GR-33 communication with workstation is erratic

Started by cooltouch, July 01, 2018, 09:56:30 AM

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cooltouch

By "erratic," I mean that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason that I can find, either. I have about a half dozen tunes I'm working on at the moment, which have GR-33 parts. About half of them work and half don't. I have one with two GR-33 parts and one works and the other doesn't. They're set up identically, except for the channel numbers of course.

I'm running Cakewalk Sonar Platinum on a Win7 64-bit platform. Because this machine doesn't have any MIDI ports, I'm using a Midiman Midisport USB 2x2 as an access interface. Sonar doesn't see the GR-33 -- it sees the Midisport, but fortunately Sonar allows me to set up the GR-33 with an instrument file so the song sees the GR-33's instrument patches at its track. The Midisport has two channels: A and B. I've tried both, it doesn't make any difference.

What's strange is, this setup used to work fine. Then all of a sudden, it just flat stopped working. Stumped, I went through a long process trying to resurrect it. I disconnected every connection, cleaned them thoroughly, reinstalled the Midiman's driver, read through every page of the GR-33's user's manual on anything having to do with MIDI, double checked settings on the GR-33, reacquainted myself with all the track selection possibilities in Sonar -- everything I could think of.

Back in December, Cakewalk went out of business, and Sonar became orphan software. A couple months ago, Bandlab bought the rights to Cakewalk's products, and reissued Sonar Platinum as "Cakewalk by Bandlab." It is still Sonar Platinum, with a few tweaks done to improve stability even further (it's always been a very stable platform). Cakewalk by Bandlab is now available as a free download from Bandlab, so of course, I d'l'd a copy and installed it. And, yes, I've tried these tunes in Bandlab's Cakewalk too. Same, identical setup, and same result.

And what happened was kind of bizarre. It was like I was waking up some cranky old guy from his sleep. The first tune I tried, I got nothing at first, then started fiddling with the Sonar settings, then suddenly the GR-33 started making these sort of popping noises -- sounding the beginning of each note in a staccato fashion, but with some more fiddling around in Sonar -- none of which I should have had to do, by the way  -- it finally came to life and started playing the part normally.  After the song stops and I start it up again, most of the time, but not always, the GR-33 part will play.

I haven't been so lucky with a few other songs, though. I can't get so much as a peep out of my GR-33 with them. I've set up the tracks identically. I just don't understand this.

The Midisport gives some clue as to what's going on. It has two green LEDs per channel. When it's plugged into the USB port and, after it finds the GR-33, one of the LEDs begins to blink fairly rapidly. This is its normal, "ready" state. When the GR-33 is actually playing in Sonar, both LEDs begin to blink so rapidly it's a blur. When it won't play in Sonar, the second LED blinks in time with the notes of the track it's supposed to be playing, but isn't. If I pick up my guitar and hit anything, the Midiman blinks in response and Sonar's GR-33 track's volume bar also responds. So Sonar is receiving data. It's just that, for some reason, when Sonar is sending the MIDI instructions to the GR-33, it remains inactive. Or they're not being sent. Hard to tell which.  I also have an Alesis io|2 Express interface module for both audio and MIDI. I don't normally use this thing, because I don't normally need to use it, but because it has MIDI ports, I pulled it out of stasis just now and decided to give it a shot in place of the Midiman unit. So I reconfigured Sonar for the io|2, got it setup and configured properly in one of the tunes where the GR-33 isn't working, and gave it a go. Nope, still nothing. The io|2's MIDI lights are functioning normally, though, so it appears to be operating correctly. So much for that.

Why some songs and not others? Why that strange "waking up" process that occurred with a couple of the songs? What, if anything, have I missed? Could it be the USB interface for some strange reason? I looked on eBay to see if there is even such a thing as a PCI card with 5-pin MIDI ports. Apparently not. Loads of cheap sound cards with game ports, though. I have a few old Soundblaster cards with game ports, far as that goes, but I don't think any of them will run in Win7 because they're too old. A few months ago, I tried to get my most recent Soundblaster to work in Win7, but no go. But maybe one of these new cards? I have a MIDI cable with a game port connector. Perhaps it's worth a shot? Being able to run 5-pin MIDI signals directly into the computer? What do you think?

Thanks, in advance, for any assistance you can provide.

Best,
Michael

gumtown

The Roland UM-One USB-Midi adapter always "works" (as do the Edirol brand too), some have had issues with M-Audio Midisport adapters over the years.
If you replace the USB-Midi adapter, don't get the cheep Chinese knockoff as it doesn't work properly.

Not sure about using the old SoundBlaster cards and game port midi adapter, I am fairly sure they are not supported with current operating systems.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

cooltouch

#2
Hey Gumtown, thanks for your response.

I took a look at the Roland UM-One on eBay. Okay, it looks straightforward enough. Maybe I'll go ahead and pick one up. But I kinda doubt it's gonna make a difference -- why? Cuz my setup worked perfectly fine with my Midisport . . . until it didn't. For whatever reason. Oh, and I didn't mention this, but my Midisport isn't an M-Audio, it's an original Midiman brand, bought back in about 2001 or so. I bought two of them, but I don't recall ever actually using them. Back then, I was able to run the old 5-pin MIDI cables wherever I needed them to be. Now, I did go to M-Audio's site just this morning, and I d/l'd the drivers for the original Midisport 2x2, so I have up-to-date drivers for a vintage accessory.

I am more than "fairly sure" the old Soundblasters won't work with Win7. Cuz mine won't.

Still, in the interest of bypassing the USB interface entirely, I'm still thinking about buying a cheap sound card just to get the game/MIDI port. If it doesn't work, I'm only out about 8 bucks. Whereas a used Roland UM 1 will set me back twice that plus shipping.
Best,
Michael

gumtown

USB-Midi adapters have been the most stable midi communication method, the old game ports (to my recollection) have other issues.
Hardware compatibility with the current operating system platforms, and some game-port adapter cables do not have optical electrical isolation included.

Your fiddling with technology that was outdated nearly 20 years ago, trying to get it to work with a modern operating system on fast hardware.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

cooltouch

Modern? Me? Heh. I installed Win7 on this computer 9 years ago, which was when I bought it. Going on 10 years now. It's still reasonably fast and does everything I need, including running Sonar and Band in a Box, which are the two most important pieces of software on the machine. So, with all due respect, I don't think the age of my gear has much of anything to do with it. Heck, all my gear is old, except for a couple of keyboards. But I'm a guitarist so they don't get a lot of use.

Back in the days of Win98, which was when I first put together my Digital Audio Workstation, there were no such things as soft synths. So I bought hardware, although not a lot of it. One Roland JV1010, a keyboard, a couple of rack-mount effects, and my GR-33.  Anyway, that was then and this is now. As the years have gone by, I've upgraded my system, and stayed current with the OS. And Sonar has followed right along, behaving itself for the most part, cuz it's been optimized to run in Win7.

I still keep coming back to one point, which is the one I find most troubling. My system -- including Sonar and my GR-33 -- were running perfectly fine until a couple weeks ago, at which point, the two just stopped communicating with each other. I don't know why that is. I've checked the internal setup parameters in the GR-33 and they all seem to be set the way they're supposed to. There are only so many ways a MIDI instrument can be configured in Sonar -- and I've tried all the ways. Several times. Umpteen times. And I guess what puzzles me almost as much now is, why will the GR-33 work in some tunes, but not in others? Especially since I hve everything set up the exact same way -- only difference being the voice I select. I have a different voice selected for every tune, so it can't be preferring one or a few voices over others.

Sooner or later I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. And I'll report back when I've solved this puzzle.

You know, I just had a thought. We get the occasional weather-cased power flicker around here, and I just can't help but wonder if a recent one might have messed up the codes in the GR-33. A few days after this problem appeared, out of desperation, I reset the synth (and lost several custom patches, but oh well), hoping that would cure the problem. But it didn't. And so now I'm wondering if one or more of the settings might have slipped a notch on the cog. There aren't that many, as I dimly recall. Maybe I should go ahead and list what my settings are, eh?

Hit [SYSTEM] button to enter the settings, and you hit the BANK/PARAMETER left/right button to advance or back up through the selections. You're gonna advance through a bunch that have to do with the unit and not MIDI, so I ignore them, and leave them be. But then:

BASIC CHANNEL Poly 8 I don't know what "Poly 8"  is for and why it's set to 8. Maybe 8 possible voices at a time? If so, seems like 6 would be sufficient, it being a guitar synth -- unless I was controlling it with something else, in whcih case I might want more than 6 voices?  Seems plausible.

Hit the [COMMON] for the same sort of actions, cursor with the BANK button until:

MIDI [PC] n, where "n" equals a number that represents the patch that's currently selected. I just now figured that one out.
MIDI [CC0] 0 is where I have it set. There's a possible range of OFF, 0-127. I have it at 0 because the manual was showing it set that way.
MIDI[CC32] 0 Again, same range as above, and I have it set to 0 because the manual showed it like that.
MIDI [TRANSPOSE] 0  Self-explanatory

So of the above four commands, there are only two that I find mysterious -- and poorly explained in the manual, the [CC0] and [CC32] commands. I might have tried resetting one or both, but given that I have 129 setting possibilities with each one, I kinda didn't want to do that.

Best,
Michael

mercury1

Probably nothing relevant but, does the Gr33 have voice reserve on polyphony ( like the Gr1 does ) . I haven't used mine with the sequencers enough to remember. It could explain why certain voices work correctly while others don't. Example - piano reserved for 6 notes on the gr33 , they are reserved even if that voice isn't used to my understanding. That will limit the notes available for other voices . Some sequences may have system exclusive data temporarily changing parameters which could be filtered out. Hope that helps
Gr-55, Gr-33, Gr-1, Vg-88, Jamman looper, Brian More 88.13  ,/ 8.13 , Fender hm strat( gk-3 ), Hammer( int gk-2) , Behringer V-ampire Lx1200 / fcb1010

cooltouch

#6
I'm dusting off this old thread because I finally bought a Roland UM-ONE MIDI to USB adapter. Installed its driver today and hooked it up to my GR-33. Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference. There are two lights on the UM-ONE pertaining to MIDI IN and OUT signals. The light that shows the signal going from the PC to the GR-33 blinks when MIDI data is being sent to the GR-33, but the light that shows data being sent from the GR-33 to the PC does not light up at all. This is consistent with the problem I've been having, and is also consistent with the status lights on the MidiSport 2x2.

I should probably update the Subject to this thread that my GR-33's communication with my PC is no longer erratic. It no longer communicates with it at all.

I was doing some inquiries on the net just a bit ago, and ran across a thread from here regarding possible battery failure on the GR-33. Here's the thread:

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=14932.0

My GR-33 does not give me a "Low Battery" message. But I guess I'm wondering, first of all, does the GR-33 issue a "Low Battery" message? and second of all, do all GR-33s issue this message, if indeed a GR-33 does issue said message? I ask this because I bought my GR-33 new probably back in 2001. So that's 17 years on the same battery. What's the likelihood that it's exhausted? And if it is, might this be the cause of the problem I'm having? Is it at all likely that early GR-33s might not issue a "Low Battery" message?

I also ran across a page at Roland's site with updates for the GR-33's operating system. I've d/l'd the new OS, but haven't installed it yet. I don't think this is going to help, but I reckon it can't hurt to have the latest OS installed. Thoughts on this?

I think I've got a couple of CR2032 batteries around here somewhere. Time to open up the GR-33, I suppose, and at least check the voltage on the installed battery.
Best,
Michael

admin

#7
Quote from: cooltouch on September 06, 2018, 08:09:17 PM
I'm dusting off this old thread because I finally bought a Roland UM-ONE MIDI to USB adapter. Installed its driver today and hooked it up to my GR-33. Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference. There are two lights on the UM-ONE pertaining to MIDI IN and OUT signals. The light that shows the signal going from the PC to the GR-33 blinks when MIDI data is being sent to the GR-33, but the light that shows data being sent from the GR-33 to the PC does not light up at all. This is consistent with the problem I've been having, and is also consistent with the status lights on the MidiSport 2x2.

I should probably update the Subject to this thread that my GR-33's communication with my PC is no longer erratic. It no longer communicates with it at all.

I was doing some inquiries on the net just a bit ago, and ran across a thread from here regarding possible battery failure on the GR-33. Here's the thread:

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=14932.0

My GR-33 does not give me a "Low Battery" message. But I guess I'm wondering, first of all, does the GR-33 issue a "Low Battery" message? and second of all, do all GR-33s issue this message, if indeed a GR-33 does issue said message? I ask this because I bought my GR-33 new probably back in 2001. So that's 17 years on the same battery. What's the likelihood that it's exhausted? And if it is, might this be the cause of the problem I'm having? Is it at all likely that early GR-33s might not issue a "Low Battery" message?

I also ran across a page at Roland's site with updates for the GR-33's operating system. I've d/l'd the new OS, but haven't installed it yet. I don't think this is going to help, but I reckon it can't hurt to have the latest OS installed. Thoughts on this?

I think I've got a couple of CR2032 batteries around here somewhere. Time to open up the GR-33, I suppose, and at least check the voltage on the installed battery.

Most all GR-33's will be 15 to 17 years old and that's around the time large electrolytic capacitors fail on  most electronic devices

If you can not connect GR-33 via MIDI to your computer, its going to be impossible to update the firmware.

Be sure your UM-One MK2 micro switch is in the "PC" and not the " tablet" position

Also AFAIK , The GR-33 will not transmit any MIDI by default

You must read the owners manual and enable MIDI TRANSMISSION  first, by navigating to the GR-33 System area

cooltouch

#8
Quote from: admin on September 06, 2018, 08:24:19 PM
Most all GR-33's will be 15 to 17 years old and that's around the time large electrolytic capacitors fail on  most electronic devices

If you can not connect GR-33 via MIDI to your computer, its going to be impossible to update the firmware.

Be sure your UM-One MK2 micro switch is in the "PC" and not the " tablet" position

Also AFAIK , The GR-33 will not transmit any MIDI by default

You must read the owners manual and enable MIDI TRANSMISSION  first, by navigating to the GR-33 System area

Are there any photos available of the capacitors that fail? Or do I just look for the biggest ones?

OK, so much for updating the firmware then. Guess that'll have to wait.

My UM-ONE is not the MkII. Doesn't make any difference as far as the driver goes. It's the same. Mine came with the switch defaulted to the "COMP" setting. I left it there.

I've not just read the owner's manual, I've studied it. On the GR-33, there is no MIDI TRANSMISSION setting accessed via the SYSTEM button. If I use the COMMON button instead, there are three MIDI settings: MIDI [PC] with numeric values from OFF and 1-128, MIDI [CC0] with possible values of OFF, 0-127, and MIDI [CC32] with possible values of OFF, 0-127. I've left the setting values to the defaults, which are shown in the manual: 1, 0, 0, respectively.

I also stumbled across some info in the manual having to do with "Local on" or "Local off." The GR-33 was not in "Local off" mode so I put it into that mode. It didn't make any difference. For a while, whenever I'd execute a patch change in the software, the GR33 would show it. But it stopped doing that and now it's just stuck on the first setting, A11.

So, I'm now convinced my GR-33 is broken and I need to fix it -- or get it fixed for hopefully not too exorbitant of a sum. I'll check the battery voltage first though.


Best,
Michael

admin

#9
Quote from: cooltouch on September 07, 2018, 10:43:46 AM
Are there any photos available of the capacitors that fail? Or do I just look for the biggest ones?


its the big Electrolytic caps that will fail -

need an oscilloscope to check the DC power supply rails for presence of AC ripple current   - its covered in the GR-33 Service manual

use the steps in this thread to test for GR-33 MIDI Transmission

MIDI controller Setup / Debug
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2975.0

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/set-up-gr33-similar-midi-guitar-controller-work-external/