~ USB MIDI interface for the NeXTCube - ISPW board

I have recently restored a NeXTCube with an ISPW Ariel soundcard with the aim to put it in the hands of artists and researchers in the context of a living electronic music instrument heritage project. To make the cube talk to keyboards, synths or other audio workstations I have built a MIDI interface for the NeXTcube.

Recently, I was able to restore a NeXTCube and install an early version of MAX – a graphical music programming environment. However, a crucial part of the system was missing: there was no way to do MIDI input/output. MIDI is used to connect controllers, keyboards, synthesizers or other musical instruments to the audio workstation. The NeXTCube itself has a serial port which allows users to connect MIDI devices. Next to the serial port on the mainboard, the NeXTCube I am working with also has a RS-422 serial port on the ISPW ‘soundcard’. The serial port uses RS-422 and mini DIN 8 connectors which provide MIDI input and output. While the MIDI data bytes are transmitted according to spec, the connector and the electrical signals are not compatible with standard MIDI.

For MIDI I/O we need a device which allows to connect the RS-422 MIDI to both legacy MIDI devices and to computers via USB MIDI. If a MIDI event arrives from the NeXTCube’s RS-422 it needs to be passed through to the USB and legacy MIDI ports and the other way around. The Teensy platform is ideal: it supports hardware serial and USB MIDI. In this retro-computing project, it seems wasteful to use the 600MHz Teensy 4.0 only for message passing: the Teensy has much more computing power than NeXTcube but it is cheap, easy to program, available and practical.

The RS-422 serial port uses -6V to 6V logic which needs to be transformed to the 0V to 3.3V logic for the Teensy microcontroller. A PCB provides this capability and is connected to a hardware serial port of the Teensy. The pinout of the RS-422 port was measured via a scope and matched the documentation. The Teensy has an usbMIDI mode and can present itself as a standard MIDI device to a PC. Two opto-isolated legacy MIDI DIN-5 ports were connected to another hardware serial port. The software on the Teensy conducts the three-way MIDI message passing.

The electronics were fixed into a reused metal enclosure. The front panel of the enclosure was replaced by a custom 3D printed panel. The front contains the RS-422 port, two MIDI DIN 5 ports and a micro usb port either for power alone or MIDI messages and power. Feel free to check out the OpenSCAD design with a level MINI DIN8 hole.

With a working MIDI interface for the NeXTcube allows interfacing with MIDI keyboards and controllers. It can also be used to measure roundtrip latency. MIDI to sound latency determines how long it takes between pressing a MIDI key and hearing sound. MIDI to MIDI roundtrip latency determines how long it takes to process, parse and return a MIDI message. For a responsive, reliable system both types of latencies should be constant and preferably in the range of 10ms or below.

Measuring the MIDI roundtrip latency shows that the system is able to respond in 3.6+-0.4 ms (N=300). A combination of a MAX patch and Teensy firmware was used to measure this automatically. The MIDI-to-audio latency was measured a few times manually and always was around 13ms. These figures show that the system is ideal for low-latency real-time music making in its default configuration. In MAX the audio buffer sizes could be reduced to achieve an even lower latency but with the risk of running into buffer underruns and audio glitches.

Small discussion the USB MIDI interface for the NeXTCube on Hackaday

Code, Harde waren, Muziek, and UGent

ariel_soundcard_IRCAM_ISPW.jpg, midi_box.scad, midi_roundtrip_latency.svg, midi_passthrough.ino, next_midi_roundtrip_latency.ino, midi_roundtrip_test.pat, nextcube_midi_proport.webp, midi_box_example_web.webp, and midi_box_example_web.mp4