Audiophile 192 PCI card wrong midi connections???

[musicmad]

Hi,

i've just purchased (m-audio's audiophile 192 PCI card) for my new PC rig, and i found that the midi cables on the sound card are female connectors. Due to this i can now not connect the sound card to my midi keyboard, because my midi keyboard also has female connections.

I assumed that the sound card would come with male midi connections, also the length of the cables are only 8 inches long. As a result that only gives me 8 inches from my PC to my keyboard.
When i opened the box and saw the cables, i thought it was a joke. Before purchasing the sound card i tried everything to find out the dimensions of the cables but could'nt find them anywhere, so i assumed it would be a standard 1.5m lenght cable, I was wrong.

So i am now left with a sound card that i'm not sure is any good to me, due to the connection and the lenght of the cable.
If anybody out there is already using this product, could you comment on what the best thing for me would be to do ???

Cheers
Musicmad

[DPDAN]

It is one of the dumb things with midi design.
Each piece of equipment will have a female connector regardless of whether it is midi in, out or thru.

Microphones and mixers are designed properly where the mic output is a male connector and the mixer receives the signal with a female connector unlike midi. Your midi cables will always have a male on both ends. To extend the cable length you will need a coupler (female to female)

Dan

[Tom_Davis]

disregard what I say. clearly I misunderstood every word you wrote, lol :D

sometimes you think you're starting to figure this out...then you say something like that...:p

I joined that club a long time ago. :o

[buckshead]

All midi connections are the same, you need a 5 pin DIN socket at each end but make sure its a midi cable not audio. There is a female socket on the keyboard and there would be a female socket on the next piece of kit.
In theory the sound card should have a series of midi female sockets fixed to the rear of your PC. Thats the midi standard design. The m-audio does not have sufficient room for all the sockets, these are placed separately on short cables at the rear.

If you're interested, to prevent ground loops in the circuits which would hum and could be dangerous if mis connected, each midi circuit is electrically isolated, there is no physical connection between your keyboard and your pc. The circuits in your pc that recieve midi are powered by the keyboard with an optical connection between these and the pc.

The receiving circuits in the keyboard are powered by the pc. This means that the signal travels in both direction, there is no in and out.

If you know how to do it you can chain multiple components, like keyboard, through a synth, through a reverb with midi control and on into the pc. theres no limit on midi through apart from latency, therefore each in and out socket must be the same as it must function as both.

If you had male/female sockets you could not do this. Don't know if many still use this option, probably not sample users, but I bet synth players do.

I have a sound card in my pc, an old Yamaha synth, and two external sound generators all connected.

Thats also the point of SYSEX signals, you can get one device to talk to another and the other bits of kit in the line will ignore (its like a pm)

Its a great system, no earth (ground loops), no induced hum, no danger from electrical systems joined together. Thats why you need the additional cables.

[Michael_uk]

Hi,

i've just purchased (m-audio's audiophile 192 PCI card) for my new PC rig, and i found that the midi cables on the sound card are female connectors. Due to this i can now not connect the sound card to my midi keyboard, because my midi keyboard also has female connections.

I assumed that the sound card would come with male midi connections, also the length of the cables are only 8 inches long. As a result that only gives me 8 inches from my PC to my keyboard.
When i opened the box and saw the cables, i thought it was a joke. Before purchasing the sound card i tried everything to find out the dimensions of the cables but could'nt find them anywhere, so i assumed it would be a standard 1.5m lenght cable, I was wrong.

So i am now left with a sound card that i'm not sure is any good to me, due to the connection and the lenght of the cable.
If anybody out there is already using this product, could you comment on what the best thing for me would be to do ???

Cheers
Musicmad
Hello Musicmad,

Sorry to read of your frustrations here. I also have the 192 and everything is connected fine.

If I have understood you correctly then what you describe is normal. As you say, the MIDI connectors on the 192 are female as are the keyboard MIDI sockets. You just need a pair of MIDI cables (one for in the other for out) which have male connectors each end .. voila. These MIDI cables come in different lengths; I think mine are a metre but you can get longer if needed. These MIDI cables also come in different qualities. I would suggest going for the best you can; I have the ones with gold-plated connectors.

Good luck.

[musicmad]

Hi Michael uk, thanks for your answer, will get those cables straight away..

Also! thanks to everyone else for your feedback

Cheers
Musicmad

[Jaybee]

And . . . you will find the card to be very stable and an excellent choice. I've been using one for 2 1/2 years and am most happy with it.

[Michael_uk]

And . . . you will find the card to be very stable and an excellent choice. I've been using one for 2 1/2 years and am most happy with it.
Absolutely .. it's superb.

A word of caution though .. If anyone is about to install the 192 with SP3, then you will have to download the latest update (5.10.00.5069v3) as the previous 192 installer that worked with SP2 (5.10.00.5057v3) doesn't work with SP3.

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support&tab=driver&serie_ID=1&PID=3cd08875f11d39ab23a3a59667b367e8&OS=72#tabs

If you already had the 192 running under SP2 then installed SP3 this is unaffected and the 192 would continue to work. It's just the installer that SP3 broke but this is fixed in the latest update released June 27th 2008.

[Jaybee]

If you already had the 192 running under SP2 then installed SP3 this is unaffected and the 192 would continue to work. It's just the installer that SP3 broke but this is fixed in the latest update released June 27th 2008.

Michael,
Not meaning to hijack the thread but, is SP3 essential if your machine is not and never will be connected to the 'net? If it really is essential I suppose I could try to d/l it, port it over, and install it. Would appreciate an opinion. Thanks.

[Michael_uk]

Michael,
Not meaning to hijack the thread but, is SP3 essential if your machine is not and never will be connected to the 'net? If it really is essential I suppose I could try to d/l it, port it over, and install it. Would appreciate an opinion. Thanks.
Well, SP3 contains all the updates and fixes up to date of release and a few other small things. The official Microlost wording is:


Brief Description

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.
I would suggest you take a look on their site and decide if you would benefit from it. The link is:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68c48dad-bc34-40be-8d85-6bb4f56f5110&displaylang=en

SP3 does break a few things but, by now, I would have thought that developers would have posted updates of their products to function with SP3 just like M-Audio have for their drivers. I would just mention that SP3 does need at least SP1 (preferably SP2) to be able to install.

*Disclaimer*

Please don't go ahead on the information I have given as I can't be held reposible if anything goes wrong. You will need to check for yourself and make your own decision.

Having said that, most people I know have gone ahead with SP3 without any major mishaps. The decision is yours. :)

[Jaybee]

like AMD processors.
killed mine.

Whoops! There's a big old Red Flag for me since both my DAW and my new home computer have AMD chips. Looks like I'll pass on SP3. If it ain't broke . . :eek:.