Midifighter... install, update... what?

Hi,

Having pondered over the midifighter a couple of months back, my better half took it upon herself to get me one of these babies for xmas...

opening the package i was pleasantly suprised... not so much with the instructions, packaging or information mind.

although i fully realise that this was sent as a diy package, and had fun building it i did, but when your missus has spent the best part of her wages you don't really want to guess on how to put it together.

seriously an a4 page of information would have been enough... dammit, even an a6 page saying go to www.midi etc would have helped.

ahh, but then when ive got it together and plug it in, magically, i have the only pc in the world without the at90usb162 driver installed...

so i scour the forums and i find the autoupdater.. magic, this will solve it.

nope, no such luck. plugging the usb cable in yields random lights on and off, holding down the 4 corner buttons and plugging the cable in yields no results...

so more scouring, this time searching for the drivers directly, and i get the flip atmel program, where the drivers are held.

so i install the flip, and follow the instructions, linked from another link,
http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11511

to be pretentiously told;

Once installed, Flip is simple to use.

1. Select the chip that is to be programmed. Use the "chip" icon,the menu
item "Device/Select..." or press Ctrl-S. Select the option:
AT90USB162 << this is easy

This will tell the program what start address and size to use for
program uploads. << this is irrelevant background information

2. With the Midifighter connected and in Bootloader Mode, connect to the device by pressing the "usb cable" icon and selecting "USB", or by
pressing Ctrl-U. Then select "Open" to connect to the Midifighter.

there is no indication to show that you are in bootloader mode, the regular users are totally lost, the experienced users are wondering whether they are gonna brick their new toy...

after working out, this, and finding a hex file from the soundforge page, the midifighter now responds to the four corners held down, which brings me to an assumption that there was no hex loaded originally, hence the random lights.

the new updater doesnt seem to work (blanking the hex, and then erroring) and the leds are slow to react on the button presses, but thats something new ill be attacking.

just a chunk of information, that should be stacked into one easy to read format for complete newbies that don't know what hex, hex loading, bootloading, flashing...

i don't mean to degrade the djs out there, but most cant even remember a spare battery for their laptop, never mind bootloading (if your offended by that, you'll have a spare, if your not, you probably stopped reading at the top of the page)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kelvinmaed

i don't mean to degrade the djs out there, but most cant even remember a spare battery for their laptop, never mind bootloading (if your offended by that, you'll have a spare, if your not, you probably stopped reading at the top of the page)

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I read the whole page and I'm not offended. I laughed, not at your troubles though since I think you got it figured out. Did you?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by photojojo

I read the whole page and I'm not offended. I laughed, not at your troubles though since I think you got it figured out. Did you?

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yeah, i was more issued at the complicated / initial lack of support.

it seems very traktor based (where i use ableton)

im not sure (licensing maybe) why the install files aren't included
im not sure why the coders haven't seperated the usbaudio.sys file, and basically renamed the code so that its easy to find?

i get that its a few people that own / run the company, and its basically one mans genius idea, but its the things like this that can make or break for the genpop.

the lag is now gone, as soon as i plugged into ableton (before selecting the drivers i might add!)

i didnt want to complain as such, just to vent for the increased functionality for future users.

geeks control the world, but users use it. :D

It sounds like you were shipped a board without firmware installed. That is a mistake on our part and I apologise. The concept, when it works, is that you unpack it, assemble it (following the Video instructions we have online), plug it in and it "just works".

I'm sorry you had to jump through hoops, glad to hear it's working now.

As for being Traktor based, the default settings on the Midifighter are designed to map directly onto the default slots on an Ableton Drum Rack. Definitely designed with Ableton in mind.