recommended midi interface

[Guest paulrevelcet]

Can anyone recommend a good midi interface for under 50 dollars, usb would be nice, thanks.

[pay_c]

;D ;D ;D

The MBUSB is cool! Check UCApps.de!  ;D ::)

If you don´t wanna DIY it, then I would recommend Midiman stuff. E.g. the Midisport 2x2. (Ebaying or directly)

Greetz!

[Tanstaafl]

i agree with pay_c..   I have 2 products from midiman and am very happy with them.  worx with mac / pc / linux no problems.

 the midiman 2X2 usb cost about 50 bux US

 i also have the midimay keystation49 (which has a 1X1 built in) it cost about 100 bus US.

gb

[Sephult]

I also agree with the midiman

They have been building interfaces for a long time.

I have used them in the past, and they seem to be a very decent interface. Also you should be able to pick up one fairly cheap. Check ebay.

[Guest paulrevelcet]

midiman it is, thanks everyone.

[neodjandre]

yeap my quattro sound card from midiman (now m-audio) with a build in 1x1 midi interface works like a charm after 4 years of use :-) highly recommended

[havensole999]

as a former guitar center employee, and dealing with ALOT of midi and audio hardware, and midiman 1 on 1, i have to agree with everyone with the midiman 2x2.  i've had mine for 4 years now and after heavy stage and studio use, it still runs solid. could be it's made like a tank. all my customers never complained about their 4x4's and 8x8's (my next big buy unless midibox comes out with one).steinberg midi stuff..... sucks. motu's drivers are pretty much only written for mac, and their pc support is horrible. as far as soundcards, i use to have a m-audio 10x10 rack module that crapped out on me after only 6 months and the one ther replaced me with died a year after that. alot of my friends have used the omni and had really good results. not so much with their audio useb stuff though. I now use a seasound solo EX and a creamware pulsar2. both have midi, but i still use the midiman.

[Skunk]

Interesting comment regarding MOTU drivers for PC. I'm currently considering to buy a MOTU Timepiece AV (for PC usage), and never heard about this driver problem.

Regarding alternatives: does anybody in the MIDIbox community have experience with Digidesign MIDI I/O and SYNC I/O. In the paperwork it looks pretty interesting. Nevertheless it's not a cheap solution, I know. But professionals seem to use it as a robust equipment for their daily work.

Cheers,

Skunk

[havensole999]

the digisesign stuff is great. i don't care for protools, but their hardware is solid. if you are using xp, the motu should run ok. most of the problems we ran into was with irq issues, so if need be, just play musical chairs with the slots. hope that helps. if you do get the motu and have issues, let me know. i do have alot of motu fantatical friends that might be able to help as well.

[Martin_Haverland]

yes, i recommend m-audio/midiman stuff as well (having an 8x8s in my rack). Very well built and very solid and fast timing. i missed standalone programmability and more patchbay func's like filtering, but merging is really great on this machines. i can use pc and mac and drivers for com and usb are both rock solid. i would recommend using usb, buy an usb repeater, if your pc is too far away from your rack.

btw. the "driver updating strategy" of m-audio is: build a driver, make 3 versions, never touch it again...a little bit disappointing since theres a lot of potential to make their interface software a little bit more userfriendly...

Heard of a friend of mine, beeing disappointed from the 1010 audio interface drivers. he ended up using the hoontech drivers for the dsp 2000 (same chipset) because he never got cascading 1010s working with the m-audio driver...a feature they used to announce widely in the marketing of this excellent hardware unit.

They could do better, but at least all released m-audio drivers can be  considered "stable" in usability terms.

hope this helps others to decide on their own.

a little insider tip: opcode's rocksolid studio hardware can be obtained very cheap nowadays at ebay - lots of bang for the buck, but be shure you don't need support to get it running...if you own a mac, don't think twice and buy, on PC - read and think before buying

[Steven_C]

According to Thorsten's experiments with Windows XP the midisport 2x2's latency is pretty bad.

http://www.midibox.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=mios_toy;action=display;num=1077232194;start=1#1

[havensole999]

i think it all depends on what you're using it for. for me at least, if i am using cpu intensive vst'is or just have a crapload of files playing, i get lag, but that's all due to cpu. i use mine for studio, and extreme live use.  now a midi port on your soundcard is optimal. my creamware card's midi port is alot faster than the 2x2, but that could be due to the dsp chips. the only real midi interface hardware i've ever refused to work with, after initail testing of course, are steinberg devices. their lag was in the inopporable range.

[Martin_Haverland]

most of the time i use my midisport 8x8s usb as a live midi patchbay... can't say anything about it's lag as a midi interface 'cause i never used it with pc seqencers, just for sysex edit.

i'm using electribes as sequencers mostly...and an ole Roland MC-500 MKII...

(hardware rules)

[redhead]

hi everybuddy, actually  i'm working with a Motu micro lite 5x5 midi usb interface.

i'm very happy with this>> fast, reliable, mac/pc compatibility

check it out :)

ciao

[Skunk]

Has anybody experience with the latency on Digidesign MIDI I/O?

Thanks & Cheers,

Skunk

[Synthhead]

I agree with Martin Haverland about the Opcode stuff. I put a stealth port in my G4 mac, and have been using an opcode studio 4 (8x8) for a couple of years with no bother at all. Rock solid, and fast. I paid about £50, but  they're probably cheaper now.

cheers.

Dave