www.megadrum.info

Hi All!

I have since november been facing lost connection between MD and MDM when working with the drum settings. I have experienced problems when saving configuration to MD and also when using the function "Live Update" in MDM.

I have been testing 3 different notebook system (HP) - Two of them had problems with the USB power - so using an external USB hub with power between the system and MD have solved problems like reading parameters from MD. (Before it was impossible to read the hihat settings)

But the problems to get MDM to be solid and keep the connection open with MD has still been a real problem.

As usual you don't give your self enough time to really play with all the parameters like the midi, sysex settings etc..to really nail down the problem. However - I gave it a real shot today.

Problem in detail:
How to generate an error so MDM looses connection with MD?
I did the following scenario in all tests below: Open Midi - Enabled Live Updates. The pressed "Get all settings" - "Send Hihat Pedal" settings and then stress the system with a couple of times by pressing the checkbox "BIG VU meter" and look if the LCD Display updates the LCD.

Results:
Test 1
Using the MD default settings:
USB: USB+MIDI, Sysex delay set to default 30 ms in MDM.
Result: The connection hangs every time when pressing BIG VU Meter checkbox more than twice. You see this because MD does not update the LCD display any more. (Note midi activity flashes all the time when performing tasks in MDM.)

Test 2
Changing the MD system to use USB 3 instead (Moving between the extreme edges...
Sysex delay to 30, 40 (tested with 10, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 100 as well)
Result: I could maybe press the BIG VU Meter checkbox about 10 times before the connection was lost.
Note...Hmm...actually...I realized that I never had tried the USB 2 or USB 1 modes...

Test 3
Ok - Changing the configuration
Changing the system to USB 1 or 2 using the default settings for sysex to 30 ms...
Results: It was much more harder to get the connection to drop...(=Positive!)
I had to really stress the system hard to make it to drop the connection.

Test 3
Then I have increased the sysex delay to 60 using USB 2 (If the settings was set to 40 or 50...I have still faced problems , but when reaching 60...it got really hard to get the connection to drop.)
Result: Very hard to get the system to loose the connection.

This is something that could be useful for other MegaDRUM lovers!! Comments are welcome!!

Best Regards

Anders

Hey @angr77,

thanks for your testing regarding MDM losing connectivity to MD. I will say you are not alone with those experience with MDM. I'm surely not wrong to affirm MDM as truly buggy!

BUUUUUUT! Please @All off us remember: This is NOT a commercial product!!! At first we @all have thanks @dmitri a lot to do this for us! On the other hand - until now - MDM is not suitable for using reliably on Stage/Studio with professional requirements.

I hope @dmitri have the power and pleasure to fix those problems with MDM for us. I'm not a friend for Java! This program language/interface sucks really with windows! But is there another choice for this? I can't answer this.

Thanks greats

Trommeltotti

Trommeltotti wrote:Hey @angr77,
I hope @dmitri have the power and pleasure to fix those problems with MDM for us. I'm not a friend for Java! This program language/interface sucks really with windows! But is there another choice for this? I can't answer this.

I'm no big friend of Java either, and being a developer for more than 20 years now, I think I know what I'm talking about.
The best choice for hardware-near programming would be C/C++ but the overhead of keeping track of updates and cross-compiling to the three main OS would be too much to ask for a single developer who, in case of dmitri, is also busy with supporting and developing the hardware - not to speak about debugging. When I want to combine the advantages of Java with those of native languages like C, my choice is C#/.Net, which is much better with hardware-near applications as java and, thanks to extensive native libs, has a better overall performance in most cases - but being mainly a windows developer I don't have any experience with Mono (the C#/.Net Implementation for Linux/Mac OS).

Hi friends.

Let's not focus on the religious questions like the language selection. I am guessing the selection of Java is quite smart if you want to run the code in different platforms like PC -MAC etc...

But there is definitely some problems when writing data from MDM to MD...at least on my systems - If this get solved...I have no problem with the Java platform.

Talrushed - another user on the forum changed from the internal USB ports to a NEC based PCI/USB card and all strange things disappered. So...is the error in the MDM code, the Java implementation, in Win 7, the hardware or even in the MD...I don't know...but I am going to win this battle! I truly believe in the MD box!

The MDM code is available as source code on MegaDRUM.INFO...so I am guessing I need to learn Java fast!

Best Regards

Anders (Working with the Microsoft platform for 25 years)

angr77 wrote:Hi friends.
Let's not focus on the religious questions like the language selection. I am guessing the selection of Java is quite smart if you want to run the code in different platforms like PC -MAC etc...

This has nothing to do with religion - every language has their pro's and con's regarding what you want to do with it - so there is no "good" C++ or "bad java", there is only different usecases in which one language is the better choice over the other. So if there are MIDI problems on all three systems one should take into consideration that, if it's not a bug in dmitris code, it may be the JAVA implementation...

angr77 wrote:But there is definitely some problems when writing data from MDM to MD...at least on my systems - If this get solved...I have no problem with the Java platform.

Talrushed - another user on the forum changed from the internal USB ports to a NEC based PCI/USB card and all strange things disappered. So...is the error in the MDM code, the Java implementation, in Win 7, the hardware or even in the MD...I don't know...but I am going to win this battle! I truly believe in the MD box!

I do too But it has definitely to do with the USB power supply - changing from onboard USB port to an external powerd hub minimized the problems for me.

Hi, i had a chance this weekend to test the MegaDrum MD and MDM on a couple of other desktop systems. First i tested an older dell desktop system...with Windows 7. Java 6, v31. But this system showed the same problems as on my three HP notebooks. Difficulties to read hihat settings and lost connection when stressing the system from MDM trying to write data MD.

Then I tried a http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/pr ... 390_en.pdf system with Windows XP Sp3 and Java 6 v31 and actuall it worked perfect!

Absolutly no problems at all! MDM and MD worked like a clock...totally impossible to make it to loose the connection.

Now - i have seen how well MDM could work!!!

I am going to prepair a harddisk with XP and install it into one of my notebooks and see whats happening.

Best regards

Anders