The red tape; bring your own scissors...

I take no responsibility for what you do with the information on this page. Don't complain to Muse Research (or me) if you accidently remove everything with a missplaced 'rm -rf'. Make sure you have backups! Any of the information below may contain errors, and it t probably does.. I haven't spent any time to proof read the things I've written, so don't blindly follow the things you read. Make sure to think things through before you actually do anything.

--
oGG


Muse Research Receptor FAQ

I recently bought a Muse Research Receptor. A really cool computer thingy that runs (most, but far from all, VST plugins for windows).

What you get is basically a computer. Or, it is a computer, standard everything (except the soundcard, which is developed by Muse Research). Motherboard, CPU, RAM etc. The one I bought came with a 160gb drive. A 7200 RPM Seagate drive. I asked if you could upgrade your own drive, but got the answer that you'd had to have a Muse guy format it. But. I aim to prove them wrong about this. Sure, they depend on the business of non tecnical customers who can't do this kind of thing themselves. But I can, and I'm gonna write here how to do it. I have successfully cloned the system that came with the receptor to a new 300 Gb Seagate Barracuda. And everything works. You can read the step by step guide on how I did it on this page.

The receptor has 5 USB 2.0 ports, but streaming samples from an external drive at this point isn't possible. But, this is also a pretty easy thing to come around without destroying the strict file hierarchy the Receptor have. One solution would be to use UnionFS, for instance, to seamlessly merge two disks so they appear as one. I use this on my fileserver with great success. So, another goal of mine is to get this working with the Receptor. (Could be a problem thou, as I don't have the kernel headers needed for compiling the unionfs module, they don't have their kernel sources avalibale for download, just a bunch of RedHat RPMS).

Anyway. Enough babbling, to the Q:s and A:s...

Q: How do I clone my current drive to a new bigger one

Update!! I've sort of followed the instructions below when I upgraded from a 300 Gb drive to a 320 Gb drive. As before, grub didn't install correctly. This time I did it I cloned the drives in a separate computer and I did reinstall grub in that computer onto the new drive, but the drive wouldn't boot anyway. So I put both drives in the receptor and booted in single mode from the old drive and followed my own instructions below, and it worked.


Please check that you have the same partition setup as I have before you do anything. I'm not sure (but I'm pretty sure, 99,5%) that all that all Receptors have the same partition layout. But, if you do have the big /c partition last (as number 4), you're good to go!

Note: The steps below are cleaned up a bit, but if you're interested you can read everything I did when I cloned my drive. Read the commands typed etc, in this file. Hang on! I actually read this and it seems like this isn't the whole truth. The things I did in that file resulted in a non bootable new drive, hence the Grub re-installation part below. Anyway. I'll leave it for anyone interested.

A: Follow the steps below: Before you begin you need a spare IDE cable and a Molex Y-cable (to power both drives).

  1. Install the new drive as master on ide channel 2. I'm not sure all Receptors are set to autodetecting drives, but at least mine is . So my new drive did get detected at bootup. If your drive doesn't get detected, don't worry; Linux should detect the new drive even if it's not set up in BIOS. This way, we don't need to reset the BIOS password.
  2. Connect a monitor and keyboard to your receptor (you can skip this step if you're doing the cloning remotely).
  3. Preferebly start up in single mode (read the answer to the question "Q: How to get root access" below on how to do this). Or, you could login remotely via ssh.
  4. Confirm the disk is detected in bios by looking at the ouput of dmesg.
          [root@receptor root]# dmesg | grep hdc
              ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd408-0xd40f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
              hdc: ST3300622A, ATA DISK drive
              hdc: 586072368 sectors (300069 MB) w/16384KiB Cache, CHS=36481/255/63
               hdc: unknown partition table
  5. Partition the new drive. Read the Partition HOWTO if you're unfamiliar with fdisk. To make things easy, we'll copy the current partition table and then delete the last partition and create a new big one in its place.
          [root@receptor root]# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=1
          [root@receptor root]# fdisk /dev/hdc

    Delete the 4:th partition by pressing 'd' and then '4'.
    After that, create a new partition by pressing 'n' and after that 'p' and after that '4'.
    When fdisk asks for first cylinder, just hit ENTER and then ENTER again when it asks for last cylinder.
    Now, after this is done press 'w' to write the partition table to disk and exit.

  6. Clone the old partitons to the new one (except for the /c partition, because this is the one that should be larger when it's all done, if we were to clone this one it would have the same size as the old one and all free space after that partition would end up unusable since we allready have 4 primary partitions):
          [root@receptor root]# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdc1
          [root@receptor root]# dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/hdc2
          [root@receptor root]# mkswap /dev/hdc3
    The dd commands will take some time. Not the first one, because it's a tiny partition (around 100 MB). But the second could take some time. Don't panic, dd doesn't print anything while working, this is normal.

  7. Make a new filesystem on /dev/hdc4
          [root@receptor root]# mkfs.ext3 -m0 /dev/hdc4
  8. mount the old /c partition and copy everything from the old to the new one:
          [root@receptor root]# mkdir /mnt/old /mnt/new
          [root@receptor root]# mount /dev/hda4 /mnt/old
          [root@receptor root]# mount /dev/hdc4 /mnt/new
          [root@receptor root]# cp -rv --preserve=all /mnt/old/* /mnt/new/

    This will also take quite some time depending on how much data you have... Take a walk or something!

  9. Install Grub on the new drive I thought you shouldn't have to do this since you copied the MBR, but, as it turned out, the new drive wouldn't boot. But, if you reinstall grub before shutting down and rebooting, you should be fine.
          [root@receptor boot]# grub
          grub> root (hd1,0)
          Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
    
          grub> setup (hd1)
          Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
          Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
          Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
          Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
          Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd1)"...  16 sectors are embedded.
          succeeded
          Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1)1+16 p (hd1,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
          Done.
    
          grub> quit
  10. Shutdown the system
          [root@receptor root]# shutdown -h now
  11. Remove the old drive and replace it with the new one.
  12. Take your new fat Receptor out for a spin!!
Note! If you do this remotely, you won't get a clean shutdown (from the new drive's point of view anyway). But since the Receptor is designed to sustain operational status if you loose power, this doesn't really matter. It should boot up just fine after the cloning.

Q: How to make a backup clone of my drive?

You need a spare drive with the exact size (or bigger) as the one you have now.

Startup in single mode and simply do a:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc
and have a cup of coffee! This will take quite some time. But when you're done, you have an exact copy of your setup for safekeeping. If your up to it, you could try a different bs= setting. Like bs=1024. If you were to use a bs=1024, dd would read/write 1024 bytes at a time (this could speed up things, but I haven' tried it myself). As I said, I haven't tried this myself, but, it shouldn't be a problem to do this.

Q: What motherboard is in my Receptor?

A:This is kind of hard to answer. I know for a fact that Muse have used serveral different brands of motherboards. In my Receptor, I have a slightly modified version of Asus A7V8MX-SE from around 2003. The difference between the "original" A7V8MX-SE and the one in my Receptor is that Muse (i guess it'them, because the soldering looked hand made) have removed (soldered away) the LPT port and Audio connectors for the integrated soundcard. The COM port is also removed. But not completely. Just soldered loose and it currently runs the LCD of the Receptor (I think, didn't pay that much attention to it). If anyone needs the manual, look here.

Another motherboard that I think they have used is a version of FIC AM37. Both of these boards, the Asus one and the FIC one is kind of hard to get information about. This is just an educated guess thou (by snooping around the filesystem and it's rc scripts).

Q: What is the BIOS password? / How do I reset it?

I'm not sure that the password is the same for every revision of the Receptor. But I at least know the password for my Receptor, and another one. If you want to know, you'll have to ask Muse about it (or beg me ;).

When I get some spare time I'll write down every setting in my BIOS to have in case of a battery faliure or something. I'm sure there's nothing special about the settings, but it can be useful information to have in hand in case of an emergency.

For now, I can quote the section about this from my motherboard (ASUS A7V8X-SE) manual:

If you forget your password, you can clear it by erasing the CMOS Real Time Clock (RTC) RAM. The RAM data containing the password information is popwered by the onboard button cell battery. If you need to erase the CMOS RAM, unplug all the power cables and remove the button cell battery. Reinstall the battery after about 2 seconds, then power up the system. Refer to section "1.11 Switch and Jumpers - Clear RTC RAM" on how to erase CMOS RTC RAM.

Of course, the procedure is different if you don't have an ASUS board. I know FIC boards have a jumper that is named CLR PASWD or similar somwhere on the motherboard. Just short circuit that one and boot up and you should get in.

Q: What harddrive is used in the Receptor?

This varies. I ordered a 160Gb model, and the drive in this is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160Gb (I'll dig up the model number later on). I've had reported from another user that bought a 40Gb model that it had a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 model ST340014A.

From what I've read on the forums, Muse has decided to use Seagate disks. Which I think is a good choice. (Just the fact that Segate disks have a 60 month warrany speaks for itself).

Q: What harddrive should I buy if I want to replace the one I allready got?

Any IDE drive would work. But I'd stick to Seagate drives. They come with a whopping 60 months warranty, which by itself should stand for something. Then they are quiet and fast. Below is a list of drives that I know for sure will work. I've personally used the ST3300622A and I recently bought a ST3320820A. They both work really good.

Manufacturer   Model                           Size
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.9 ST3300622A     300Gb
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320820A    320Gb
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.7 ST340014A      40Gb Default drive in 40 Gb Model
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160812A     160Gb Default drive in 160 Gb Model
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400632A    400Gb Default drive in Receptor Pro Jr Model
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500641A    500Gb (don't buy drive 500Gb ST3500841A as it has a 8Mb cache only)
Seagate        Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640A    750Gb Default drive in Receptor Pro Model

My first thought was to buy a big slow drive instead of a fast one. They do run cooler but, as I learned, the Receptor doesn't handle DFD very well, so I bought a relativly big one with a large cache instead.

Q: What about using a SATA drive in the Receptor?

Well, as of today none of the Receptor versions have a SATA interface. But, there's nothing stopping you from using a SATA to IDE converter card. Addonics has one and you can get one or two (and maybe more) of these real cheap from DealExtreme. I haven't tried it myself, but I don't see anything saying it shouldn't work. This means that you could use a big ass SATA drive in your old Receptor. Pretty cool indeed!

The MS-7142 motherboard used with current models (2008) does have a SATA interface but the O.S. as of version 1.7 doesn't support SATA. Muse have said they are working to enable SATA in version 2.0 of the O.S.

Q: How to get root access

Follow these steps:
  1. Connect VGA monitor and keyboard to your Receptor
  2. Start your Receptor and be prepared to interrupt the Grub bootloader by pressing the 'e' key as it shows up
  3. When in edit mode, add the number '1' after the kernel line, and press enter. The line should read:
    kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317 splash=silent ide0=ata66 1
    when you're done, press ENTER and then...
  4. Press 'b' to boot the selected and modified line
  5. When the system is booted, you are root, now you can change the root password with the 'passwd' utility and reboot. If you want remote access via ssh, read the answer to the question below before you shutdown and put your Receptor back in your rackspace.

Q: How do I enable root access via SSH?

A: As per default RedHat comes with root logins disabled. To change this edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config and remove the comment bracket on line 37: PermitRootLogin yes. Then either restart sshd or reboot your Receptor. After this is done there's no reason to have a monitor or keyboard connected to the Receptor; as you have full access to it via ssh.

Since OS 1.6 on the Receptor sshd is disabled by default. To enable it run:

[root@receptor root]# chkconfig --add sshd
(Thanks Hybernation for suggesting this solution).

Q: How do I get a Receptor Developement Enviroment?

A: You need a couple of rpm's:

gcc-3.2-7.i386.rpm
glibc-kernheaders-2.4-7.20.i386.rpm
glibc-common-2.3.2-4.80.8.i386.rpm
glibc-devel-2.3.2-4.80.8.i386.rpm

I couldn't find a binary version of gcc on Muse's FTP, so that one I grabbed from Sunet. Also, there are no kernel source files at all, including the header files, at Muse's FTP so I grabbed those from Sunet also. The clibc-commin might already be installed on the Receptor. I can't remember if I installed it or if it was installed from the beginning.

After installing these you should have a working gcc.

Q: How do I install my own RPM's to the receptor?

A: Either download it from another computer and save it on the Samba share or do it via the shell. If you do it locally via ssh, you have to enable a default gateway.

First you'd probably want to add a nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf, otherwise name resolution won't work when downloading stuff directly from the Receptor.

    [root@receptor root]# route add default gw 192.168.1.1
    [root@receptor root]# rpm -ivh http://dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/partimage/partimage-static-0.6.2-1-rh80.i386.rpm
    Retrieving http://dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/partimage/partimage-static-0.6.2-1-rh80.i386.rpm
    Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
       1:partimage              ########################################### [100%]
    [root@receptor root]#

How do I uninstall RPMs from the receptor?

A: Sometimes, you find you cannot uninstall a plug-in via the normal uninstall method used with the Remote application. In that case, you can always uninstall the RMP package from the prompt.

First, you need to check what the package name is.

    [root@receptor root]#rpm -qa

Then, you can uninstall a RPM package named by entering:

    [root@receptor root]#rpm e 

Q: I want to upgrade the motherboard, can I?

A: Well, this is kind of a tricky question. But the short answer is yes! But, to be able to use the current avalible kernel, you'd have to first have stick with an AMD based system, and, preferbly one with a VIA chipset. I'd also try to use a motherboard with a similar layout as the one that's currently in the Receptor. But, any mATX should work. Fitting wise at least.

Next up. Networking. They do use a modularized kernel, which is good. At least then you'd be able to use a different network interface.

I've spent a couple of minutes researching for a candidate. I've found that an Asus A8V-VM might be a good choice. It has support for 4Gb memory and an Athlon 64 CPU and a VIA K8M890 chipset. Now wouldn't this be nice to have a nice quiet cool AMD 64 CPU and 4 Gb RAM running your Receptor? My current box is quite loud actually, but then it doesn't run very hot either. Anywho. At the moment, I sure don't need more CPU power. But future wise, it feels good to know that it certanly is doable. As for destroying any warrantys, this is actually not a problem. Since any warranty is out the door after a year or so anyway.

On another fitting point. The LCD of the Receptor is driven by a ttyS interface. So, a serial COM port is needed. Muse have soldered away the sticking ot part of the COM port and put it inside the box so to speak. Either you could do this yourself or just the cable back in the box from the outside. This observation is just an educated guess so far. I didn't exactly got my magnifying glass while cloning the harddrive to investigate this. But most LCD's are driven by a serial interface.

Then there is the graphic card support. This should work with whatever you choose. Just make sure your motherboard of choice has an integrated VGA chip. They do use a generic VESA driver for the X server, so any chip would work just fine. Again, the Asus A8V-VM looks very promising. As it has all of the above things avalible. And it's dirt cheap to =D.

Note, there isn't any kernel module avalible for the Realtek chipset that's on the Asus A8V-VM board. At least not with the kernel my Receptor runs at the moment.

Contributed by Kermit Jagger:

Since the Pro version, Muse have been using a microATX motherboard made by MSI (Micro Star Intl), model number K8MM-V, also known as MS-7142. It is a socket 754 board that will take various AMD processors. However, Muse use the laptop CPU called the Turion. The "Pro" upgrade (from rev. A or B to rev. C) uses the ML-34, but up to the ML-44 is supported.

As oGG said re the original rev. A board, the COM port has been desoldered and resoldered facing the other way round.

On this mobo, the LAN chip is a VIAŽ VT6103L 10/100Mb/s PHY.

The maximum RAM is still 2Gb. Any version of DDR266/333/400 will do. Yes, it's probably better to go with PC3200 if you can, but the two PC2700 modules I recycled from the rev. A work fine, i.e. no crackling when using a sampler as a consequence of the RAM used.

There are SATA ports BUT DO NOT install a SATA drive, Receptor OS 1.6 does not support SATA. Carry on using an IDE drive, preferably the Seagate series as they are the less noisy, and carry a five year warranty. See "using a SATA drive" above.

Q: How do I use my small screen TFT with the Receptor?

A:I have bought a nice little 8" TFT that I'm going to use with my Receptor. The screen I bought (and as almost every small screen TFT) only have a native resolutioin of 800x600 pixels. If you use anything higher that this, the screen performs (good or bad) a downscaling of the image to make it fit. In my case, I actually can use the Receptor at 1024x768 quite well. If you want to use some plugins, which have tiny interfaces, you can run in to problems.

Since the Receptor runs Linux. And X, there's a nifty little feature that's called Virtual screens. I've configured my X server to run at 800x600 (which is my monitors native resolution) but the Virtual screen is 1024z768 (which the Receptors host application runs at). If you do this, you can "pan" the picture but you get no scaling whatsoever of the picture and it should be crystal clear.

Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config and look for the Subsection "Display" and change it so it looks like below (the bold lines are the ones that differ from the original):

    Subsection "Display"
            Depth       16
            Modes       "800x600" "1024x768"
            Virtual     1024 768
    EndSubsection
Save the file and restart the Receptor. What about the remote view you wonder? No worry, you won't have to "pan" when running the Receptor remote. This doesn't effect that at all!

Q: How do I enable regedit?

A:First off you need root access and be able to edit a file under Linux. After you've mastered that, add the following line into the file /etc/sysconfig/receptor.

    export MUSE_PROVIDE_REGEDIT=1
Then restart the Receptor GUI either by running "restart-receptor" at the command prompt, pressing ALT-F4 in the Receptor Remote application or simply tripple-click the power button..

After this you should have a menu item that says "Run Regedit - ADVANCED" option under the Plugin Tools button on the Setup page.

Q: How do I install a plugin that the Receptor REJECTS?

I got this idea when reading about a failed installation attempt of EVE 2 on the Receptor forums. This is just an idea but it may actually work.

As far as I know, and have read, the Receptor keep a list with uniqe VST Id:s. So, whenever you try to install an unsupported plugin that shares the same ID as a supported one, you'll run into problems. The receptor will simply reject the install. You'd see something like this in your system log:

    May 20 15:32:16 receptor rm-host: HostPluginList.cpp::AddDescription[1147]: REJECTED: NONAMEPLUGIN

This is actually pretty easy to circumvent. The solution is to make up an uniqe ID and tell the Receptor to use this ID instead of the original one. Here's how to do that.

Create a NONAMEPLUGIN-custom-info.xml similar to this one. (The reason I linked to this file instead of including it in the HTML is because I'm one of the "lazy" programmers I mention below =D).

The most important parameter is uniqueID. Change this to whatever (I figure the higher number the better but you'll have to try yourself).

The other paramters I have there is vst-plugin-name, this one can be useful to change also if you have a lazy programmer that haven't changed the name of the VST even if it's a new version. If you change this, you won't end up with a duplicate listing in the Plugin list on the Receptor.

vst-plugin-vendor can also be good to change. As far as I know, this is what the Receptor goes by when you create patches. So, if you have NONAMEPLUGIN Vendor there, the patches will end up in /c/Banks and Patches/NONAMEPLUGIN Vendor/NONAMEPLUGIN/. Nice and tidy. (I've seen some plugin vendors that have names like "ooo.i.make.plugins.and.have.a.homepage.com" sort of name in the vendor tag, which in the long run just is irritating.

Anywhoo. After you've created the custom xml file, refresh the plugin cache by holding down the Multi button and tripple-click the power button. Then remove any .NONAMEPLUGIN-sign.xml, .NONAMEPLUGIN-muse-lock.xml and NONAMEPLUGIN-info-cache.xml that were created when you failed to install the first time. After that, just hit the install button and hope it'll work.

Q: How to disable automatic file system checks?

A: After system update 1.5 (correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't remember) the Receptor file system has the check disk field in fstab set to automatically check the filesystem after a number of mounts (boot ups). So, if you've switched drive to a big bad one this might put the Receptor in a "frozen" state when booting up and the mounting count has reached it's limit. It's actually checking the partitions but since it's lack of an IDE LED and a really quiet harddrive it's kind of hard to notice that it's actually working (Muse, fix please ;).

This is easily fixed thou. Just edit the file /etc/fstab and change the sixth field to a 0 for all partitions. This will ensure you're Receptor doesn't "hang" when you're about to gig. Believe me when I say it can take a veeeery long time to fsck a 400 gb partition which is almost full. So, this fix is a must for every gigging musician.

Thanks to AkNoT for reminding me to add this info. And for the following links regarding the subject (not Receptor and/or RedHat specific but worth reading anyway):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=300477
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=498511
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html
http://netadmintools.com/html/8e2fsck.man.html

Oh, and beware that this fix probably will be overwritten with the next system update. So, remember to do this again after the next upgrade.

Muse had released a RMP package that could be downloaded from their website to fix this. The package has now been integrated into O.S. v.1.7.

Q: Have you written this FAQ all by yourself?

A: No, over time the following people have helped me:
Written by Olle Gustafsson in March 2006.
This page has been accessed 0 times by a total of 0 uniqe computers since The document last changed: July 29 2008 16:43:56.