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SILICON CHIP MIDI DRUM KIT by JOHN CLARKE PART 4 – the software . . . and driving it! Operating the MIDI Drum Kit via a computer requires software to be installed. In this final article we shall describe this final aspect of the MIDI Drum Kit. A S MENTIONED in earlier parts, ever we recommend using Rave first program) is the only software you will if you want to use the MIDI unless you are already well versed in need to install if you are connecting Drum Kit with a computer, as disusing the others. Rave for Windows to the computer using the sound card tinct from a MIDI instrument with is available as a free download from input via a games port. In this case, its own synthesiser, you will need to the ’net. make sure the Port settings on the MIDI install sequencer software and perThis software (or another sequencer Drum Kit are <MIDI PORTS>. haps a serial port driver Many sequencers are a lit(with the option to install tle daunting when you start a USB driver). them up due to their hugely The sequencer software complex control features. provides the means to send a The Rave sequencer is ideal MIDI signal to the computer for first-time users to get the and to drive the sound card’s MIDI Drum Kit up and runsynthesiser. ning. It is easy to use with There are many sethe MIDI Drum Kit. quencers available on the If you want added feamarket; we have tested tures then you must use a the MIDI Drum Kit using commercial sequencer. Propellerhead’s Reason, The Computer Muzys the Computer Muzys CM CM Studio, for example, Studio, Tracktion and is available on the CD Rave. supplied with “Computer Rave is, by far, the easMusic” magazine from iest-to-operate sequencer. Future Publishing in the While there are many sequencers available, Rave is the Of course you can use other UK. (www.computermusic. one we recommend for beginners and novice users. It’s by sequencer software, howco.uk). Check it out at your far the easiest to operate. 78  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au news­agent. The software requires a 500MHz PC or Mac . Reason can be found at www. propellerheads.se and the Tracktion sequencer is found at www.rawmaterialsoftware.com or at www.mackie. com/traktion this is not set to block programs from being installed. To check the settings in Windows XP, select Start/control panel/hardware/driver signing. Click on the Warn only button, if not already selected. Screen saver and power management What, no games port? Few computers these days have a games port. If you are in this position, you can connect via a serial port, or failing this using a USB port via a USB adaptor. USB connection is the most finicky way of operating the MIDI Drum Kit and if you have a serial port it is recommended to use it rather than via USB. For USB use, there are two options. Firstly, you can use a serial-to-USB converter and use it in conjunction with the MIDI serial driver. Software to set up a USB-to-virtual serial port driver will be required and this is normally supplied with the Serial to USB converter. (See the separate breakout panel for the USB installation). For this option, the Port settings on the MIDI Drum Kit will need to be set to <SERIAL PORT>. Alternatively, if you use a MIDI-toUSB converter (available from music shops or on the ’net) then you only need to install the sequencer software and the MIDI-to-USB driver. In this case, make sure the Port settings on the MIDI Drum Kit are <MIDI PORTS>. The MIDI-to-USB converter connects directly into the MIDI outlet on the Drum Kit. Installation of the software for this will be included with the converter when you buy it. We will only describe setting up the Serial-to-USB converter since this is the cheapest option. Checking computer settings When installing any programs or drivers, you need to be logged on to your computer as an administrator. Before installing the sequencer software, it is best to check the settings in your computer to make sure that the sound card is set up correctly for MIDI. For Windows XP select Start/control panel. If it is set in the ‘category view’ mode, switch to ‘classic view’. Now select sounds, speech and audio devices/audio/midi music playback. In the MIDI music playback, select an MPU-401 compatible synthesiser siliconchip.com.au When running the sequencer software, be sure to turn off any screen savers and any power-down energy management set for your computer. You can check these settings in the Control Panel and look for the Display options. If you are playing your Drum Kit and the screen saver starts or energy management shuts down a system, expect some huge latency in the sound output. Rave installation (eg, Microsoft GS Wavetable SW synth). Also make sure volume is up for the synthesiser. Do this by selecting volume in the MIDI music playback box and checking settings for the SW Synth. This is similar for Windows 98. In this case, select Start/Settings/ Control Panel/Multimedia/. In the multimedia properties select MIDI and an MPU-401 compatible synthesiser for internal synthesis. (eg, ESFM Synthesis (220)) Also check that the volume control level for the synthesiser is up (double click the speakers icon on the taskbar). Driver signing Later versions of Windows include driver signing. You need to check that The Rave sequencer program is available from the website (http:// www.files1.sonicspot.com/rave/rave. zip). The zip file is 647kb and can be unzipped in the normal way. The software was written to run on Windows 3.1 and so unless your computer is very old, it should run on just about any computer using Windows. We have tested the software on Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows XP. The only problem we have experienced is during installation, where error messages are shown because the DOS help file is not installed on the computer. This is just a software glitch that only occurs because the software was written for Windows 3.1. This operating system relied on having DOS installed. Once the Rave software is installed, the error messages do not affect the operation of the Rave sequencer. Download and save the rave.zip file from the location shown above to a directory (or folder) called C:\ rave (or similar) and unzip in the normal way. To use the wizard it is usually only a matter of double clicking onto the rave.zip file and following the prompts to unzip to the rave folder. If you are using Windows 3.1, then use Pkunzip to extract the zipped files. When the file is unzipped, double click on the setup.exe file. This will install the software to the C:\rave folder. During installation the computer may ask if you want to run this software with an unknown publisher. In this February 2006  79 case click on the Run tab. As mentioned, if you are using a current version of Windows that does not include DOS, there will be an error message saying could not open the file c:\dos\doshelp.hlp. Click on ignore. A similar DOS shell error will also be shown. Again, click on ignore. Click on close after the general protection fault error is shown. The three screens below show the error messages: nome/Bars Count In is set to at least 1 (if this is set to zero you will not be able to record) Recording Check in the Options/Output Assignments. The settings should show the MIDI Mapper. When installation is complete, navigate to the folder c:\rave. Single click onto rave.exe (c:/rave/rave.exe) then to “File” and then select create shortcut from the list of options. Drag the shortcut to the desktop (this does not apply with Windows 3.1). Also copy the midiout.drv file (found in the c:/rave folder to the c:\windows\ system folder. Serial or USB operation If you are connecting to the serial or USB port, you will need to install the requisite drivers now. Details are in the separate serial port driver section and Serial-to-USB section. Do not forget that if you are using the Serial-to- USB converter, the MIDI serial driver will also be required. For a MIDI to USB driver install as per the instructions supplied with the unit. Setting up Rave Once you’ve started Rave in the normal way, select “Options” and the “midi thru” box to bring up a tick against the MIDI Thru. The sound card synthesiser will not produce any sounds unless this box is ticked. Check that the Options/Metro80  Silicon Chip double check that “MIDI Thru” is ticked in the Rave/Options settings and that you have selected the correct port in the settings menu on the MIDI Drum Kit. You should also check the settings mentioned in the MIDI serial driver section and the Serial-to-USB sections. You will need to add in (check the Add New box) the assignment 10 that is mapped in channel 10 as shown in the set output assignment box. Click OK to place this into the output assignment selections list. Playing the MIDI Drum Kit You are finally ready to play the MIDI Drum Kit. Connect the serial, USB or games port lead between the MIDI Drum Kit and the computer, switch on the MIDI Drum Kit and check that you can play the instrument and hear it through the soundcard output using headphones or loudspeakers. If you cannot hear anything, make sure the volume is turned up on the computer and that the sound works on other mediums such as the CD player. If the CD player works and sound still cannot be heard with the Drum Kit, To record, select File/new. Save as ‘yourfilename’.blk. The following track details will be displayed. Where the Output is shown, change the number to 10 otherwise the drum sounds will just be instrument notes. This channel selection also applies to the Computer Muzys and Tracktion sequencers. Click onto the REC(ord) button to begin recording. The tape transport position marker will start to count up after a second or so and you are now recording. The play, fast wind and stop buttons operate the same as any tape or video recorder, so you can stop, rewind and play the composition. Selecting File/save saves the recorded composition. You can multi-track record if you want to. This lays down another recording alongside the original recording, leaving the original intact. So you can playback with more than one track, as if there is more than one Drum Kit playing or you can record another instrument such as a keyboard to accompany the Drum Kit track. To multi-track record, left-click the mouse pointer in the track name block (eg where “Silicon Chip 2” is positioned in the screen grab below) to select the second track. These are initially set with an unnamed label but they can siliconchip.com.au be renamed by right clicking on the word, using the backspace to delete the word and rewriting your required name. The selected track can then be recorded as a separate track with the original recording. Up to 32 tracks can be recorded. In the right hand blocks, there is the option to change the patch (instrument), the volume, pan and quantisation. The easiest way to understand the changes is to play with them! Latency Latency is the delay between when the MIDI signal is sent to the sequencer and when the sound is heard. The Rave sequencer does not have a facility to adjust latency but most other sequencer programs do have. Note that latency is sound-card dependent. The Realtek sound card in our test computer could only provide a latency of 32ms minimum when used with Propellerhead’s Reason. Setting for a shorter latency caused sound break-up. The other commercial sequencers we tested did not provide a suitable reduction in the latency. Ideally, a sound card that supports ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) should be used to allow adjustment for minimal latency. With Computer Muzys select System/Audio Hardware. Note that if the latency does not appear to change regardless of the setting, it is probably due to the sound card. It may not be ideally suited for direct MIDI input with low latency. Try to update the driver from the manufacturer’s web site. If this does not help, use a sound card that supports ASIO drivers. When setting the latency for other sequencers you usually select Edit\ Preferences\ then select the audio section and change the sound card driver. The slowest sound card driver is the MME type while the ASIO types are the fastest. If your sound card does not support the ASIO driver then select a Direct Sound driver. The latency figure is usually shown as each driver is selected. Also the buffer size must be adjusted so that it is at a minimum but not so small that the sound for the drums becomes broken up. Macintosh Computers The Tracktion sequencer has a direct latency adjustment as shown that is found under the settings selection. Select a low latency that also works without affecting the sound. Then select the Driver Type as either a Direct Sound or ASIO driver if the output device supports it. Select the Device Setup tab to alter the latency and use the right or left mouse button to increase or decrease the value respectively. The drum sounds will become broken up if this latency is set too small in value. Just increase the latency until the drums sounds are correct and the latency is at a minimum. Latency proble siliconchip.com.au Note that any of the settings made on the MIDI Drum Kit such as the patch, volume and pan will not be implemented if the changes are made when the sequencer is not running. Switch the Drum Kit power on and off if you need the new settings to be activated. Also, you may need to adjust the Repeat and Threshold settings on the MIDI Drum Kit to allow the pads to be played at as fast a rate as possible and to prevent one sensor pad from triggering another. Details on these adjustments can be found in the first article. This is a basic rundown on how to use the software, sufficient to enable you to play and record plus do some multi-tracking if required. We hope you enjoy using your MIDI Drum Kit. This screen shot shows the set up for operating the MIDI Drum Kit. To enable sound you must select channel 10, the enable end to end tab and the e-to-e box. Although we have not tried it, Mac users should be able to use the MIDI Drum Kit by using a Mac version MIDI sequencer – for example the ComputerMuzys CM studio, Tracktion and Reason. There are at least two options when making the connections between the MIDI Drum Kit and the MAC. You may need to visit a music shop and purchase a cable or converter. The simplest option is to use a MIDI-to-printer-port cable. The Mac already has MIDI drivers installed for this connection but it is only useful if you have a printer port. For USB connection you will require a USB to MIDI converter such as the Yamaha UX96. This converts from the MIDI outlet on the MIDI Drum Kit to USB format. The driver supplied with the converter will need to be installed. A well-versed-in-MIDI music shop salesperson should­be able to supply you with the necessary software and hardware. February 2006  81 Installing the MIDI Drum Kit The serial driver is commercial software, written by Yamaha Corporation for their MIDI musical instruments. It supports Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000 and XP. The driver automatically detects your operating system and installs one of two versions best suited for your computer. Both files are contained in a file called cbxdrv201w.zip. This is a 971kb file and is designed for use with a COM1 or COM3 port. When using with a serial port connection, make sure that you have a free COM1 to COM4 communications port on your computer before installing the driver. If you are already using a COM port (eg, for a serial mouse and external modem), you may have to free up one of these ports so you can use the MIDI Drum Kit with this serial port driver. In general, the modem connection could be used or if you only have one serial port, use this and connect your serial mouse to a USB port using commonly available USBto-serial converters (or buy a USB mouse). When used in conjunction with a USB-to-serial converter, the COM port numbers apply to the virtual serial port created with the USB-to-serial driver software (see its installation in the separate section). The Yamaha serial driver file can be obtained from www. yamaha.co.uk/xg/download/tools/cbxdrv201w.zip. Save the file to a directory (or folder) called c:\midicbx (or similar) and unzip in the usual way. A readme file will be unzipped to one of the folders (c:\ midicbx\cbxdrv201w\setupdir\009\readme.txt) and this describes in detail how to set-up the driver for the various Windows operating system versions. In abbreviated form, double click on the setup.exe (found in the setup folder) file and follow the prompts. When the “select COM ports” dialog shows, check the COM port that you are going to use. The selection is dependent upon how many serial ports you have and which one you are going to use for the MIDI Drum Kit connection. Note that if you are connecting via USB, then select a COM port number that does not correspond to a serial port that is already installed. Click on the Next button and the MIDI output ports dialog will be shown. For our purposes select the “Use single MIDI” output port. Click on Next and that completes 82  Silicon Chip the installation. This dialog box will be displayed. Normally it reminds the user to select the PC-2 position on the Yamaha MIDI unit’s ‘TO HOST’ select switch but for our MIDI Drum Kit, it reminds us to select the serial port setting on the Drum Kit. Restart the computer to finalise the installation. Correct installation can be seen in the sounds and audio devices properties box. For Windows XP, select Start/Control Panel, then switch to Classic View if set in the Category View mode. Now select Sounds, Speech and Audio Devices/Audio/ MIDI music playback. In the MIDI music playback, select the down arrow to check if Yamaha CBX A Driver is installed. Do not select this driver – we are just looking to see if it is there, so keep the original SW Synth setting. Once installed, you can change settings and disable the driver without uninstalling it. To do this, select Start/Control Panel and doubleclick on the Yamaha CBX driver icon. When you double-click on the Yamaha CBX Driver Icon, the CBX Driver Setup box will be displayed. You can select the COM port (again) and enable or disable the driver. The greyed out selections cannot be used. When using this driver with Rave, you can see if it is connected correctly by selecting Options/Synchronisation. If correct, the Yamaha CBX Driver will be displayed in the Synchronisation input port box. Removing the Yamaha CBX Driver Navigate to the c:\midicbx folder and double-click setup.exe. The Setup dialog will appear. Follow the prompts to remove the driver. Restart the computer to complete the removal. USB Operation (via serial to USB converter) When connecting the MIDI Drum Kit using a USB port, you siliconchip.com.au serial driver will need a USB-to-serial (DB9) converter. A suitable device is available from Jaycar Electronics (Cat. XC-4835). This unit converts the serial signal from the MIDI Drum Kit’s serial port output to a USB signal. The software supplied with this converter then produces a virtual serial port on the computer, which can be read by the Yamaha MIDI serial port driver that is already installed. Both the virtual serial port and the MIDI serial port driver must be set to the same COM port number. Note that if you have a serial port on your computer, it is preferable not to select the same COM port number for the virtual port. To install the USB-to-serial converter and the software, plug in the USB unit. The computer will alert that new hardware has been installed. In Windows XP, the Add New Hardware Wizard will start up and assist in setting up the USB converter. When prompted, insert the CD ROM and select the ‘USB to serial cable’\WN DRIVER\98-2009-2K20021 folder. Click next to install. If you have problems with this method, disconnect the USB-toserial converter, wait say ten seconds and reconnect. When the new hardware has been detected and the “add new hardware” wizard opens, select the install from a list or specific location, then click onto next. Select ‘Don’t search I will choose the driver to install’. Click onto next. Click on ‘Have disk’ then browse to the CD ROM\ WN Driver\98-2009-2K20021\serspl.inf. Click onto open, then OK and next. A warning may appear to say that the software is not logo tested for compatibility with Windows. Click on the ‘Continue Anyway’ button. Uninstalling or reinstalling Make sure the USB-to-serial driver is plugged into the computer and select Start/Control Panel/system. In the system properties select hardware/device manager/ ports (COM & LPT). Select the ‘Prolific USB-serial-bridge’. Double- click on this then select Driver/uninstall and OK when it prompts you to uninstall. You can reinstall using this method by selecting the update driver button and going to the folder on the CD ROM as before. To change the COM port setting on the USB-to-serial converter, select Start/Control Panel/system. In the system properties select Hardware/Device Manager/Ports (COM & LPT). Select the ‘Prolific USB-serial-bridge’. Double-click on this then select port settings/advanced. Select the COM port number from the drop down menu. Note that the port number must match the port number selected for the Yamaha MIDI serial port driver. You can only select the ports that the Yamaha MIDI serial port driver allows. In our case, as shown in the Yamaha CBX driver setup, this is COM1 or COM3. Notes on the USB connection 1. You can connect the USB-to-serial converter to the MIDI Drum Kit in one of two ways. First, you can use a DB9 extension cable. The cable connects to the MIDI Drum Kit serial outlet and the socket end connects to the USB-to-serial converter. Plug the USB end into the computer. Alternatively, if you only require a short connection, the USB converter can be directly connected to the MIDI Drum siliconchip.com.au Kit serial outlet. In this case, the retaining screws on the MIDI Drum Kit serial outlet will need to be removed. A 1.8m USB 2.0 A-to-A extension cable can be used to make the computer connection. 2. If you plug the USB-to-serial converter into a different USB port on the computer, you will need to install the driver for that USB port. It’s better to always plug into the original USB port where the driver was installed. 3. Avoid plugging the USB-to-serial unit into the computer while the MIDI Drum Kit is switched on, or the computer may sometimes decide the device is a mouse or similar “human interface device” rather than the USB converter. If this happens, you will need to reinstall the USB to serial converter software as detailed above or click onto the driver ‘roll-back’ button instead of the ‘reinstall button’. This last option reverts the driver to the previous USB-to-serial driver and installation is quicker as you do not need the CD ROM. 4. If you see this panel when starting Rave, it means that the MIDI Drum Kit will not (at present) work with the USB converter. The panel indicates that the virtual port data is corrupted. It could be that the Serialto-USB converter is not connected, or simply that the USB converter has to be reset. Alternatively, the COM ports selected for the Yamaha serial driver and the USB to serial driver may not be the same number. In the first two cases, click on the ‘No’ button and then OK on the copyright panel when Rave starts. Exit from Rave in the normal way. Unplug the USB connection and wait for the disconnect confirmation, then reconnect it and start Rave again. The wave device-warning panel should not appear this time. 5. If you switch off the MIDI Drum Kit while you are within Rave, then the only way to have the MIDI Drum Kit play again is to exit from Rave and then restart it. Similarly in Computer Muzys, you may receive this error when starting. In this case exit from the program, disconnect the USB connection and reconnect it. Restart the program. The Computer Muzys MIDI port is set using the System/ MIDI Hardware selection and the MIDI Hardware set-up panel will be shown. Make sure you also select channel 10 for MIDI In by right clicking on the input box and selecting channel 10 from the pull-down menu. SC February 2006  83