Midi Commands

[Alistair Baty]

Hi Team,

I am using the Midi feature to set the Song Loop and Tempo to my BeatBuddy using a Yamaha MD-BT01 Bluetooth interface.

First of all it seems to work fine on my wife's new Tablet. But on mine ... not so much.

I have three sets of commands in this order.

1. Folder
2. Song Number
3. Tempo (this is actually two commands MSB and LSB)
   

Initially the BeatBuddy would only see and update the Tempo.

Then I removed the Folder command and then it saw both the Song and Tempo commands - it worked great. But now it seems to be back at only seeing the Tempo.

I used it Dec 5 so that was v5.4.1 (Nov 1, 2021 update), but I don't see when v5.4.2 was released as it is not on the Downloads page. So I don't know if it was something in an updated that changed in the Midi or making the App faster - a good thing, but maybe not in this case?

Do you think it could be a buffer issue? This is just speculation. If so, is there a way to make the buffer (delay) setting available so I can adjust the milliseconds between midi command sent?

(PS. If anyone else is using a BeatBuddy I can share a spreadsheet I made to easily give the midi codes to input into the OpenSong App)

[Gareth Evans]

Hey Alistair,

There certainly wasn't any updates on the midi command coding, but there was a boost in song loading code thanks to Ian's GitHub submissions.

In terms of midi command, they are sent one after the other without a delay between them.  I could certainly try adding one for you - shouldn't be too difficult to implement.  I suspect it might end up being down to the Bluetooth latency of sending the signals.  A delay might help.  Out of interest, what happens if you double up your midi command (i.e. send it all twice).  Not that this is a fix, but the fact there is double the code, could up the time it takes.

Gareth

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[Gareth Evans]

Hi Alistair,

I've pushed an update to the beta channel (hopefully live in a few hours).  This also has a lot of bug fixes and enhancements from Ian in it too.  Can you let me know if it sorts your issue.  You can adjust the buffer delay between 0 and 500ms.  This delay happens before the first message is sent and between each message in the list.  I've set a default of 100ms, but you can adjust this in the Midi > Edit song commands window.  I've also added a scroll section to this window as on a small screen you couldn't see all the commands!

[Alistair Baty]

Hi Ian,

Your improvements to loading have increased the speed significantly.

One issue I saw yesterday, was that when I opened OpenSong, the screen showed the error "Song not found, ... removed deleted" etc. I wait few moments and then click on the song in the Song or Set list and it was found and fine. This seemed to only occur as the song that loaded (as it was the last song before closing the App) was in a sub-folder. I wondered if the index had not loaded quicker than your song loading and so it failed to find the song at first. There may be an order of loading things that would resolve this. If it has to do with the re-generation of the song indices, that we retain the previous index, load it, refresh the index on the side, then overwrite the active index with the latest. That way an error would only occur (momentarily) if a song was installed manually outside the app.

Alistair

[Gareth Evans]

Hi Alistair,

When the app opens on the splash screen you'll see the little messages at the bottom about initialising the song folder.  This lists all folders and song filenames into the database so that they all work (should) immediately.  Once the app gets to the normal performance/stage/presentation mode the song index will only show file names and folders.  The app then starts indexing the songs (reading them all) and building a database which includes keys, authors, lyrics, etc that get added to the song menu once indexing is complete and are used for searching, etc.  The improved speed shouldn't be the issue of the song not found as these are listed before the app finishes booting up.   It does sound like it isn't coping with the sub folder though.  I'll investigate

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opensongapp/05c5fac1-df41-493a-8b9f-d3d47b205129n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alistair Baty]

Here is the spreadsheet I use to determine the commands to put into OpenSong as described in my first post above.

It also has a little section that generates the TEXT code that you can copy straight into the song file itself.

Let me know if yo have any questions.

[Gareth Evans]

Hi Alistair,

Thanks for sharing this.  I've converted your spreadsheet to a Google Sheet (to make it a little more universally available) and tweaked a bit of the coding to include MIDI channel channels - not sure you had implemented that fully.  I hope that's ok?

For the new (upcoming) Material version of the app,  I've included your suggestions of HiHat note test (went for standard hihit) and additionally added a temporary program change from 0 to 1, then back again.  These should help identify a positive test result on more devices.  I've created a new webpage entry for this too (currently unlisted, but available): https://www.opensongapp.com/user-manual/midi/midi-connections. 

This also embeds a user copyable view only version of your spreadsheet too:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14_kG2G1SAwDrZ48lL9pPhD0yodFEGLcLtCL-lYbIBAo/edit?usp=sharing

Info about the alpha testing release with links coming today for those who are brave/keen....

[Alistair Baty]

Thanks for doing that Gareth.

Makes it better to share!

I thought I had the midi channel, maybe just fixed as one

I do like your layout.

[Gareth Evans]

Alistair, 

Just to let you know, I've given you edit permissions on the Google Sheet.