, it
would take let's say 1 out of every 3 or 4 notes.

This on GH Metallica.

I will keep trying.......

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Scott Pinkham <sco...@bytearts.com> wrote:
> Here's a quick list of changes:
> * In Guitar Hero (GH) mode, because there are only 5 LEDs available,
> and GH has 6 "channels" (3 pads, 2 cymbals and 1 pedal), the orange
> cymbal and the kick pedal "share" LED5 (the orange one) and hitting
> either will cause LED5 to flash. (In previous versions you'd never see
> a flash for the orange cymbal).

> * In Rock Band mode, both the hi hat pedal and kick pedal "share" LED5
> as well. For now, you have to use the Windows software to set the hi
> hat pedal threshold to set the position at which the hi hat is
> considered closed in RB3. The hi hat pedal just changes the sound you
> hear when playing drum fills in RB3.
> * There is an additional delay when first plugging in the Midi Rocker
> -- this delay is to allow the voltage to settle a little more and
> should help eliminate any problems with recalling a map.
>
> Note that you can hold the navigation to the RIGHT to create/end
> editing a set list in Rock Band, and hold it to the left to simulate
> holding down the kick pedal to sort through the list of songs. This
> feature has been in the firmware for a while, but I think it hasn't
> been needed by most people until RB3.
>
> If you have a chance to try this out, please let me know of any
> problems or questions (or let me know if everything works!).
>
> -Scott P (Byte Arts)
>
>
>
>

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>

--
Hugo

[Hugo Gayosso]

I tried some more, now paying more attention on the flashing process,
particularly I wanted to make sure that I moved the switch from
"update" to "PS3" BEFORE unplugging the original MIDI Rocker.

I re-flashed the new beta again (92b) and this time everything seemed
to work fine.

Although the changes I had done to the maps in GH didn't get
preserved, so I connected it to the PC and decided to reset the maps
there.

I set my Rock Band maps there and saved them to a file and to the MIDI
Rocker. Then switched it to GH mode and did the same.

Then switched back to Rock Band mode and still I got corrupted maps.
The GUI showed a bunch of notes.

Some notes were shown in black, some in red, but unfortunately when I
took the screenshot were all black.

I am attaching a PDF showing my settings.
--
Hugo

[Hugo Gayosso]

Ok, I played a few songs in RB3.

Turned everything off, waited half an hour or so.

Turned everything on and now the original MIDI Rocker is back to the
behavior of "note hanging" (i.e. I hit the green pad, the LED remains
turned on for a long while).

I plugged it to the PC and using the GUI, I see the MIDI note duration
was changed from 40ms to 120ms !

Also when I hit the pads no LEDs are turned on, but the using the MIDI
Logging feature I can see the notes (I was expecting to see multiple
notes after one hit, but I didn't).

I return the MIDI duration to 40ms and now the LEDs in the original
MIDI Rocker are turning on and off as expected.

--
Hugo

[Scott Pinkham]

Hugo -

Thanks for all the effort in testing this out. Sorry for the
frustrations you are having. It seems like the contents of the EEPROM
(electrically-erasable, programmable, read only memory) are not
getting read out properly. I'm going to add a checksum to the memory
-- this should enable the firmware to detect when the memory has been
corrupted or not read out properly.

Since I haven't been able to duplicate this problem, it may be a
hardware issue, in which case I'd like to send you a replacement unit
to try out.

-Scott P (Byte Arts)

[Hugo Gayosso]

On 11/5/10, Scott Pinkham <sco...@bytearts.com> wrote:
> Hugo -
>
> Thanks for all the effort in testing this out. Sorry for the
> frustrations you are having.

No problem, I wanted to give you a better report when I first
encountered the map corruption but never put some time to it. Now
with the new features added, I decided to do it.

> It seems like the contents of the EEPROM
> (electrically-erasable, programmable, read only memory) are not
> getting read out properly. I'm going to add a checksum to the memory
> -- this should enable the firmware to detect when the memory has been
> corrupted or not read out properly.

Yes it seems like that.

At the end I re-flashed with the latest beta and played a few more
songs on RB3 and it worked fine, although I saw some missed notes, so
I connected it to the PC and moved the MIDI note duration back to
50ms, and then played again.

This means that I "rebooted" the device at least twice and didn't
experience the "long notes", but I am not sure it won't happen again.

> Since I haven't been able to duplicate this problem, it may be a
> hardware issue, in which case I'd like to send you a replacement unit
> to try out.

Thanks, I will accept the offer, I will send you my contact
information in a separate email.

Greetings,
--
Hugo

[Starscreamyo]

Hey Scott,
I just wanted to say that I have been running the beta firmware for a
good amount of time now on my original midi rocker playing RB3 and
everything seems to be working good. It seems to me that it might be
ready for the full release?

The only issue I had was that it seemed I could only update my midi
rocker using a computer running windows xp, as it didn't work for
windows vista or windows 7. I think its cause I have to use the
driver version cause my midi rocker is the original one? Anyway, I
got it updated, and it works great! thanks!

[Scott P (Byte Arts)]

Thanks for the feedback -- I put together an "official" release of the
firmware/software for the original MIDI Rocker this weekend.

The earlier versions of the original MIDI Rocker needed a special
driver to be installed in order to update the firmware. Later versions
(and all MIDI Rocker LXs) use a "driverless" method. If you want to
send your MIDI Rocker back to me, I'm happy to update it to the new
version for no charge.

-Scott P (Byte Arts)