HELP! Setting up Grid, Serialosc not installing

Monome
#1

I have received my new grid and am trying to set it up with my computer/max/ableton

I have followed the docs and installed serialosc but it isn’t showing up in activity monitor, so it doesn’t seem it’s installed at all!.

I have looked around and then tried manually installing the FTDI VCP driver and nothing, Serial still doesn’t;t show up and moving on to the “Samples” section just brings up an error message -

Screenshot 2021-07-23 at 21.00.25
Screenshot 2021-07-23 at 21.00.251196×692 206 KB

Then looked at their .pkg for installation and it has the application shell icon and when opened does nothing
Screenshot 2021-07-23 at 21.09.56

What do I do?

I’m running Mac - Catalina 10.15.6

#2

hi, hope all’s well otherwise :slight_smile:

manual FTDI driver management thankfully has nothing to directly do with the serialosc installation. we’d need to resort to that level of troubleshooting only after serialosc is verifiably installed.

just to confirm:

is that all correct?

#3

Hi Dan,

Yes, I have now restarted and it’s there. Must have missed the direction that says to reboot.

Screenshot 2021-07-23 at 21.35.05

It’s now responding on the grid test patch in max, but it’s still not coming up in ableton with grainfields -

Screenshot 2021-07-23 at 21.37.55

how do I get them to talk?

Also, yes, it’s bloody beautiful! Now th lights are coming on I’m getting itchy! haha

#4

rad! does it work on the standalone version of grainfields? GitHub - kasperskov/monome_grainfields-v1.1: 8 voice granular synthesizer for 128 grids (standalone)

#5

Bonanza!

Standalone works.

I’m on ableton 10 with max.

Ah! so I can run it thorough instead! Brilliant!
I have never run max that way, I assume there must be a way of syncing clock etc., but I’ll look into that tomorrow. Annoyingly I have to stop but glad to see it running. Will get on it more tomorrow. Thank you for your help!

1 Like
#6

@dan_derks

I now have everything working it seems. Even in live.

What has started to happen now is in the M4L re:mix after 5-10 mins the lights freeze. So the functionality is still there but the feedback on the buttons just stay how they are… why would this be? what can I do?

It seems to happen when I enter the mod menus, i.e. to adjust transpose or reverse etc…

It means I have to unplug it and plug it back in

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#7

@dan_derks

Still can’t get this to work. Annoyingly the visual feedback just freezes after a few minutes.

Do you think this is re:mix related then? frustrating as the developer has been silent on the thread for years and this app is the main thing for this without Norns, and the max standalone version doesn’t seem to have the same hands on capability (I have to use a mouse to click around if I want to change playback speeds, reverse etc. etc.), or am I mistaken?

or just wait til Jan, which is a shame

#8

Hey! This may seem a little weird, but could you have a go at using control? I have the new grid too and have had trouble with frozen lights after a while (usually after pressing shift and selecting a new option). I’ve had the problem with both the Max and stand-alone versions. I was wondering if this might be a good data point for figuring out if the issue is with re:mix or with some hidden issue with how the new grids are interfacing with the Max-based applications. (Just a theory!)

(I was going to post in the control thread tomorrow with a few more repro details but thought I’d just jump in here since it sounds like you’re having a rough time and I thought it might be worth exploring a few possibilities :pray:)

For what it’s worth, Mark Eats Sequencer works super well for me. I haven’t been able to try re:mix because I don’t have m4l

I get that it can be frustrating, but it’s also a part of the fact that a lot of these are passion projects by the developers, and a lot of times it’s more worthwhile to have something out in the wild even if the developer can’t actively maintain it! Hope this can all be resolved, but just wanted to say that I hope this doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth — the ecosystem that has grown up around monome is astounding and multi-faceted and I hope you find a solution!

Edit: For completeness, I have tested control on both Catalina and Big Sur, and Intel and M1 respectively, and have encountered the same problem in each.

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#9

Aces! I shall check this control thing out.

That does sound like the same behaviour as mine. It happens when I’m accessing one of the mods. I suppose I could try playing with it straight and see if it happens after a longer time as well…

Not left a bad taste at all, the community is great as well as the tech and products themselves. I only meant in a pure way as in it’s all working and then takes it away, it’s almost cruel! Haha!

I also realise that the max side is less supported and developers move on, it’s how things go. Intention is to get the Norns, just use max in the interim.

Thank you for t he help, greatly appreciated

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#10

hi hi! hope all’s well @Gordiegoose + @Fardles!

re: freezing

with the additional data point about control, i’m happy to dig in and try out your repro steps! we have the old and new grids in the workshop, which i can test on Live 11.0.5 on macOS Big Sur.

this is helpful to know, thank you! there have been no changes to the macOS serialosc over the past few years, so it’s good to know that an application which interfaces through serialosc directly has none of the problems that these Max/M4L devices are exhibiting.

@Gordiegoose, you have provided good repro steps for re:mix – @Fardles , if you can post what causes issues on control whenever you’re able, that’d be rad!

re: state of grid + non-norns computers

salty thoughts

it’s worth noting that the grid hasn’t changed much over 15 years – OS’s, Live, and Max all have (tho Max has been more thoughtful toward legacy projects). all to say, it’s a total bummer that devices which were largely state of the art 6 years ago are no longer able to be easily loaded + enjoyed, simply because an artist (understandably) can no longer volunteer their time to maintain breaking changes across decisions made by other companies working way beyond human scale. removing these dependencies for artists was a large motivator for the norns project :slight_smile:

all that aside + in case you missed it, here’s a collection of Max + M4L devices which should generally still operate: computer | monome/docs

re: norns stock

we’re just as frustrated that the global component shortages have hosed our timeline for stock norns, but i wanted to highlight the shield as a fantastic stand-in for exploring the same scripts and compositional ideas – especially with the redesigned audio path, it’s the way I personally use norns most :slight_smile:

hope this helps! i’ll poke around at y’all’s repro cases tomorrow!

2 Likes
#11

Has anyone gotten serialosc to work in windows in the past 10 years? edit (I found a few that did in 2019 - with the beta version of serial osc that is no longer archived). The latest pages suggests someone has. There aren’t any recent useful step-by steps out there that I can find.

Thank you for the link to Max devices, because the prior step-by-step instructions I did find all said to use stock devices that came with Max 5 or something… I really couldn’t find them. When I did manage to find some patches, they all have a pull-down to select the monome, which is greyed out… hard to debug when that is all I get.

On my Win10 computer, Serialosc is up and running under services, and the grid notification (neotrellis grid) showed up “installing new device, monome” briefly. Now under settings:other devices I have “BomeMIDI: TouchOSC Bridge (1)”, and USB Serial Device (COM7) is probably the grid. I have full versions of Max 8, and Live10. Any ideas?

I realize that a windows user is a rarity in the monome community - monome’s high design aesthetic and philosophy is counter to Windows and simpatico to Apple. At least the grid (even my DIY grid) is currently plug and play with teletype, Ansible, and norns… which is fantastic. Just wish I could use it with my lowly-PC.

#12

it may interest you to know that in fact many of us (monome/grid contributing developers) use windows daily and macos infrequently / only as need dictates. (for example in my case, to use UAD stuff.) (it is of course true that macOS is a more popular platform for music applications such as Live and Max. so it inherently receives more real world testing. but many of us (a) harbor substantial antipathy towards the Apple ecosystem, (b) work in one of the many sub-fields of SW development that is windows-focused: science/engineering, gaming, business etc.)

in the particular case of latest grid/serialosc release, certainly some particular time was spent on windows. i even tested with neotrellis alongsde new grid on windows, though these DIY clones are still not officially supported by monome’s tools.

anyways: serialosc is working fine for me on windows 10 (home edition, version 10.0.19042 build 19042), with a latest-edition monome grid connected by USB-C to a thinkpad carbon X1.

unfortunately i don’t own Max for Live, my closest test case is using the built in serialosc patcher on Max 8.0.3 (about to update to 8.1.11 or something.) this works fine. (by which i mean, i’ve done a reasonable amount of “normal use” with long uptime and e.g. sleep-cycling the laptop. but TBH have not attempted a full stress test of every possible serialosc command.)

since serialosc just an asynchronous UDP interface, as expected it is also “works fine” in supercollider, python, or directly with level tools like liblo.

before really digging into anything else, one wild guess is that maybe a firewall configuration is blocking the relevant UDP ports. (which appear to be 12006, 12288, and i think 13288 for some reason.)

all i have done on this machine, is install the latest serialosc from the github release page, and reboot. sorry i can’t offer more steps. but i’d agree (and attn to @tehn / @dan_derks perhaps) that the serialosc setup/troubleshooting pages fr windwos seem a bit lacking [see below on a basic step towards verifying the installation and funcitoning of serialoscd] and outdated [still referring directly to 1.4 beta.])

you mean the windows OS notification. this doesn’t mean anything

seems right

(1). in Task Manager (sort processes by name) you should see two processes before connecting a device, serialoscd and serialosc-detector.

serialsc-before-device

(2). after connecting a recognized device, you should see a new prcess called serialosc-device

serialosc-after-device

if you don’t see 1, i’m not sure what’s going on but something is up with the installation. ignore anything you might see anywhere that has to do with FTDI drivers; they don’t apply to you (unless you did in fact make an FTDI-based clone, IDK… DIY)

if you don’t see 2, then… i’m not sure, but could suggest further steps, or make a diganostic program if i have time (probably won’t. perhaps a neotrellis-grid-user/developer could step in to help support the device at that point.)

2 Likes
#13

Thanks much for the response. And sorry about the exasperated grumbling - I have spent countless hours trying to get serialosc working with my grid. I went so far as to get an FTDI to work with the neotrellis grid / norns / teletype / ansible (https://github.com/oldmanfury/neotrellis-grid-FTDI-for-monome-devices). But even that wouldn’t work with serialosc… When the news came out about the latest firmware updates working with the neotrellis grid, I gutted my FTDI and updated my grid code. Everything is working - so fantastic, so many thanks to everyone involved! Was just really hoping that this time I’d see blinking lights in max. The thought of slogging through ancient archives of people not getting it to work to try to figure this out again put me in a mood. Again - sorry for bitching to the list.

I agree that finding some other code to check and see if it is working is a good idea - the touchosc crew has released a new widget Protokol that just monitors for OSC messages. I gave your instructions a try - I see all three in task-manager. Tried Protokol looking at all these ports, but it didn’t show anything. Maybe I’ll try supercollider (which I’m not fluent in) or PD.

Thanks for the response. Go to hear there is another person slumming it with windows out there. I am considering getting one of the new USB-C grids (really reasonable new price!), but it probably won’t make my serialosc battle any easier.

1 Like
#14

fwiw, we recently got a denim-clad yoga laptop in the workshop to specifically test windows (brian uses linux, i have a mac from other-job), so i’ll be sure to spend some time tomorrow to work thru updating the windows side of the docs (@zebra thank you so much for digging into this and giving such a good skeleton). i’m not sure how much it’ll help the neotrellis side of things, but hopefully some positive confirmation will help :confused:

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#15

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Control - Open MIDI controller platform for 128 grids

#17

I am certainly considering this :slight_smile: How is the shields with receiving a clock? From what I’ve seen the Norns can use link with ableton, but can the shield do this as well? Or receive it via usb?

I have an erm multi clock for everything else and would either run it from link or that. Ideally from the multiclock, so if I can receive a master clock from the ERM via usb then I’ll jump on the shield methinks

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#18

shield and stock norns run the same software (with some low-level differences to account for Pi3 vs CM3, battery, etc). MIDI, clocking, script performance are all the same between the two devices. the global clock system runs well on either :slight_smile:

additional info on the physical differences between the two: norns shield | monome/docs

@Fardles + @ithkaa , i’ll take a peek at these fantastic repro steps today, thanks all!
and @Fardles , no worries at all – I am interested in digging in to confirm whether this is a circumstantial thing or something else, so totally happy to troubleshoot these control troubles. I appreciate your conscientiousness, you are a :gem:

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#19

Thanks! Much appreciated. Just wanted to confirm :slight_smile:

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