Midi Output App

[Womble]

Hi All

Have just acquired a Yamaha C5XM MSX computer with the upgraded Snyth card installed, on its own it can't make any noise as it needs a feed from a midi keyboard, which I do not own. As I have a stash of Atari ST machines I was wondering if there was an app out there that would let it be the keyboard, ie treat the keys as if they were a keyboard and squirt the equivalent midi signals out the midi ports.

Was there/Is there such an application?

Cheers

W

[d0us]

I am sure there are some out there.

Try Tim's Atari world and check the section for midi apps.

However, off the top of my head I can think of one long way around to achieve what you want.

You can use Audiosculpture. Audiosculpture is a tracker and uses the querty keyboard to input notes (that can be played live).

search for audiosculpture on this board and some people have posted some helpful tips on getting the midi out working on audiosculpture (took me a whileot find it).

Once yo ueneable midi out on AS your querty board will be redirected to the MSX.

And nice machine btw!!

[nativ]

Hi,
You can also use the 'key edit' Feature in Cubase, Breakthru, etc to 'draw' in the notes and then play them back.

Bye

[Womble]

I have had amazing luck once more, popped into my local Cash Converters to see if they had any midi controller keyboards ( a long shot) but what did I find?

Only the exact keyboard made for the CX5M machine back in 1983!!!! And the YK-10, which is the decent one they made for it, rather than the minikey YK01 variant. Lord knows why CC bought this off the bod who walked in with it, its totally useless without the original machine.



That's the only connector on it, no power inputs, no output sockets.



After about 0.3 of a second I decided the price they were asking was acceptable to me. Currently 15 Australian pesos is worth about 6 quid.

[charles]

thats a decent setup,
now i think you can run cubase cx5m withit ..i think ..

there is a version for a yamaha but it could be the cbx5m or something ....

but that is not a midi connector you are displaying in picture....
midi is a five pin circular din.......

do you have a bility to save these files you make as midi files?
and
can you use /import midi files in this yamaha device?

charles

[Mug UK]

Charles,

Even I, with my 0.001% knowledge of MIDI equipment, can tell from Womble's description that the thing he bought is an add-on for the other device that is MIDI.

Jeez ..

[charles]

well thats what i was asking about , the whole thing , i think it was a yamaha music computer ,,similar in aperance to a sinclair or a atari st

but general question ,,,it was a unit to make music with ..but i am trying to find out about the file format it saves ..

midi is a protocol , does this make midi or just the avr .mus , type of mod files?

charles

[rocket-dog]

There has been a Yamaha MSX music computer on e-bay for weeks now. I remember them when they were new. I would buy it if I had a spare £75.

[rocket-dog]

That confused me! We posted nearly simultaneously about the same thing. Not that it takes much to confuse me........

[charles]

i see it can utilize midi as input or out put , but does not load or save as midi files...

as far as i can interpret such info ..

this is really a fine old toy ,, i too was going to buy one , but i am very hung up at the moment with programming for midi...asm atari

charles

[charles]

sorry i was getting this whole thing mixed up with the cbx d3/d5
for steinberg cubase ..many sorries,,, i do know alot about midi , thats what led me to the thread..hope u have many music happiness!!!

charles maybe if u wouold change the thread title too!?
midi out put app?
there are dozens if you desire
just ask ?
try music mouse!!
or music grid

user defines notes on a grid covering the screen then as tapping the mouse buttons over a specified section on this grid,, results in music notes out mid port,,good for scale type of solos almost crazy algo stuff too

charles

[rocket-dog]

this is really a fine old toy ,, i too was going to buy one , but i am very hung up at the moment with programming for midi...asm atari

charles

Very black, very 80s.

Some good pic's here.....

http://www.videogamegazette.com/msx/

[charles]

i can guarentee this will be the best music system to use , i have a drum machine from the same era..and with all considerations, even though it does not comtain the best drum sounds, it can complete the most complex functions..have fun , and if there is midi files to be shared or traded count me in !!!!

i still writing my auto song composer for the atari st.

charles

[Womble]

Yeh the keyboard I found is only compatible with the Yamaha CX5M computer, it has no standalone capabilities. The computer itself is an MSX machine with a synth module in its expansion bay, apparently it is the Yamaha DX7 Synthesiser (that was current at the time) melded with an MSX machine. It was fiendishly expensive at the time, about 800 quid with the decent keyboard. I saw the one on ebay for 75 quid, thought that was somewhat steep. I bought the computer alone and it cost me AU$57 so about twenty quid. Struggled to find good technical information on it to be honest, but I did find out that the synth module came in two variants. The SG-01 was the original module and it was a severe limitation, the system could only be played via the attached Yamaha keyboards, via that 20 way connector, it could not be played by midi. It outputted midi but could not use anything sent to the midi IN ports. Apparently a lot of people were very angry, they rightly assumed that as the device has a midi IN port that you could actually use it. The later synth module was the SG-05 which was what people were expecting, true midi IN and OUT functionality. Actually the 01 and the 05 are idenical except for the ROM inside, the 01 has a 16KB rom and the 05 has a 32KB rom, so they are upgradeable with a bit old soldering. The only site I could find claimed that if there isnt a sticker on the bottom claiming its an 05 then its not, mine had no stickers but having looked inside I can see the modification has been done, also that the ROM is an official Yamaha ROM. So either this was sent back for the upgrade, or the mod was standard from new at a certain point in production.

If you have the 01 version then it is useless without either an YK-01 or a YK-10 keyboard that connects to the twenty way port, if you have the 05 version then it will work either via midi or with a yamaha keyboard as its input.

When you boot the machine it comes up with the standard MSX-DOS blue screen and prompt, to switch it into synth mode you have to type "call music", it then boots to the synth rom. If you have a screen full of text options then you have the 01 version, if you have the graphical representation of the keyboard then you have the 05 rom version.

There also was a range of Yamaha music carts for this machine, one of which was a synth voice editor, one of the weaknesses of the Yamaha DX7 full synth was that although you could edit the voices it only had a 2 line LCD screen which made it very hard work. With this machine and the Synth cart you could interface with that keyboard via midi and use the computer screen to do the modifications graphically. Typing "call synth" booted to that application apparently.

This site has the rom dumps of most of the software carts (and the synth module) http://www.rgp.nl/cx5m/soft.htm. If could just find the cct diag for the carts I could build my own.

The one on ebay for 75 quid has no indication whether its an 01 or an 05, if its an 01 its pretty useless without getting the upgrade done, if its the 05 then its a tidy bit of kit, tho still overpriced at 75 quid. Still the one I have give composite video out so it would be easy to ask the seller to power it up and type "call synth" and see what the screen looks like.

[GroovyBee]

If could just find the cct diag for the carts I could build my own.

Did you have a look at :-

http://www.rgp.nl/cx5m/circuit1.htm

and

http://www.rgp.nl/cx5m/circuit5.htm

[Womble]

Yeh - thats the cct diagram of the synth module that these machines came with, its the circuit diagram of the ROM carts I am looking for, I doubt there is much in them other than a single eprom. There is a nasty bug in the 05 diagram too, effectively the 01 and 05 circuits are indentical except the size of the rom IC104. In 01 its a 16KB rom so address line A15 (pin 27) is tied high as its not used, in the 05 version its a 32KB rom so A15 is part of the address bus, this is correctly depicted in the schematic, but they have no removed the bit that shows pin 27 connected to +5 line.

[GroovyBee]

I know nothing of MSX but this looks interesting (and simple ) :-

http://msx.retro8bits.com/msxdocs/32kcart.pdf

Its a 32K SRAM cartridge with write protect (battery backed too).

[Womble]

Interesting, if you have an eprom blower as I do the whole SRAM option is harder work than just blowing a new rom, especially as you somehow how to load the SRAM with code while its insitu. Could prune back that cct to support a standard rom easily enough. Thanks for the link!!

[MiggyMog]

Yamaha cx5-m MSX computing FEB-MAR 86.jpg

Through a strange coincidence I scanned an MSX mag,The only one I didn't flog with my MSX in 89 as it was a duplicate. There was a small article on this machine:-