Synthesia for Android Beta

Archived development update discussion from past versions
Archived development updates.
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

I see, I'll try to get one of those later, I think landscape is the only way it makes sense, but I'd like to rotate it 180 so that the table can sit in the stand with the connection on top.
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

I got this cable
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008THNXMI/ref ... 00_TE_item
and when I connect it to my tablet the piano shows up on the list of devices on Synthesia, but it doesn't play any sounds or accept any input, any idea what step am I missing?
thank you!
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, it sounds like it's connected correctly at least. (I'm assuming you're still using the DGX-630.) So long as you have the cable plugged into the "To Host" port on the back of the keyboard, you should be all set.

Beyond that, you just need to enable it for input and output in Settings. Which options did you turn on there? "My Notes" and "Background Instruments" should be enough on the output side. Does the Test button on that screen do anything?

The Yamaha manual mentions that the USB driver (which tablets don't really support) is mandatory... but it's showing up in device list, so I wonder just how mandatory it is. Hmm.
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

That is correct, still using the DGX-630, it gives me the warning when I enter the program, after accepting, when I go to the settings I can see it there, but when I try the test button nothing happens, also when I try to configure the note range it doesn;t recognize any key presses.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

This is interesting because that problem (on Windows) usually means the system reported an error when Synthesia asked for access to the device. But on Android, the entire driver lives inside our code. (Synthesia pulls data directly off the USB cable and interprets things itself, so there isn't any system in the way to tell it "No".)

Do you have any other apps open that are already talking to the USB port? If you restart your tablet and run Synthesia as the very first app, does that solve the problem?
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

Same result after rebooting, is there any logs or anything I can send you that might help?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, you could check "\Internal storage\Android\data\com.synthesia.synthesia\files\synthesia\log.txt" to see if there are any error messages listed there. The main Android system log is a little trickier to inspect (there are free apps that can help), but that might show something, too.

I wonder if we shouldn't add something like a "Send Diagnostics" type of button someplace to help track these kinds of problems down. MIDI device support on Android is very unofficial, so my guess is this sort of problem will be more regular than the other platforms that Synthesia supports.
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

I see no errors, also it looks like it only save data from the last session?
Attachments
log.txt
Log after rebooting tablet
(6.23 KiB) Downloaded 219 times
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Yeah, the log is rewritten each time Synthesia starts. That's normal.

Otherwise, I'm going to see about trying to add a little more instrumentation in the next Android beta (soon) that might help us track this down a little better.
anb
Posts: 7

Post by anb »

it there a way to import a song and it's settings (like fingering etc) from a windows version to android version?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Yep, you can replicate finger hints on Android by doing the following:
  1. Open the Synthesia Configuration utility on Windows.
  2. Click "Advanced".
  3. Click "Open Data Directory".
  4. Copy the fingers.xml file to your tablet at "\Internal storage\Android\data\com.synthesia.synthesia\files\synthesia\"
Then, you can copy the song wherever you like. The usual "Music" folder on your device works nicely.

It should show up in Synthesia the next time you open it on your tablet and the finger hints should be intact.
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oxyum
Posts: 1

Post by oxyum »

If somebody interested, I check that beta on Nexus 7 2012 WiFi with connected via USB-OTG digital piano Kurzweil MPS-20. MIDI IN and MIDI OUT works good.

PS: That piano doesn't support General MIDI, so Synthesia (any versions) sets incorrect instrument. But for grand piano it works fine.
elijahcruz
Posts: 8

Post by elijahcruz »

My Ellipses 7 still doesnt work!
kamborambo
Posts: 32

Post by kamborambo »

Works fine with my Yamaha. Though I find my testing to be quite limited. Unable to try more complex pieces or custom midis until unlocker is done.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Synthesia for Android - Beta 4
  • All the new custom hand assignment goodies.
  • Better UI scaling on small screens.
  • More work to improve internal synth's audio latency.
  • Android back button now works the way you'd expect.
  • Made store listing even less restrictive to remove more "Device incompatible" messages.
  • Added support for 180 degree landscape rotation.
  • Synthesia is now much better about logging to places users can actually see.
Basically the only thing we still need to add is the in-app unlock and Synthesia for Android will be ready to go out the door.

elijahcruz wrote:My Ellipses 7 still doesnt work!
Sorry for the wait! It should work now. :)
advalencia wrote:I see no errors...
Try again with this version and let me know if there is anything new. We weren't logging the Android MIDI stuff correctly before. Hopefully there will be a useful message this time!
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

here's the new test, not very different, I opened the application, accepted the connection message, then went to settings and tried the output test with no response, then tried the key configuration, but no matter what key I pressed synthesia didn't accepted any input.
On the good news side rotation and back button works great.
Attachments
log[1].txt
test after update
(4.7 KiB) Downloaded 197 times
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, thanks again for taking the time to grab the file and post it. You're right though, I still don't see anything out of the ordinary... which means the USB driver doesn't think it's having any problems.

Since you first reported having trouble with your '630, there has been a lengthy discussion about connecting a '650 to the iPad. The final result was that after contacting Yamaha support, they confirmed the keyboard could only go through the special Yamaha i-UX1 adapter (presumably because it used non-standard MIDI communication). I wonder if the same isn't true for the DGX-630. The only problem is that Yamaha doesn't make an equivalent adapter for Android devices.

This is certainly bad enough news to remove the 6x0 series from our keyboard recommendations list. I'm sure Yamaha has some reason for making their protocol incompatible (probably in the name of offering even richer data) but that's still no excuse for not providing a workaround.

It might actually be worth the effort to grab a keyboard in that series and peek at the messages coming off the wire. On Android we actually have to bring our own USB-MIDI driver, which means we have full control over how the bytes on the wire are interpreted. If Yamaha's new scheme is close enough to the normal stuff, it might be feasible to detect advanced Yamaha keyboards separately and read from them correctly. That could be a deep rabbit hole though, plumbing the depths of an undocumented, non-standard data stream.
advalencia
Posts: 37

Post by advalencia »

That is sad news, let me know if there's any program I can run to try to log the midi messages the keyboard is sending (if you want to go through the trouble) I was hoping to make the tablet version my main practice app.
thedealman
Posts: 25

Post by thedealman »

Works great on my Nook HD+ (with Android 4.1+ loaded on it).
There is quite a delay on the internal sound source. With the mio MIDI adapter it works in perfect time, but of course my digital piano (CDP-100) doesn't have any drum sounds so the metronome is just loud piano notes. An option to offset the tablet metronome by -XXX milliseconds would help me greatly in this situation.

I'm not too keen on the falling bars. Is there any way to make the STAFF view bigger? It's quite a pain to squint at the little staff at the top of the 9" screen. :(
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

The sound delay is an unfortunate property of Android. There are very, very few tablets (like 7 models) that take advantage of the new "low latency audio" features added in Android 4. On all the rest, you end up with something like 1/4 second minimum.

As for resizing the staff, I'll have to double-check. I want to say you can just pinch to zoom in that area... but it might be (the much less friendly, much more challenging) tap-and-drag the little gray slider bar between the falling notes and sheet music. One of those two will make the sheet larger.
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