Converting files on the hard drive to work on the CF card

[Jesse]

by labandaoculta » Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:34 pm

All, my Fusion 8HD lost the IDE port that communicates with the hard drive like a month ago. I have lost 12 years of experimenting, recording, tuning sounds, etc, which was disappointing. This post gave me hope to make at least keep using the Fusion, so I managed to do what here is said: I am running the Fusion only with the CF card. I had some other problems, like insert the CF card in the slot is not trivial, you can put it in the wrong position and push, thinking you are doing the right thing, but no, so I damaged the pins in the main CPU board, I had to re position them manually, and re solder the pins to the board. Now, it is working. The 4 GB card is in operation while the backup is in the 2 GB (so 2 GB and 4 GB works). Now, to change the string oVulmen.3 (hard drive) to oVulmen.2 (CF card) I did a script. The script program is below

find . -type f -name '*.af*' -exec bash -c '
for file do
rm -f temp
echo "$file"
sed "s/oVulem\x003/oVulem\x002/g" "$file" > temp
mv temp "$file"
done
' exec-bash {} +

What I did was install the Ubuntu application in my Windows 10 computer, create this script in the /root, and then browse there to the file's location under Program, Multisamples, I think Mixes and Patterns, copy this file in there and execute it. The trick is that the sed command allows to specify ONE character in hex, that is what I did. It works fantastic, in few minutes all Hollow Sun, HD freepacks and all other available packs were converted from HD to CF card. I have like 1.5 GB of sounds in my CF (though probably more than half are discardable for the type of music I write). Hope it helps....

[Jesse]

Thanks for sharing this work around I am sure someone else will find this information helpful in the future

Take Care ... Jesse

[Jesse]

https://fusioneer.proboards.com/post/43 ... 671?page=1

Hi All,

usually programs downloaded from the web (i.e. the famous and excellent Hollow Sun sounds) are using references to samples and multisamples stored on the harddisk, which forces the user to copy the volume, or at least the samples and multisamples folder, to HD. Otherwise the sounds cannot be played (missing sample / multisample message). In the worst case of an HD failure the Fusion won't be useable at all, which would be a nightmare for live performers like me.

I had a look into the program files and found that, for samples and multisamples, they all refer to a certain volume ID (open an *.afp file in a HEX editor and look for the string "oVulem" - the volume ID is the number in the 2nd byte behind this string). Having a closer look I noticed that the volume IDs are used as follows:
0 = ROM
2 = CF Card
3 = HD
I gave it a try and changed this volume ID in a single program from '3' to '2', inserted the CF card back into the Fusion, ran an additional verify (Samples, Multisample, Program), started the EDIT mode for the program and found that the program referred to the samples on the CF card now.

Since I had downloaded all Hollow Sun sounds and didn't want to edit them program by program I had to find a way to let my PC do this for me. Unfortunately I don't have a development environment to write my own applications, so I created an MS-Excel macro which does the job for me. It should work with all MS-Excel versions 97 or later. Please find the workbook attached.


NOTE:
PLEASE MAKE A BACKUP OF THE CONTENT OF YOUR CF CARD FIRST. ALTHOUGH I HAVE TESTED THE MACRO EXTENSIVELY IT MIGHT NOT WORK IN YOUR PC HARD- AND/OR SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT !


What the macro doesn't do:

In the current version it doesn't change MIXES. My first focus was on PROGRAMS only.
It doesn't check whether the sample or multisample is available on the CF card. It's your job to make sure it is.


What the macro does:

When you open the workbook a message box will ask you whether you want to run the macro (Yes), stop the execution (No) - i.e. to check the code prior to running it (there are too many viruses) - or cancel, which will close the workbook.

If you want to view or edit the macro, please feel free to do so. Press Alt+F11 to start the VBA editor after clicking the (No) button as described above and have look into the code. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

Should you decide to run the macro, please make sure that the correct CF card, formatted on the Fusion and containing all your programs and samples / multisamples, is inserted into the card reader of your PC. The macro will show you a list with all removable media attached to your PC and will let you select the appropriate media.

After selecting the appropriate media form the list please click the OK button. The macro will check whether it can find a folder structure created by the Fusion on the CF card. If the correct structure is found it will start collecting all subfolders in the PROGRAMS folder and check all programs in the folders whether their volume ID have to be modified to point to the CF card instead of the HD. In case that volume ID '3' is found in the program file, it will be changed to volume ID '2'.

Furthermore the macro will output a row into the "Report" worksheet for each program checked indicating the folder name, the progarm name, the previous volume and the new volume. You will find one row for every PART used in the program.

During execution of the macro it will display the name of the program folder currently processed in the status line (lower left corner of your MS-Excel screen).


NOTE 1:
The macro updates programs stored in a subfolder of the PROGRAMS folder only. Programs created by yourself must be stored in the USER subfolder.

NOTE 2:
Please DO NOT copy the updated programs from the CF card to the Fusion's harddisk. Remember that all programs are referring to your CF card now and copying the volume back to your harddisk will replace all programs on the HD. You won't be able to play any program referring to a sample / multisample stored on the CF card as long as the CF card is not inserted to the Fusion ! I stronlgy recommend not to use cross media references (programs stored on the CF card should refer to samples / multisamples stored on the CF card - programs stored on the harddisk should refer to samples / multisamples stored on the harddisk) !

Should the macro not work for you, please give me a short note. I plan to update it with other useful functionalities like updating MIXES as well, if that makes sense and I can find out how that works.

Please find the MS-Excel 97 workbook here:
[a href="http://www.marionniemietz.de/download/S ... 20XL97.xls"]http://www.marionniemietz.de/download/S ... 20XL97.xls[/a]

SPECIAL THANKS to HOLLOW SUN who allowed me to share this knowledge with you and confirmed that I may update my private copy of their programs as described above.


BYE BYE from Hong Kong
MiBrue

Alesis Fusion affectionately known as "The Beast"

[parametric]

Very nice workaround from MiBrue there, Jesse

Always nice to discover another "undocumented" feature of the Fusion.

How kind of dear Steve to let it out into the wild . . . .

Chris

P.S. I changed the Deep Blue Highlight to Magenta - which reads better if you're using <Dark Mode>

[Jesse]

Magenta not good in light mode, to bright
Maybe a color in between the blue and magenta so it is palatable in both viewing modes

Also the changes for programs to run on the CF card instead of the hard drive can be made to the files on the CF card using a HEX Editor
Do not edit the files on the hard drive to run on the CF Card or they won't work on the hard drive

[Jokeyman123]

Maybe off topic-this post reminds me I need to think about new color drapes in the living room since the cat used our current ones as a jungle gym and climbing tower but i digress...,and that's another user group.

But seriositically speaking (ha-ha spell check didn't get that one!!) just discovered something possibly pertinent to CF cards, and the somewhat old debate about CF cards vs. SSD or other hard drives, access times etc.

As an experiment, and I posted this elsewhere here-I created a 34MB (not overly large) wavfile of an arrangement from my old RM1X Yamaha "dance box" or whatever these are called. It is a 3+ minute multitrack arrangement which I can record using the Fusion's audio recorder tracks, or my other digital or tape machines.

I decided to see if the Fusion could "process" this wavfile as a complete arrangement through the Fusion converter-convert it into a "program" tied to a multisample. And it did, amazing that I can play an entire arrangement like this-with one key-and in a mix-or song-add tracks to this already pretty complex piece of music. Very impressive processing going on here. I am repeating what I already posted-and doing so because I discovered something else.

I saved this sample/multisample/program onto my installed CF card in case the Fusion locked up or crashed-it would not corrupt the hard drive. I saved it on the SSD drive after this worked-and here is what I found.

When I called up this program made up of the sample/multisample to play as a program-it took quite awhile to get it off the CF card-it is a fast CF card 32X speed rating-the blue backlight LEDs which show transferring activity-when the program was loading from the CF card-flashed madly for about 15-20 seconds before I could play the program, but it does work. When I did the same loading this from the hard drive and called it up as a program-bang, a few seconds later-there it was able to play almost immediately. I can only deduce that the CF card bus must be even slower than the hard drive bus. I don't know if this is useful info to anyone, but explains to me at least-why keeping the hard drive healthy in the Fusion is important. It will work without a hard drive, but in more limited and slower way if you need to use a CF card as your main storage mechanism. for most smaller programs I guess it would be hardly noticeable but for something larger like this 34MB file, the hard drive definitely accessed it faster.

Klaus, Parametric or Jesse...do you know how large a single sample file the Fusion can load with the expanded memory boards and still work? I haven;t been able to determine in the "real world" so far for a single sample. theoretically one would think close to 192 MB for a single sample to load and be playable-but with OS overhead, I am guessing a bit lower than that. I have determined anything larger than 192 will not load as onne sample, it crashes the Fusion, or just gives me a prompt regarding not enough memory.

[Jesse]

Possibly close to 192 MB maybe even up to 384 MB if it was Mono, but I would think it would also depend on whether it is Mono or Stereo, and whether the Fusion is set up for Maximum Polyphony or not, that's my thought on the Maximum Size Playable Sample (MSPS)

If the Fusion was able to play Programs/Samples/Multisamples directly from the hard drive Sample size would almost be Limitless

To The Moon Alice To The Moon!

[Jokeyman123]

I had another brainfart after reading the (IMO) rather convoluted way this prior poster described getting programs to play/transfer to the CF card. Isn't it drop-dead simple to just make a complete copy of your Fusion hard drive's volume-and paste it into the CF card using the computer USB interface? why go to all that trouble de-assembling a program into hex-and then making it unplayable in the hard drive if you need to transfer it back? Am I missing something? I already did this right from the beginning to make sure I have a complete copy of everything, in my computer and on a CF card. I've managed to save just about every Hollow Sun. Movinpro and many others onto a CF card-these all fit no problem complete with their samples and multisamples. and songs-songs saved on a CF card, unless you have all the same sounds saved on that same CF card-will not find your sounds and the converse is true. songs I save on the hard drive must find the sounds I use on the hard drive, not the CF card. I could be wrong, but i seem to remember having trouble because of that. ROM sounds are not affected by songs like this-but anything else...whooops! I'll double-check this.