interest in vSigX?

Tagged: MIDI, serial, vsig, vsigx

This topic has 8 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 3 months ago by italoop.

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- August 18, 2022 at 2:39 pm #165064
  
  wtholliday
  Participant
  
  Hi All,
  
  I’ve inherited the code for vSigX from the original author. I’ve updated it to run on the latest macOS, fixed some bugs, and added MIDI support (it previously only supported serial).
  
  I wanted to gauge the interest in offering vSigX again, either for free or for some low cost to support the time I’ve put into resurrecting it.
  
  About serial: Do some of the older H-series units only support serial? I only have an H8000. I did manage to get a serial connection to work with my Mac, but it was fairly unpleasant (drivers are flakey). I read in the vSig manual that serial can be 3x as fast as MIDI, but MIDI does seem fast enough.
  
  cheers!
  
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- August 18, 2022 at 2:58 pm #165066
  
  wtholliday
  Participant
  
  After consulting the manuals for some of the older units, it seems like all vsig-capable units support MIDI (and, specifically, the sysex messages required). Someone please correct me if I’m wrong 🙂
- August 18, 2022 at 3:05 pm #165067
  
  noodle1
  Participant
  
  Thats really awesome! I think it goes without saying that we need easier ways than VMs and old computers, to run Vsig2 (pre-9000)… You may not get a ton of direct response but I believe this is work that needs to stay around for the lifetime of the products. (50 years? hahah)
  Vsig works with Serial AND MIDI on the 7000 family, and I usually used MIDI b/c its easier to interface…No clunky RS232 interface or looking for an ancient computer to run Vsig…
  As far as I understand it, Serial is more important for firmware updates and such…
  The only one I am not sure about is the 4000 family…
- August 18, 2022 at 5:50 pm #165068
  
  italoop
  Participant
  
  VsigX would benefit A LOT from using serial connection over MIDI because it’s much faster and would keep the MIDI ports free for other tasks that are often needed when building/testing things, like MIDI realtime control.
  
  Serial connection is also very stable on the Mac IF using a good connector. I have used (and still do) the classic Keyspan, now Tripplite USA-19HS USB to serial adapter and they put out drivers regularly for every Mac OS system. Never had a problem with it: https://www.tripplite.com/keyspan-high-speed-usb-to-serial-adapter~usa19hs
  
  Same with Prolific chip based USB to Serial adapters. They run fine on all Macs OS versions in my experience.
  
  To make this clear for noodle1, Vsig 2.x doesn’t require ancient computers/Windows versions. It runs fine on Win7 and Win10. I haven’t tested it on Win11 but I wouldn’t be surprised if it runs fine. The 4000 family only works with MIDI and that’s one of their limitations as it’s waaaay more unstable and much slower.
  
  Be aware that after the 4000 series and with the more recent Vsig versions, MIDI was no longer used by developers/algorithms designers so you can expect even worst behavior or even bugs. Stay away from MIDI.
  
  The real challenge in taking care of VsigX is to add many of the useful functions available in the Windows version as it was left in its almost primitive form for several good reasons now that I think why that happened, mostly poor support from Eventide.
  - August 18, 2022 at 6:18 pm #165069
    
    noodle1
    Participant
    
    Italo De Angelis! Good to know and thank you for illustrating! You’ve used Vsig seriously, and so I can understand/heed your advice! I just thought we could get by without it, but it appears it would be unwise!
  - August 18, 2022 at 7:55 pm #165071
    
    wtholliday
    Participant
    
    Good points! I’ll try to keep the serial support.
- August 18, 2022 at 11:00 pm #165074
  
  wtholliday
  Participant
  
  italoop wrote:
  
  I haven’t tested it on Win11 but I wouldn’t be surprised if it runs fine.
  
  I’m running it on Win 11, and you can’t edit module parameters. Double clicking doesn’t do anything. IIRC it worked fine on Win 10.
  - August 19, 2022 at 6:04 am #165078
    
    italoop
    Participant
    
    wtholliday wrote:
    
    italoop wrote:
    
    I haven’t tested it on Win11 but I wouldn’t be surprised if it runs fine.
    
    I’m running it on Win 11, and you can’t edit module parameters. Double clicking doesn’t do anything. IIRC it worked fine on Win 10.
    
    It probably needs a couple of new .ini files to run…. as it has happened in the past. But nobody is around to work on that.
    
    Looks like vSigX is still a good choice IF developed to a more refined status.
- August 19, 2022 at 6:01 am #165077
  
  italoop
  Participant
  
  noodle1 wrote:
  
  Italo De Angelis! Good to know and thank you for illustrating! You’ve used Vsig seriously, and so I can understand/heed your advice! I just thought we could get by without it, but it appears it would be unwise!
  
  Still using it… A LOT!
  
  ;-))))
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