sound designer questions

[ali_g12]

I am making good headway with my Mac Performa 630 OS 7.5 d1, Emu II+ HD and SD Emulator II edition so I thought I would share the good news and ask some questions about Sound Desinger.

the good news:

i)  Sound designer (downloaded from EII yahoo group) works on the Performa 630 with OS 7.5.
ii) My home made cable seems to work, although it may be causing the problem.
iii) I have been able to receive banks from the EII and see the waveform in SD
iv) I have seen able to send banks to the EII and edit parameters on the front panel display.

the problem

i) 'I can't communicate with the E2!'

The SD manual (available in the files section of the EII yahoo forum) says in section 3.2 'Sound Designer Automatically switches the emulator II to Macintosh mode (the Macintosh controls the emulator)'.  My problem is that I always have to manually put the EII into 'Mac Interface' mode with special function #16.  It works fine if I manually put it into mac interface mode after every operation I do on SD.  If I don't do this it will give the 'Can't communicate' error which I may have to click through several times before SD will complete the operation.

It seems to me that the Mac is not sending the right signal to the EII to tell it that it is taking control.  I am wondering whether I may have wired my cable incorrectly.  I was particularly unsure about how to connect miniDIN8 shield to pin 4 as my din plug is moulded.  I am going to have a look at my cable and will post back!

[lubb]

Hi,

I am facing exactly the same trouble as you do... I also have built that special cable myself according to the schema found on the Emulator Archive, with the shield connected to the PIN 4... I wonder if anybody with the home-made cable is facing this problem.

[ali_g12]

hi lubb,

Good to hear from you.  I have gathered the following info from the EII yahoo group:
___________________________________________________________________

EII CLOCK PIN (pin 9) has about 0.23 V DC on it, which indicates the clock is working.
EII RECEIVE PINS (pin 2) (-ve) has -4.38 V nominal and decreases when data is received
                            (pin 10) (+ve) has +4.24 V nominal and decreases when data is received - these pins are OK

EII TRANSMIT PINS (pin 3) (-ve) has +3.91 V nominal and doesn't change at all when trying to get data from the EII
                              (pin 11) (+ve) has +0.12 V nominal and doesn't change at all when trying to get data from the EII
                             I guess the output pins/circuits/IC are damaged... Are these nominal values normal ??
______________________________________________________________

"Nominal" voltages between the transmit/receive pins and the ground
pin should be (more or less):
RECEIVE PINS:
- Pin 2 (-): -4 Volts
- Pin 10 (+): +4 Volts
TRANSMIT PINS:
- Pin 3 (-): 0 Volts
- Pin 11 (+): +4 Volts
You should also check the clock pin 9 with an oscilloscope. It should
give 500 Mhz.
______________________________________________________________

My own readings are:

pin   2 = - 4.35v
pin 10 = +3.48v
pin   3 = +0.13v
pin 11 = +3.72v
pin  9  = +0.16v
pin 22 = - 4.41v

I have tried disconnecting the shield from pin 7 of my DB25 connector (in effect disconnecting pin 4 from shield) but this had no effect at all.   I have no reason to believe that there is anything wrong with the EII side of things so I think it must be either the Mac or the cable.

What Mac/OS are you using?

[ali_g12]

Some more info after a morning of experimentation:

- I can transfer individual voices to and from the EII as long as I manually enter mac interface mode with special function #16 and click past any 'can't communicate with EII errors' that come up through an operation.  Occasionally I will have to put the EII back into Mac interface mode if it has lost communication - however the operation continues as normal after I do this. 

- I can't transfer banks to the EII on SD's EII front panel screen.  After selecting a bank file on my hard drive a very quick 'done' screen shows up but no transferring has been done.
- I can't receive banks from the EII with SD's 'Get bank from EII' command.  This is a total disaster and I can't get rid of the 'can't communicate with EII' error on SD and can't get rid of the 'under control of Mac' message on the EII without a hard boot for both machines. 


Any suggestions anyone?

[lubb]

Hi,

compliments for your thorough research.. !  I am afraid my technical skills are very limited in comparison with yours, although I have a multimeter and possibly could measure those voltages...

Anyway, the certain thing is that I was able to transfer a couple of banks to and from EII, although I had to cancel that bloody "cannot communicate" message and manually put EII into Mac mode (special 16) between every transfer. After several successful transfers EII "locked", there was no other way how to free it again but to restart it... The command "Exit Mac Mode" in SD for EII did not work. Tomorrow I will try to repeat the procedure of sending and receiving  banks again...

I use Mac Classic II with OS 7.1. It has Motorola 68030, and according to EmuArch it should be suitable for SD EII...

[Elmbeatz]

Sometimes the EII hangs up while talking to the mac. That's absolutely normal. A general SD issue.

I haven't had the idea to manually put my 'non-communicating' EII in Mac mode...  good idea, I have to try out...

[ali_g12]

Unfortunately this isn't 'sometimes', it's everytime.

I think I might try and get a slightly older mac and see if that works.  I've actually got a couple of old LCIIs lying around but they don't seem to work with modern monitors as the Performa 630 does.

[Elmbeatz]

Unfortunately this isn't 'sometimes', it's everytime.

I think I might try and get a slightly older mac and see if that works.  I've actually got a couple of old LCIIs lying around but they don't seem to work with modern monitors as the Performa 630 does.

If it helps:
I have a mac SE wth 4mb ram, system 6.7.1 (iirc). works pretty stable running SD.

[lubb]

You are happy man, dear Elmbeatz...

Today I have tried it again with this result: after booting Mac,  EII and starting SD I am able to transfer one and only one EII bank... The bank is transferred correctly, but any subsequent attempt freezes Mac... Only one thing could be done, to put EII in Mac mode manually (special 16). In the same moment Mac unfreezes, and the dreaded "cannot communicate" alert jumps... Now is frozen EII, there is no way t exit this "Under Mac Control", yet Mac cannot control EII any more giving only the alert...

[esynthesist]

I use Mac Classic II with OS 7.1

Be careful with this series of the Classic.
On the EII Yahoo group this type of Mac is "known" not to work well with SD for EII.
It's also not mentioned in the compatibility list which is maintained on that group.
From my experience the most stable Mac for any sounddesigner version is the Mac Classic (one).
Even my SE/30 sometimes hangs, especially with SD for Emax...

[lubb]

Thank you for valuable help, I am also beginning to suspect the Classic II... The next step is obvious: to try another Mac, a Classic (one) for preference. Unfortunately, there is none around me for the time being...

[JMP]

Keep a lookout too for any Powerbook 165c or 180c's. I've got three working perfectly with SD and my EII at the moment using the modem serial port and OS 7.1. Using these more than my Mac Colour Classic now as faster with bigger HDD's.      

[realreem]

how and where can i download sound designer for my eII

[JMP]

Here you go:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/emulatorII-list/files/Editing/

Happy New Year. 

[micromoog]

You are happy man, dear Elmbeatz...

Today I have tried it again with this result: after booting Mac,  EII and starting SD I am able to transfer one and only one EII bank... The bank is transferred correctly, but any subsequent attempt freezes Mac... Only one thing could be done, to put EII in Mac mode manually (special 16). In the same moment Mac unfreezes, and the dreaded "cannot communicate" alert jumps... Now is frozen EII, there is no way t exit this "Under Mac Control", yet Mac cannot control EII any more giving only the alert...

do you have midi cables to the EII connected?
that seems the problem w/ my performa 63xx - without a midi connection at the EII all works fine, with midi EII or mac will freeze by the next EII-Mac operation