Best MIDI solution for 64 Ch. w/GIGA

[esound]

I\'m new to the world of the PC and GIGA. I\'ve got the Hammerfall HDSP9652 and it works great, but I\'m wondering what the best solution is to add more MIDI inputs. I currently have two on the Hammerfall and would like to use all 4 available inputs to GIGA.

Is USB such as a MIDI sport 4x4 a viable solution or is there something that\'s more robust?

Thanks!

[thesoundsmith]

I\'m not familiar with Overlan, but if your parallel port is available, I\'d consider the MOTU PC Flyer. I\'ve had good results and no noticable latency.

Dasher

[Scott Cairns]

Simon, have you tried linking more than two machines with MOL? I also have MOL but will be adding a third machine in the near future.

I am wondering what the latency is like after you add more machines and have to start going through routers/hubs/switches etc.

I do remember you saying once that MOL is probably better suited orchestral/slower music as opposed to 150bpm dance.

Regards, Scott.

[Simon Ravn]

MIDIOverLAN+ from www.musiclab.com (\"http://www.musiclab.com\") - cheapest MIDI you can get:)

[Simon Ravn]

Scott, I already go through a router. A router adds less than 1ms. of delay. I use MIDIOverLAN on 3 machines and have been running them simultaneously without any problems.

[esound]

Thanks for the tips. I\'m not sure I can utilize the LAN solution as I\'m using a Mac for my sequencing computer and I don\'t see that there is support for that option, although I will look further.

Thanks

[Daedalus]

FYI,

I spoke with the developers of MidiOverLAN and they informed me that they will not be developing this for the Macintosh platform.

[JonFairhurst]

No Mac version? An unfortunate decision.

[vash]

I\'m a little confused. What does a MIDI interface have anything to do with GigaStudio\'s midi channel operations? I have 1 keyboard that I plan to hook with a midisport 1x1. Is this a wrong choice for using with GS? Do I need more than 1x1?

[JonFairhurst]

The 1x1 is fine for interfacing a single keyboard. I use it to go from my Kurzweil PC-88 to my Giga PC.

I also have a second PC for the sequencer. I use MidiOverLan (MOL) for that. One direction takes the keyboard MIDI from the Giga PC to the sequencer PC. The other direction takes the sequencer output to Giga. The MidiOverLan folks have a little MIDI routing utility that lets me send the MIDI from the 1x1 simultaneously to Giga and to the MOL connection to the Sequencer PC. I reconfigure things as needed depending on if I\'m sequencing or just playing live.

A diagram would probably be more clear than the rats maze I just typed...

[Daedalus]

For example:

-If you are using Giga as a piano sampler to play live from your keyboard, one midi port connected to your keyboard is all you\'ll need.

-If you are using a second computer to sequence your music, Giga can utilize up to 4 midi ports. Therefore, if you have a 4x4 midi interface on each computer, you could use all four ports giving you 64 (4x16) midi channels to use!