Using MT32-Pi Hat with BlisSTer Board?

[vraskin]

Hi all,
I'm looking into adding an MT32-PI to my MiSTer setup. From watching setup tutorials online, it looks like the MT32-Pi Hat plugs into the user port on the I/O board, but in my setup that port is already used by the BlisSTer board. Is there a way to have both connected at once?

Thanks!

[grizzly]

Yes and no!
You can use the BlisSTer in regular usb mode, as in not using LLAPI mode and not have the usb3(user port) cable connected to the BlisSTer.
All usb and hdmi ports can be used in usb mode the hdmi ports shows red when LLAPI is used and green when usb mode is used.
Practically turning it into a regular usb board but where the hdmi ports/BlisSTer cables can be used (and no LLAPI cores is needed then).

i would recommend to run the fast_USB_polling_on script if you use usb mode or a regular usb board/hub, and also make it a common thing to do after every update since it often resets then.

But you can not use MT32-PI and BlisSter in LLAPI mode at the same time!
And this is the reason i have not bought a MT32-PI yet.

You can also get MIDI sounds over network using a windows/linux/raspberry pi that seems too work ok too.
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1390
Only trouble is that you need to inject/combine the regular sound from the mister and the sound coming from the win/linux/pi you run MIDI on.
And since i use optical from my mister that is not easy to do, so i have not tried it myself.

[vraskin]

Thanks for the detailed reply! To be honest I've never been clear on how llapi plays into using the BlisSTer board. My understanding is that there was/is a separate branch of llapi cores, but I've always just used the primary cores and have never run into any issues using bliss adapters with OEM controllers. Not sure if that means regular cores have llapi support now or if I'm not actually using llapi when I do this? In which case would I lose anything from connecting the BlisSTer to a regular USB port and using the User Port for the MT32-Pi?

[grizzly]

Then you have never used LLAPI at all.
You can easily verify that if the LED between the HDMI port and the button is green then it is usb mode, if it is red then it is in LLAPI mode but you need to load a core with LLAPI turned on before it turns red.

You can also try too unplug the userport/usb3 cable from the ioboard to the blisster and then turn on the mister and see if it works.
Which it almost certainly will just never switch the LED too red/LLAPI mode.
And then you will off-course have a userport/usb3 cable left over for a MT32-Pi

[vraskin]

Awesome - I played around with it and understand how it works now. Thanks again for the explanation! I wouldn't be using the llapi capabilities of the BlisSter for any cores that work with the MT32-Pi anyway, and the way my setup is laid out it would be simple to re-plug whichever one of them I'm using when I go to turn MiSTer on, so I think I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on getting one. That said, the obsessive-compulsive part of me wonders if there's a way to use some kind of splitter on the User Port to have everything plugged in at once. Would a regular USB splitter work for this?

[grizzly]

A usb hub will absolutely NOT work, a manual switch with no electronics should work.
Discussed in this tread viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3598&hilit=switch

[Milspex]

considering the mt32pi requires a specific cable/length and not all cables work, I doubt a splitter is gonna help it.

[vraskin]

Okay for anyone with the same question I can confirm that while using a manual USB 3.0 splitter works with the BlisSTer board LLAPI capabilities (and presumably other add-ons that can be used with the MiSTer port), it sadly does not work with the MT32-Pi due to the cable length issue Milspex mentioned above. That said the MT32-Pi is still awesome and it only takes a second to switch what is plugged in so it's not a big deal.

[Faithful]

Hi, same problem here. I read that MT-32pi (and mister) support a network operation mode. I tried it (not too hard) without success. If this could work, I could dedicate the user port to low latency controllers and connect the mister and mt32pi to a small switch for midi music. Anyone tried it?

[grizzly]

Yes i have now tried MT32 over the network.
Fairly easy to get running and worked perfectly the first try i did on both AO486 and Amiga, i just followed the guide in the tread i linked.

The only problem i have is that i use Toslink/optical as sound out on my mister into my headphone amp.
So i have no way of mixing the regular sound and the MIDI together.
I do need to buy something with optical in and then mix in windows but many such sound cards seems to have fairly high delay especially cheap usb ones on optical inputs.

And even more have no win 10 drivers most work anyway BUT that is mostly if you only use the regular outputs and sometimes regular inputs but as soon as something like optical/spdif is used they do not work.

The one i have found for pc/win10 is this https://hifimediy.com/product/hifime-ur ... converter/
Or use a Raspberry pi and a pi sound card like this one https://thepihut.com/collections/raspbe ... gi-plus-io
But going the pi way cost way more and my pc is on every time i do play with the mister anyway so!

On top of that i do not use any of the MT32 enabled cores that much which is why i have not bought any mt32-pi or usb sound card yet.

[Faithful]

Good news, it can work! I need to try again.
The optical route is very hard. There’s no cheap mixer for toslink/spidif. I also had an optical only hat for mt32-pi. I wonder if could be a good idea connect the mister to the front speakers and the mt32-pi to the rear ones but only via analog. The perfect solution will be an mt32-pi with digital (optical or not) mixing capabilities built-in so you can use an hat like you found out and connect a mister on one side and the sound system on the other.

[grizzly]

I wonder if could be a good idea connect the mister to the front speakers and the mt32-pi to the rear ones but only via analog.

For some games/setups it would probably work pretty good.
But when you only have two speakers clamped to your head it´s probably not a good solution