That !@#$%*! MOTU MIDI (stryd_one)

[Jidis]

I own a MIDI Express XT Parallel... Need I say more.

Hi again,

If you've got a minute, I may want to pick your brain on some firsthand MOTU MIDI info. ;) The Micro actually has "MIDIExpress half rack version" printed on the boards, so I guess they've got some of the same "quirks".

I brought mine back to the studio the other night and actually saw it work in XPsp1. I made sure to give it IRQ7 and had the port on SPP/normal (per another ASUS A7N8X-e MOTU parallel owner's suggestion). I saw it disappear in Nuendo3 once or twice, but then I remembered a mention of keeping their clockworks junk open behind it, to keep the port in use, and it stayed OK.

It looked OK for some MIDI faders & buttons, and it appeared to send MTC directly to Nuendo OK. It did do some funky crap with faders linked to MIDI channels (as opposed to audio), but now I think they had a thru/feedback thing happening from Nuendo. It used to screw with the JLCooper SysEx too, so I'll check that.

Having experience with it, would you actually think I'm safe running that junk? Is there anything nasty you would look for, or have seen your's do, which I may not want to deal with? A guy in the Nuendo forum said that his worked fine, except when he was sending it heavy streams from some control surface or something (scary). I think he may have even said it messed with his audio when he did that, but it could've been a specific device problem. He was still using it otherwise.

Has your's ever: 

*Crashed the machine or messed up your audio (including CPU loading)? 

*Mangled any data passing through it?  or

*Disappeared or gone undetected under the same exact boot sequence and apps you usually run?

(BTW- Do/did you have a specific procedure with it, and were you running clockworks behind it?)   

USB2.x is fast enough that it doesn't have such terrible timing problems as the old interfaces had.

In your opinion, is the timing and dependability of that stuff actually better, or just the speed itself? 

There's always eBay.

That's actually where this one came from. ;)

Doesn't seem to be much of a "shortage" of them on the used market. It just doesn't do us much good if the driver can't be used or trusted. If I thought someone could write a new driver and firmware for the stupid things, I'd draw up a schematic and parts list, and dump it on the net. Looks like it's all socketed, and has some standard Atmels and flash memory, but they've got a couple of their own "S&S" brand processors or something in there too.

I've got a MBHP USB box on the agenda, but you've got to admit, those old MOTU things would be nice as hell if they actually worked!

Much Thanks!

George

PS- FWIW- The USB ones are better supported by them, but from what I've read, they're still not always "bulletproof", and they still have just a pinch of that trademark MOTU "disappearing" ability. It's looking like some of their quality control, and the actual internal  parts have started taking a backseat over the past few years as well (compared to these things).  :'(