#9

No problem. I have defended monome against any number of attacks from accusations of excessive hipsterdom, no after touch or velocity, all kinds of things, some of which are germane, others just don’t get the point. But that doesn’t mean that the device itself should be given a pass on basically not working as reliably as one would expect from something that, after all, costs a good amount of cash. I love the “sound and sweet minimal aesthetics”, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but… it would just be nice if the damn thing worked reliably. And in my experience - and I’m very evidently not alone - it simply does not.

One thing I’d really like to hear from Brian and Kelli is - does it work better in windows. I mean just imagine - windows works better than mac. But what if it was true? I don’t see many complaints here about monome on the PC. And although I ride a singlespeed MTB with Jones bars and a Wald basket up front, I don’t really care that much about whether my laptop is brushed aluminium or plastic.

#10

I can’t speak to Windows behavior as I haven’t attempted to use the monome on Windows. But my mac/monome problems ended up being serialosc problems. Upgrading to serialosc 1.4 fixed them for me (so far).

monome_sum needs to be updated to include serialosc 1.4.

serialosc 1.5 needs to introduce a version flag so you can more easily figure out which version you are running.

I’d like to see much more active discussion about how serialosc actually works. What changed between 1.2 and 1.4? (there are no release notes). The code is open source but the community is not involved. Serialosc is critical infrastructure. It needs community involvement.

#11

I love the way Geert Bevin discusses Linnstrument firmware on the Linnstrument forum. He gets absolutely as technical as necessary to discuss the issue at hand, no punches pulled. That way he’s gradually bringing the community up to his level of expertise, and this has resulted in community contributions. I really admire that.

Here he is in person explaining the firmware code in great detail:

1 Like
#12

That being said, I consider Linnstrument and monome to be complementary instruments. Linnstrument is optimized for live performance by a human player. Monome is especially well suited to generative compositions and sequencing. I want to continue to be equally enthusiastic about both instruments.

2 Likes
#13

I just updated to el capitan and am having this exact same issue. Bummer.

#14

Are you guys on serialosc 1.4?

#15

yes. I was on serial 1.2. installed 1.4.
Also updated ftdi driver just in case.
Just updated max to 7.1 as well.
No change so far.

#16

the problem is simply keeping up with OS updates and that are imposed upon us all.

the much more real problem is that OS updates that break everything are happening much more frequently.

monome is hardly alone with these issues.

given we’re an incredibly small operation (it’s just me here, and you, the community) the best way forward is thorough detailed bug reports, and being very very skeptical of operating system updates. because honestly, Apple hasn’t done much for me since 10.6.8-- when everything ran perfectly.

i was just forced to buy a new computer after this one wouldn’t upgrade to the newest broken thing, so i’ll be testing the new broken thing now. thank you for your patience-- we’ll work it out.

3 Likes
#17

@tehn, I hear you. I was fighting upgrading from snow leopard forever. I’m going back to my mountain lion back up for now and not worrying about the newest thing.

#18

fwiw i just installed El Cap today. i had to reinstall serialosc 1.4, reinstall Java SE (for max/m4l), and everything is working fine now.

#19

@abozzelli
i’ve only had this issue with serialosc versions prior to 1.4. it happened all the time, but not once since i upgraded to 1.4. when u unplug, replug and it won’t connect, go to activity monitor and check the cpu usage for the serialosc processes. is it at 100%?

#20

serialosc it’s at 0% all the time.
I’ve tried to upgrade to 10.11.2, java from the link you have provided, max 7.1 and serialosc 1.4 with no luck.

#21

crap, well that’s my exact setup except i’m using a 2012/13 model 256. i’d be curious if @jasper_ryder is using a 2015 model as well? could be related.

#22

grid models are not going to make much of a difference-- they all have exactly the same FTDI chip.

on this new 2015 mac the usb ports randomly fail to detect various usb flash drives. ie, one side doesn’t work, flip to the other and it works, etc. without repeatability. this isn’t great news for apple inc.

#23

Well - apologies if I came across as a dick. Does it all work better on Windows?

I was really expecting the mac experience to be a big step up from PC - but experience has not borne this out.

#24

2012 grid on a 2012 mbp.

#25

The Sonic State guys have started calling the latest OS release “El Crapitan”. So sad.

I’m starting to come around to the idea of building a Linux box that is basically a USB/MIDI/OSC format jumbler. I need to keep using my Mac because that’s where all my synths and Live/Logic live, but it would be good to get the dodgy USB situation out of the mix.

Actually, I guess it would have to be a Windows box, since Max doesn’t run on Linux. Been a while since I had a non-gaming reason to need a Windows box. Odd.

#26

It’s a serious question though. Does everything work better on windows?

#27

i’d doubt that, slightly. for one thing, i’m not good at supporting windows-- my windows computer is hardly what i’d consider worthy of doing musical things. will, who coded serialosc, is a linux user, mac secondarily, and the windows port was a paid gig.

i’m working on a plan for future OS support. it’s a very nebulous issue.

1 Like
#28

To be fair, I just got a new powered hub and everything now works far far better. Even though the old hub was a powered unit by the same manufacturer (Anker). I upgraded to a more expensive unit on a friend’s recommendation. So I now have my interface and other utilities running off one hub and the controllers off their own separate hub.