Beiträge von ismism

    There's no way to view your own posts other than remembering where you posted them and searching that forum. That's fine if your memory is far better than mine and, I suspect many others, but...what was I talking about? Oh yeah, viewing your own posts. Sure would be handy.

    Sneezing's Greetings to all. Some of you have been kind enough to check out my Virus patch "favoriting" site, which has been significantly changed and - I hope - improved since its unveiling. Here are some of the new features:

    • I've abandoned the form/post paradigm in favor of an edit-in-place one. If you're viewing your own edits, there are selects (aka drop-downs) for changing categories and ratings. Double-clicking on the Name and Description/Comments cells allows you to edit patch names and descriptions. Pressing Enter saves the changes and Esc cancels them. (They'll also be saved if you tab away or click outside of the cell.)
    • I've implemented exporting to tab-delimited files and printing. The former are (hopefully) suitable for import into a spreadsheet program and the latter might be used to keep by your synth and scribble notes on, or for protecting your nice hardwood floor from your new puppy.
    • Per a suggestion from I-forget-whom (thank you!), the Patches/Pg options are now 32, 64, and 128 to better correspond to the number of patches per bank in the Virus. At 128, you can view an entire bank at a time. (I also moved the categories in front of the descriptions per that user's suggestion.)
    • You don't need to create an "account" in order to view the patch list and see what other users have "favorited." Instructions on the Login page, or just click here.
    • I added a Help page that I hope will help explain how to use the site as well as for what it might be used.


    I won't be offended if you don't check it out or if you do and tell me it is worthless, just try to include some constructive criticism in your diatribe. ;) Cheers!

    Well, I've got category information entered for 6 banks. Only 24 to go! That's like, 3100 records. <anguished cry> I'm managing about 2 bank's worth of data entry a day. I even re-styled the web page to put the Save button closer to the category selects, and am considering changing those to scrolling selects instead of drop-downs. I'm not sure this is going to be worth all of the effort, but I suppose it's keeping me out of trouble. Man, I wish Access had a list that they would share so I could programatically scrape the information the way I did the patch names from whomever it was that posted the PDF of patch names in ROM. At least I don't have to enter patch names any more like I did for the 4 RAM banks, just fix the few errors from the document.


    Does anyone know if it would be possible to scrape the data from .mid files? If so, where could I find them?

    noct Thanks for the suggestions!! Those are great. I have a couple of small fixes to make, but will consider your suggestions once those are done. Including other users' edits in searches is especially apt and would make the site much more usable. I think I'll include an option for that, i.e., an "All Users" checkbox. Or, hmm...maybe I should start making some music. :rolleyes: I'm still trying to figure out what to do about an audio interface since TI is nearly impossible with the latency problems in my Asus G73JW. I thought that with 14GB of RAM(!!!) I wouldn't have such problems, but as it turns out, all four of my USB ports are unusable. One of them is USB 3.0 and I can't even connect with that port, and the other three are hubs so there is a latency of what feels like a couple hundred milliseconds; what Access dubs "uncomfortable." What an understatement!


    Ruari Are you the one from whom I got the PDF file? I did find one of all the ROM banks somewhere in these forums, exported it to a text file, and scraped the patch names out of it. If you're the one from whom I got it, I'd like to give you credit for it on my little site. Not that it will get you any notoriety, but I like to give credit where credit is due.

    My "1.0" "release" was pretty abysmal, as evidenced by a throng of several folks creating logins and not "favoriting" anything. I've revamped the way it works since then, and instead of storing information only for those patches entered by the user, it stores information for all of the 3,840 patches in the TI2. User-entered data (changed category 1 or 2, patch name override, description entered, rating other than zero) is stored in a separate table. I've got records for all 3,840 patches and am working on designating the correct categories for them. I've entered the patch names and categories for banks RAM-A through RAM-D (phew!!) based on what I found in my used TI2, so I don't know how accurate it is, and I'm not sure I have the energy or even the desire to go through the other 3,328 patches. At least I'd only be editing categories and confirming that the import I did from a PDF file I downloaded somewhere on this site is accurate (don't remember what user posted it or in what forum and couldn't find it using the site search). MAN, I wish I could get a spreadsheet or something from Access. Their polite reply was "no."


    Anyway, I think the site might be more usable now. I should probably be playing around with my killer synth than fiddling with the site, but, well, circumstances are such that the latter is easier for me right now. Cheers.

    Documenting your patches like on your web site looks like a good approach. Of course the advatage of saving favourite and of course orignial and modified patches to the RAM banks rather than to computer files is that I don't have to have my TI2 tethered to a computer all the time. Handy for me personally for gigs. Irrelevent if you always use your Virus with a computer.



    That makes sense. I just have such a horrible memory and need some kind of reminder as to where my faves are. Thanks for the feedback.

    I don't think that's the most efficient way you could approach this. You can't save any tweaks to the patches in the ROM locations and you'd still have them spread out all over the place.
    Why not open a blank midi bank in the bottom browser then surf through the presets and drag your favorites into the blank bank so you can build a collection of only your favorites? You can then take this further by moving them to categorized banks like a bank for fx, bass, pads, etc.

    Not sure what you're saying, but I think I've got something similar going. Now that I have what appears to be a semi-accurate list of ROM patches loaded into my database, I need to figure out what to do with the RAM banks. I'll probably provide a way to copy ROM patches into RAM banks but if there are factory defaults in the RAM banks, I'd really like to get my hands on a list. What would be super cool would be if I also had the category information for all of those patches. My silly little app does store that, but right now they're all 'Undefined'.

    It seems like my program might actually be useful, then. Would the patches from e.g. RAM Backup 102005 A.mid, RAM Backup 102005 B.mid, RAM Backup 102005 C.mid and RAM Backup 102005 D.mid be what you are looking for? If not, can you tell me which files would contain these patches and where I can get them? Then just let me know how you want the lists formatted, and how to get this to you, and I may be able to get you this stuff.

    Thanks for the offer! Having bought my TI2 keyboard used, I'm a little/lot confused about the RAM banks. Do brand new TI2 keyboards come populated with patches in the RAM banks, or are they all empty? If they are populated, I would love to get a list of the factory-loaded patches, otherwise there wouldn't be much point. I've been able to parse the list of ROM patches that another user put into a PDF (one of you? I forget) and load it into my database. Just not sure what to do with the RAM banks unless they're loaded at the factory in new keyboards.

    Good to hear that other users have had the same experience I've had. i.e., I bought my TI2 used and the previous user had filled the RAM banks with patches from the ROM banks (and possibly his own patches, I haven't checked that) and banks V-Z contain only -INIT-. I hadn't thought of using the RAM banks for favorites, in fact I'm working on a program/website to store, rate, and notate my favorites. Much more fun than just using RAM banks for favorites (and then potentially forgetting where they are). The website is under development and therefore any information saved is subject to death-by-upgrade, but feel free to check it out at http://www.detachtour.org/virus/ if you're so inclined.

    I'm hoping that a site administrator will read this and rally to my cause. I created a site to keep track of my favorite patches since remembering which of the 3328 patches are my favorites is too much for my little brain. What I would just love would be to get a spreadsheet or comma/tab delimited file with the bank, patch number, and patch name of all 3328 of the default patches so that I can import it into the database I created. That would allow me to not have to enter the information for all the patches. With all of the factory patches in the database and the ability for users to rank them I could show their popularity as well as comments about them from other users.


    The site is non-commercial and located here: http://www.detachtour.org/virus/ There is a very basic sign-up - just a user name and password - to make it easy to get started, or you can just use a user name of "guest" and password of "guest," if anyone's interested. (Don't expect changes you make with the guest account to persist.) Comments are welcome. I sent an email to the marketing department at Access about getting a spreadsheet or comma-delimited file. If anyone knows of a better channel, please let me know. I think getting the complete list would make my site much more powerful and useful. Thanks for your attention.

    Trying to answer also your question from the other thread, did you consider the following setup: (a) Firewire audio interface: most current laptops/notebooks have a firewire port. Does yours? (b) A dedicated USB expander express-card for the Virus. I bet you have an express card slot as well.

    Thanks, flabberbob. This thing doesn't have a firewire port, not does it have an express card slot. I've pretty much given up on this machine. It's an Asus "Republic of Gaming" notebook, and I figured that would make it a good machine for music, especially with 14GB RAM! This has proven not to be the case. So, I'm trying to negotiate with my son who IS into gaming (I am SO not) to trade me for the iMac I gave him when I got this. I also gave him my old MacBook Pro prior to that (yes, I'm a very generous dad) which has firewire, but it only has 2GB RAM, no battery, and I'd need to buy an external optical drive because the one they put in the original MacBook is a piece of crap. If he doesn't fall...er, uh I mean go for trading back the iMac, I don't know what I'm going to do other than try to sell the Asus to a gamer and get a notebook that will work for me. Anyway, thanks for the input!

    So, this computer (Asus G73JW i7 Notebook) is a lost cause for Virus Control because it has ONLY USB hubs (i.e., no dedicated USB ports). The latency is in the neighborhood of hundreds of milliseconds. What I'm wondering (and I realize this isn't a question specific to the Virus, but please indulge me) is whether I would have the same latency problems with the USB ports (hubs) if I used an external audio interface. It would seem that the data stream is still going to have a bottleneck at the USB port and I'm back in the same dire straits I was in with Virus Control. Can anyone give me any advice on this? One thing I should mention is that I DO have a dedicated (USB) MIDI interface (an old MOTU MIDI Express) so I could at least keep the MIDI stream off of the bus.

    Check out the Tutorial included with the Virus software. It was created with an ancient version of Live (v. 5), but it is mostly accurate. (And, in my humble opinion, should be updated since it would take so little work - short document, few screen shots, expensive keyboards, 3 versions old. I'm just sayin')

    Yes, more RAM is a possibility. However, I'm reconsidering this strategy because the Macbook needs a new battery (~$100) and the optical drive is a piece of crap and I can't install anything from DVD without getting an external reader/writer (another $50 or so). So if I bought more RAM, I'd be investing at least $200 in an aging machine with a relatively slow processor. <heavy sigh> I'm thinking that money would be better spent on an external audio/MIDI interface, but then it seems like I'd have the same latency problems because the external interface would still have to communicate over the USB bus.


    Seems like I read somewhere up here that any computer with an i5 or i7 processor is going to have the same USB architecture, i.e., they're all on hubs. If I could put in a dedicated USB card (in other words, it's a desktop), seems like I'd be good. I really want a notebook, though, for one thing because my studio is going to be on my RV (converted transit bus, 1979 American Flyer) and I'd like to be able to do shows at some point for another. How could I find out if a notebook is going to have at least one USB port that doesn't share the bus with any other components? Seems like that just isn't pre-sale information that's available for any machines. <another heavy sigh>

    If anyone's interested, I did come up with some info. I gave my son my old Macbook Pro (original model) some time ago, and after reading a thread wherein someone said that the original Macbook Pro (like my son's) has a USB port that doesn't share the bus with other components (It's the one on the left side), I decided to give it a try. So, I downloaded the trial version of Ableton Live and the Virus software and tried it. I didn't notice any latency at all. It didn't really seem to mind the minimal RAM, though I didn't do extensive testing. So, it looks like I'll be trading my snazzy Asus G73JW laptop for my old computer. This thing has 14GB of RAM in it and the Macbook has only 2GB, the minimum recommended for Live, so I'm going to be giving that up as well as the much faster i7 processor, but at least he'll be using this for gaming for which it was designed, anyway.


    Anyone have any experience running a similar setup? (Macbook, minimal RAM) I'm concerned that 2GB isn't going to be enough for Live.

    Does anyone have a notebook/laptop computer that works well with Total Integration? My Asus G73JW does NOT. I'm considering replacing it to take advantage of TI and would consider either a Mac or a Windows machine. I'm wondering if a MacBook/MacBook Pro would work. I really do prefer Macs, but not because I'm an Apple FanBoy; the interface is cleaner and the OS more stable than Windows. I'm also considering getting a desktop into which I could install a dedicated USB card. Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated.

    I tried using my USB3.0 port on my Asus G73JW under Windows 7, and after a few seconds it tells me that the device can't be initialized (or whatever the language). Probably an issue with the laptop. Good to know that the failure doesn't mean I'm missing an opportunity to solve the severe latency problems I'm having with the Asus, at least. I've pretty much resigned myself to either getting a different computer into which I can install a dedicated USB port (mine are ALL hubs) or one which will let me use my ancient MOTU 828 firewire interface (no firewire on the Asus). <sigh>

    Wow! Thanks for all of your help. I have pretty much jumped overboard on the Reaper, but I might just go back and give it a try. I really appreciate the detailed help! Meanwhile...


    I'm afraid I'm facing a MUCH LARGER PROBLEM: The USB ports on my Asus G73JW are not dedicated ports. They're ALL HUBS. You may remember the dire warning in the manual about NOT USING USB HUBS (and apologizing for shouting - well-mannered folk, these Access people). So as far as using Total Integration with this laptop, it looks like I'm a fupped duck. It has one USB 3.0 port, which I suspect is also a hub, but that one doesn't work with the TI. Windows tries to load the driver with the TI plugged in to that port and fails dismally.


    So here's another question: Does anyone know about USB 3.0 support from Access? Is there a version of the OS that supports it? Is that another wild goose chase?