FM3-Edit + Wine

[Ingo]

Fm3 uses raw serial communication, doesn't wine support this?

It does, that's why it's been working fine for (at least) the AxeFx III, AxeFx II (although they also have windows drivers). USB audio on these devices is class-compliant and just works, without any need for drivers. The FM3 seems to be different in that regard, or at least FM3-Edit and FractalBot treat it differently --- running them under wine the device is simply not recognized at all.

 

[Ingo]

Did you try connecting through Wine yourself? I'm still a bit unsure of what works and what doesn't. Managing firmware, banks and presets shouldn't be an issue from linux/wine (I hope?) but connectivity over the USB driver seems more problematic. If the audio part of the driver really is class compliant it could merely be a case of adding the HW details (id's and stuff to a generic linux driver). If control through fm3-edit also requires that specific USB driver then we do need a native linux version (or detailed specs, maybe sources for the windows counterpart). Still, there's a user (@AlGrenadine) who has managed to make 3rd party control software for fm3 and I suspect that is through MIDI but could be wrong.

I did try, using wine and both FM3-Edit as well as FractalBot --- the device is not recognized (so no editing, firmware updates etc this way). I did not try USB-Audio under Linux --- I see the device but have currently no interest/time to test it.

I am not clear about the firmware update over midi-in; is that supposed to still work? I have been using the USB way for years now, and AFAIK this is NOT a midi-over-usb device.

 

[AlGrenadine]

I did try, using wine and both FM3-Edit as well as FractalBot --- the device is not recognized (so no editing, firmware updates etc this way). I did not try USB-Audio under Linux --- I see the device but have currently no interest/time to test it.

I am not clear about the firmware update over midi-in; is that supposed to still work? I have been using the USB way for years now, and AFAIK this is NOT a midi-over-usb device.

FM3 is only class compliant for the audio part.
The USB communication for MIDI is not MIDI class compliant it's just raw serial, while on the AxeFx III it was MIDI class compliant and on the AxeFx II a linux driver existged to see it as MIDI class compliant too

 

[Ingo]

The USB communication for MIDI is not MIDI class compliant it's just raw serial, while on the AxeFx III it was MIDI class compliant and on the AxeFx II a linux driver existged to see it as MIDI class compliant too

And the Mac FM3Edit (no drivers necessary) probably includes the whole stack in the application itself?! I guess so..

From official guides it seems firmware updates are only supported via FractalBot nowadays, but one can select the port.. I might try this with a separate USB-Midi device later.

 

[AlGrenadine]

And the Mac FM3Edit (no drivers necessary) probably includes the whole stack in the application itself?! I guess so..

From official guides it seems firmware updates are only supported via FractalBot nowadays, but one can select the port.. I might try this with a separate USB-Midi device later.

No, i guess it just accesses it as a raw serial comm port

 

[Ingo]

Ni, i guess it just accesses it as a raw serial comm port

I think we're assuming the same thing, I worded it wrong: FM3-Edit on Windows apparently outsources (parts of) the communication protocol to the serial driver, while on the Mac, it does all of the raw serial communication itself.

I guess there must be good reasons to handle Windows differently.. I've seen the same thing for certain microcontrolled sensors (at work): they use Windows drivers for.. whatever, while the device is perfectly controllable using raw serial communication on Linux.

 

[MistyViolet]

Then try with a 3rd party midi interface

This is how I currently do it with my Axe Standard, that is Axe-Edit runs in Wine and connects through a USB midi interface (M-audio Axiom keyboard). Is it possible to hook up to an FM3 the same way (although with a more sluggish FM3-Edit experience)?

Ni, i guess it just accesses it as a raw serial comm port

I think I'm beginning to see the picture now. Is this maybe the way you do it with the Windows version of FracPad? If FracPad does not rely on the same driver FM3-edit does it might just be a better candidate for running in Wine.

Have you ever considered porting FracPad to Linux? Depending on what libraries you use and some inherent design choices it might not be all that involved. I fully respect it is your own proprietary software but would gladly help out being no stranger to C/C++/Java or developing desktop apps in general.

 

[AlGrenadine]

This is how I currently do it with my Axe Standard, that is Axe-Edit runs in Wine and connects through a USB midi interface (M-audio Axiom keyboard). Is it possible to hook up to an FM3 the same way (although with a more sluggish FM3-Edit experience)?


I think I'm beginning to see the picture now. Is this maybe the way you do it with the Windows version of FracPad? If FracPad does not rely on the same driver FM3-edit does it might just be a better candidate for running in Wine.

Have you ever considered porting FracPad to Linux? Depending on what libraries you use and some inherent design choices it might not be all that involved. I fully respect it is your own proprietary software but would gladly help out being no stranger to C/C++/Java or developing desktop apps in general.

Yes it should work on FM3 too.
FracPad relies on the same driver FM3Edit uses, which is the Windows and MAc default serial comm driver.
I won't port FracPad to linux because i don't have a linux machine and it's already a nightmare to build it on Win/Mac/Android and iOS...

 

[Ingo]

I might try this with a separate USB-Midi device later.

I tried both FM3-Edit and FractalBot with an external MIDI interface. It works, but FM3-Edit is very laggy, and the firmware update was excruciatingly slow, about 40mins (did not try to tweak communication settings).

 

[AlGrenadine]

I tried both FM3-Edit and FractalBot with an external MIDI interface. It works, but FM3-Edit is very laggy, and the firmware update was excruciatingly slow, about 40mins (did not try to tweak communication settings).

Expected, midi is slower than usb
Try fracpad for windows it might be more snappy in some cases

 

[MistyViolet]

I tried both FM3-Edit and FractalBot with an external MIDI interface. It works, but FM3-Edit is very laggy, and the firmware update was excruciatingly slow, about 40mins (did not try to tweak communication settings).

Thanks very much for going through all the trouble. At least we now know communication through Linux, Wine + midi is possible albeit slow. I think it is definitely time for native Linux utilities though, not sure what to do when g66 calls. Happy new year everybody!

 

[Ingo]

Also works fine running Windows 10 as a guest in a KVM VM (still need to install the FM3_USB_Serial_Driver in the guest for FM3-Edit to connect).

The reason it doesn't work under Wine is probably that the Windows version of FM3-Edit specifically hooks to the Windows USB serial driver, and therefore cannot use the capabilities exposed naively to the Linux OS.

As the FM3 under Linux is Mac-like in that it doesn't need any added drivers it seems that Fractal could, without much trouble, provide a Linux version of FM3-Edit. But I wont hold my breath.

I have finally tried the KVM route with a Windows 10 guest. Installed audio and usb driver, and manually route the usb host device through to the VM --- but no luck, FM3Edit does not find it. Any pointers for what might be wrong? I suspect the passthrough has not worked; how does the device show up in the Windows' guest's device manager?

 

[darkphader]

I have finally tried the KVM route with a Windows 10 guest. Installed audio and usb driver, and manually route the usb host device through to the VM --- but no luck, FM3Edit does not find it. Any pointers for what might be wrong? I suspect the passthrough has not worked; how does the device show up in the Windows' guest's device manager?

Works fine here. The only gotcha I've found is that, once attached, the VM wont boot unless the FM3 is on or the device is unattached. A friend has that same issue with the AX8.
Also note that I did not install the audio driver in the VM, did not plan on recording in the VM, but I doubt that matters.

 

[Ingo]

Thanks, that's very helpful!

As I suspected, you're using virt-manager, and when I tried that route, it did work immediately as you said. I was coming from using kvm directly, and there seems to be a difference somewhere, most likely just some settings. Maybe I'll figure that out later, but it's good to know there is a working solution.

 

[dantahoua]

Following as I also use Linux (and Mac and Windows... ). Would love to see my FM3 works like a charm in Linux.

 

[Ingo]

It also works fine when using qemu/kvm directly (no libvirt-based solutions like virt-manager). I can run the VM fine as a regular user, only needed to fix permissions for the FractalAudio devices (with a udev rule).