USB Midi Controllers

[Jamieh]

I need to pick up a new 4-in Midi box. I remember that Tascam used to recommend that you stay away from USB midi boxes, as they introduced lag. Has anyone had any problem wiht this?

I\'m considering getting the Midiman Midisport 4x4, but it is USB. I could get the Midiport 4x4/S which is parallel cable, but it is more $$$. Anyone have any experience with the Midisport 4x4?

[pmuse]

Hello Jamieh,

Be careful when shopping for a MIDI interface. You want to be sure the device has drivers for the OS you are running. For instance, I don\'t think the Midiman parallel/serial interfaces are supported with Win2k/Xp drivers.

At any rate, find out as much as you can about driver support and compatibility from the manufacturer.

Kevin

[Jamieh]

Well, the device is going on a Win98 machine, so that isn\'t a big issue, but I WOULD like to get a device I could use in the future. Are the Midiman USB devices supported on Win XP?

[marcuspocus]

Yes, totaly

[David Govett]

USB MIDI is getting much better and unless you are real sensitive to latency, you will probably not notice any real lag. Early on though, USB interfaces seemed to not be quite up to snuff and really added a lot of latency. If you compare back to back with a non USB interface, I\'m sure you will be able to measure a difference though. Keep in mind the network ethernet MIDI options like midi replicator (www.musiclab.com)
It\'s pretty cool and offers me 8 MIDI connections. It\'s like a cheap 8 port MIDI interface on one machine and and you get two sets of 4 MIDI ports for two machines.
Hope this helps.
Dave

[Jamieh]

Interesting....here is what I need to do--can MIDI replicator do this?

I have two PC\'s, both running Gigastudio. PC 1 is running a sequencer. I want to send 4 midi outs from PC1 to PC2 (to run Giga on that machine). I obviously want 4 more midi channels to stay local to PC1.

The machines ARE networked--will MIDI replicator work for what I need to do? That would be fantastic as it would save me at least $120.

[steve_t]

The machines ARE networked--will MIDI replicator work for what I need to do? That would be fantastic as it would save me at least $120.[/QB]<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">If your computer alreaady are networked you should download the demo and try:
http://www.musiclab.com/products/rpl_info.htm (\"http://www.musiclab.com/products/rpl_info.htm\")

I just bought and installed it on my 2 computers (one running just giga and the other giga/sx)
Seems to work super fine here. Its a cheap solution and it also means less midi cables images/icons/smile.gif

[PeterRoos]

If you try MidiReplicator and if you get latency problems and/or Midi-port errors, like I did, you may want to try to enter IP-numbers, not computer names, in the MidiReplicator settings.

Solved my problems. Works very neatly now. It supports multiple Midi-ports, so you can easily drive all 64 Gst midi channels over the network.

[Jamieh]

Very cool. I\'ll give it a shot!