#67

I can answer that! It’s practically impossible because iOS is so locked down. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is. Much easier for a monome to support iOS.

#68

ios is software, grids are hardware, so categorically: no it’s not.

iOS app developers like yourself should be petitioning apple to support a USB-CDC interface! they can do this any time they choose.

1 Like
#69

I’m certainly not trying to cherry pick. I really do come in good faith.

Hardware can evolve, right? I’m looking toward the future.

Hmm, level of your hostility is rising. I might need to leave this thread.

#70

Not to muddy the waters further, but I strongly expect the future to be wireless. Given the relatively low bandwidth of most monome osc traffic I don’t see this being an issue.

(See Roli)

Bring on the wireless, rechargeable grid :slight_smile:

#71

Please don’t. It’ll all come good in the end. This is a useful discussion.

2 Likes
#72

Currently working on USB host integration on an embedded project with the Monome Grid and Launchpad and I concluded (from a consumer pov) that I’d take (osc) serial, over usb midi anytime. The launchpads have serious midi bandwidth issues and a very confusing sysex API.

1 Like
#73

Gotta be sure you’re blaming the right thing there.

#74

i apologize, not actually trying to be hostile. that was a real suggestion - iOS is the bottleneck, and it should chage. the way for it to change is for developers to complain to apple. they’ve listened before and will do so again.

i am trying to give real, honest answers to the question of “why.” they are not always technical but also situational. the responses i’m getting are extremely selective. importantly, monome is not one of the many companies (mostly in the bay area, seems like) that is primarily interested in scaling with the iOS install base.

seriously, @tayholliday / @audulus, if you want to have a productive discussion here, we have to get beyond this kind of thing:

and start responding to some actual suggestions and criticisms. like, we don’t actually want to build a new grid that isn’t backward compatible. like, how about a smart HW adapter or service layer that works around the OS limitations instead of requiring brand new everything else.

3 Likes
#75

Cool! Yeah, there was a talk by ROLI about how they did the Blocks. Definitely a lot of implementation complexity there. Seeing if I can find the talk.

Edit: here’s the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawj6GbkK2I

1 Like
#76

Thx for that.

Sadly my Seaboard Block was DOA so I can’t yet comment how well it all works, but it certainly seems like the future.

As an aside I’m slowly trying to join my modular, monome and iOS worlds together into some elegant whole over these holidays, which will include Audulus in some way :slight_smile:

(Trying to avoid the expense of an ES-8 btw)

image
ED851E6E-CD26-4C9B-A110-A939233A5834.png1536×994 138 KB

???

2 Likes
#77

just arriving, so i first wanted to fully endorse @zebra (and his comments), who has witnessed and contributed hugely both technically and spiritually to this project since before its inception.

i’m fundamentally not interested in supporting iOS. i’m starting to stray from being interested in supporting MacOS. (most of you know my interest in windows has never existed, though i’ve burned huge amounts of my time trying to enable people to use it).

but i like the idea of people doing whatever they want! and honestly a super-tiny dongle that converts monome to usb-midi is a pretty sweet suggestion. it’s so easy, and the hardware so unobtrusive. you could integrate external powering as i doubt your iphone wants to power a grid. of course i’m not going to make this thing, but our serial source code has always been open source.

additional huge agreement to @Dewb for the precise insight on the moment in technology 12 years ago!

edit: and yes seems trivial for apple to add CDC. but i understand that the thought of even asking feels like asking our gov’t for legit healthcare. :slight_smile: which is why linux is so (almost absurdly) liberating and exciting.

24 Likes
#78

re: norns to ios. norns can do OSC to remote hosts, and BT-midi no problem. it’s designed to create interactions with grids/etc with simple scripting (lua) that then communicate with less-programmable midi stuff (like synths).

8 Likes
#79

Sheesh man don’t beat me up! I come in peace!

Ok, that’s cool, backwards compatibility is a legit consideration. But let’s not act like hardware can’t evolve and improve.

#80

Ok, not trying to beat you up but I feel like we’re talking past each other and I dunno what that’s about.

I guess I just don’t think midi is an “evolution” here, compared to an extensible data format on top of a generic transport layer.

That said, I basically agree with @TheTechnobear that yeah, transport layer is not fundamental to the device. But it matters when you invoke product design concepts like “plug and play.” Very significant!

I’m totally serious though: apple should have a way to support CDC and HID devices. It should require a permissions key of course. If everyone with an app developer license in this forum said something, and if we suggest that this is yet another way in which android can eat their lunch, they really will listen.

In the meantime - seriously, lets work out what a good bus-powered adapter might look like. Give it some controller logic so it actually is plug+play. Let it support arbitrary diy devices using slipOSC. Does this appeal?

9 Likes
#81

I started hacking on something this afternoon, but just ran outta gas… so will circle back. :grinning:

What’s a canonical link for slipOSC? This is a year or so since it was last updated

2 Likes
#82

I totally agree with @TheTechnobear as well. Maybe I’m just not communicating effectively? I’m sorry for that.

I just don’t think Apple will budge on device support. They already have their MIFi program in place for peripherals, which evidently is a real pain, but that’s the way they want it. Perhaps I’m pessimistic? I suspect if I were to bring up Monome or similar devices, the response would be “we have class compliant midi support, use that.”

To clarify one point: there is no contradiction between my suggestion that you build a controller which is plug-and-play with some hosts and advertising a controller which is plug-and-play with all hosts. Know what I mean? Let’s not get bogged down in the semantics of plug-and-play.

Some sort of little monome adapter would be the way to go, given the desires on your end. Seems a bit inelegant, but hey if it works, cool :slight_smile:

#83

I think a wireless midi adaptor would be delightful. Has anyone tried pairing a teensy with a Bluetooth module capable of doing wireless midi?

1 Like
#84

I have a back-burner project that uses a Feather board with a BLE chipset. My needs require higher resolution than 7bit so I began all my tests with the BLE chip in UART mode. It worked surprisingly well.

It appears there is a tutorial on Adafruit to use the BLE MIDI profile with a Feather. This should be exactly what you’re looking for.

4 Likes
#85

So I prototyped a thing tonight because of this thread.

Teensy 3.6 as USB host - monome to midi translator

For the moment it’s pretty dumb - just sends a note-on/off for note number (using x/y translated to 0-127) and lights up the led of the button you pressed.

Here’s some debug output.

USB Host - Serial
*** USERIAL1 Device 16c0:483 - connected ***
  manufacturer: monome
  product: monome
  Serial: m4676000
grid key: 6 4 dn - Send note-on : 70 
grid key: 6 4 up - Send note-off: 70 
grid key: 11 1 dn - Send note-on : 27 
grid key: 11 1 up - Send note-off: 27 
grid key: 0 0 dn - Send note-on : 0 
grid key: 0 0 up - Send note-off: 0 
grid key: 1 6 dn - Send note-on : 97 
grid key: 1 6 up - Send note-off: 97

So… who wants to back my kickstarter? :laughing:

15 Likes
#86

I’m sorry things got tense here. As a new and very happy user of audulus and long time user of monome stuff, I can’t help but to think that nothing but good can come of you being here.

4 Likes