FIZMO

[djboomstick]

took care of the voltage regulator today . i only needed to add the capacitors . it already had the proper regulator .
feels good to have gotten it done .

by way of testing it out i recorded a bit . i locked an arp & coaxed it into doing a fade away and back again like a golbal filter LFO or something . im not real sure what i did to make it do what it did . thats one of the things i've always liked about the FIZMO . it's complex enough to get lost in

IIRC the 1.1os was required to work with the SoundDiver . i still havn't looked deeper into it , or Fauxmo

now that the regulator fix is in i can get into figuring all that out

[djboomstick]

well , i did it , i updated the FIZMO operating system from 1.0 to 1.1

At the time i'm writing this the good folks at Fauxmo do not know of any reason to have one OS over the other .

now that i've done it , I can't recommend doing it , but i was able to do it .

and it was maybe the scariest thing i ever did . including hanging off a cliff edge on a rope . that was easy because it was the only way forward . this was scary because it felt like i was hanging my self with that same rope.

the sheer terror i felt when i saw " Err " on the display was elevated to unwholesome proportions when i saw" E OS " again after a power cycle .


i think my hair turned whiter


the good news is . i know how to make it work now . . . . and its not by exactly following the instructions in the manual !!

for any one that is interested ;

a MIDI file holds the OS sysex files in several chunks . a series of sysex files in a single midi file.

the entire midi file is loaded into the DAW and the track is zoomed in so it can be easily seen exactly where the sysex chunks begin and end in the MIDI file .

play only the first chunk then stop the playback

the FIZMO , when it has received the sysex instructions will display " ErAS " for erase

the first chunk tells the FIZMO to wipe out its memory and get ready for a new OS . i wish i could do this to myself right now after this day , my stomach hurts . there are some things mankind was not meant to know .

when the FIZMO has dealt with its instructions and is ready for the next chunk of sysex instructions it will display " rdY " for ready.

with the fizmo in ready i moved the locator to the start of the next chunk and hit play , once the locator was after the chunk i hit stop .

the FIZMO displays " Ld " for loading and displays a loading circle animation , for a minute or so . i didn't time it . i was transported beyond time in to cyclopian realms that chilled my blood , indeed my very soul.

if all goes well the FIZMO display will change to " burn " for a short time while the information it received is set into its flash ROM . after the very short burn process it will again display " rdY " to let you know it is ready for the next sysex chunk.

if all goes well . just repeat the process . one chunk at a time . move the locator to the start of the next chunk and hit play , once the locator is after the chunk , hit stop and wait for the loading , and the burn , and the ready.

if all goes well .. .. it'll be done in no time .

the final sysex chunk reboots the FIZMO back to preset 01 there is no load or burn process after the last chunk .

i had my fizmo ( or the despicable intelligence inhabiting my fizmo ) give me the " Err " display after loading . no burn , no ready . just from " Ld " to " Err " .

so i went and dug up some local graves , lit some candles , and held fast to the silver key . . .

then , i played the one chunk with the error over again .

in some cases , several times , i had to replay a chunk till it would pass with out error to burn and onto ready before going on to the next chunk.

my eyes will be a shade darker for the rest of my days . the slightly moving colors on the periphery of my vision , never where i look directly , will always be haunting me .

[Mr Arkadin]

Glad it worked out. Have to say that I don't remember doing any of that, so maybe mine isn't even updated after all. I'll have to check. Cant remember how you check OS though.

[djboomstick]

Cant remember how you check OS though.

To display the OS version number ;
With the power already on press And hold midi edit then press dump .

[djboomstick]

I wish i could forget ever doing it . But now it can stand as a waymarker for other wanderers in the os update nightmare

[Mr Arkadin]

Mine says 01:10 on the ever-helpful display, so I did do it. Maybe I blanked the whole experience!

[Mr Arkadin]

Just as an update, it turns out the Facebook Fizmo group I'm on has an ex-Ensoniq guy who has OS v1.11 and v1.12. They were never officially released so I doubt you'd want to try the update, but it's nice to have a copy of the binaries and a text document on these updates. I haven't had the balls to try the update I must confess!

[dnigrin]

@djboomstick - how were you playing back the OS file into your Fizmo? Wondering if you simply needed to slow the transmission rate down, without the need to break it into chunks... Generally utilities like Electron's C6 (mac/win) or Sysex Librarian (mac) do the job well...

And BTW thanks Mr Arkadin for kind words re: Fauxmo above...

[djboomstick]

I loaded the file into a Cubase pro 10.5 midi track .

With a single midi cable connected out of my presonus firestudio interface into the fiz . nothing else connected to the interface

I started at 100bpm that is recommended in the owners manual.
Every time it failed i lowered the tempo 20bpm .

I also tried several different midi cords .

I tried several different MIDI filter settings in cubase , as well as copies of the OS file from different sources .

i pretty much tried every bit of advise i could find in the owners manual or on the internet .
i did not try calling the customer service number in the manual.

I described that troubleshooting as digging up graves and lighting candles.

I figured details about what didn’t work weren’t so important but since you asked ...

Once i decided to zoom in and get a better look at the midi file on the track i saw how the sysex chunks were spaced out within the file i could see why tempo mattered .
slower speed gives fizmo more time to process before the next sysex instructions arrive .

60bpm was unnecessarily slow

i didn’t have trouble with any one section of the sysex . Some chunks would pass perfectly on 1 play through but then fail on the next play through.

Similarly some that failed one time will also pass without issue when I re-tried just a playback from beginning to end following the instructions in the owners manual.

after it gives the error message it will go back to being ready , and look like it’s continuing to process the sysex that it receives after the error.
But, the final instructions to reboot itself won’t do anything if there was an error somewhere before.

It just sat there being ready long after the file was played to the end

seeing it go back to ready after an error was how i got the idea to play the failed chunk over again .

Once I did that it worked the first time i got to the final reboot message

and , just in case any one is taking me overly literally , no literal graves were actually dug up in the troubleshooting process . i can not say the same for the candles or what voodoo may have been involved on their part .

[djboomstick]

Just as an update, it turns out the Facebook Fizmo group I'm on has an ex-Ensoniq guy who has OS v1.11 and v1.12. They were never officially released so I doubt you'd want to try the update, but it's nice to have a copy of the binaries and a text document on these updates. I haven't had the balls to try the update I must confess!

i would be interested in seeing the texts on those if there is a run down on what was changed .
if there is anything interesting or vital in the updates i could be tempted to give it a try .

but if it breaks compatibility with fauxmo some how you would not be happy

i have not gotten fauxmo still . it is in my future , but the weather finally broke here and i have been happy to be busy outdoors for a change .

[dnigrin]

Thanks for outlining all the steps you took in detail, I'm sure they will be helpful for others! And glad that at the end you got it sorted.

Re: what's in the OS updates - if you visit the Facebook group, the text files with what changed in each version is included in the .zip files. Nothing *major*, some specific things for the rack version, and a few others. I'm not 100% sure it will not break something with Fauxmo. I don't believe anyone has tried yet.

[Mr Arkadin]

I get palpitations just reading that update story, not risking the further update. I''m waiting to see if any intrepid soul does it first.