Good USB or Firewire MIDI interfaces?

Things I'd like to see in an interface:

• REQUIRED: At least one MIDI In/Out/Thru, though 2 or more would be nice. At present, I only have need of one as I only have 2 keyboards and can daisy-chain.
• REQUIRED: Able to sync to an external digital clock. My Alesis Fusion 8HD keyboard has ADAT and SPDIF output, but it has no way to receive an external clock.
• OPTIONAL: ADAT 8-channel digital fiber-optic input. I could go with a second device for this, after my pain with all-in-one devices.
• OPTIONAL: Preamps & audio input. I have an external 6-channel mixer with preamps for my microphones, so I don't strictly need this anymore, although the preamps are only "mixer-quality" so if there's something that gives a cleaner sound, I'm all ears.
• Phantom power. I have it on my mixer, to power my condenser mics. They just don't work without it, and man, do they ever sound nicer than my old Shure mics. Cheap Chinese mics, too, but they sound lovely to me.

I'm leaning toward finding something with the ADAT IN, because that is just an amazing capability of my keyboard workstation that I want to leverage. I didn't know it did this when I bought it, but my Fusion has 8 mono TRS balanced inputs and can record 8 tracks of audio simultaneously... and ship them out digitally over its ADAT interface, or if I'm willing to settle for two-channel digital, SPDIF. Not to mention it can mix down the 8 channels to 4 if I wanted to use the MAIN and AUX analog outputs for some bizarre reason. Talk about a splitter... To buy a standalone device that does that would cost at least $500, and I got it bundled with a $1000 keyboard. Outstanding!

Here's my candidates list as of this morning

• The Alesis I/O 2. $149.97 from Sweetwater. Advantage here: I already have an Alesis Sumo 300 amp, and Alesis Fusion 8HD synthesizer, why not have more blue logos lighting up my studio or the stage?
• Edirol UM-1EX. $39.95 from Sweetwater. Very basic MIDI I/O. MIDI THRU is switchable as there is only an in/out cable... looking at my rig, I could do just fine without THRU. Big plus: native driver works fine in Windows XP, Linux, and Mac OSX with no extra drivers required.
• Edirol UM-3EX. Big brother of the UM-1EX, it has three I/O ports, but has an integrated USB hub that allows you to expand to up to three additional UM-3EX units on the same chain for 9 MIDI I/O ports. That could be convenient. $69.97 at Sweetwater.

Tomorrow I think I'll take a look at the E-Mu and MOTU offerings.

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Matthew P. Barnson

Yeah, I found out over the years that getting M-audio outboards to work well with XP wasn't easy. They actually proscribe a method in which you have to personally position the .dlls in a specific folder on the hard drive and then spend three rounds of targeting the 'add new hardware' wizard to that folder. I've had to go through and re-add about 6 times annually, sometimes requiring the manual uninstall first. Kind of a pain. But then again, we're talking a $50 cheapy product, not a serious rack-mount I/O converter. This isn't like a recording studio.

I still find it interesting that we're 20 years later with MIDI and computers, still doing the IN/OUT/THRU routine with wire connectors. I believe there's a wireless solution on the market, but who cares, you know? Where's the bluetooth I-punch-notes-and-they-magically-appear-as-sound-in-Pro-Tools solution?

Where's the bluetooth I-punch-notes-and-they-magically-appear-as-sound-in-Pro-Tools solution?

The reasons this exists, IMHO:

1. The market is so small, the margins so large, and musicians so picky (for a reason!) that release cycles must be very slow and produce very reliable equipment. Witness the Alesis Fusion that I just bought: it includes amazing versatility and superb sounds. It is easily in the same league as the Yamaha Motif and Korg Oasys (sans the big monitor, of course). It was priced just below that league, too, at over $3K. Now, you can get it for less than 1/4 of the price of those units because when it was released it was buggy, unstable, and had hardware issues. Those have since been resolved, but the reputation remained... as did enormous overstocks as a result of lackluster sales performance.
2. Manufacturers compete over standards and don't want to cross-license. Viz: ADAT, SPDIF, MIDI over USB/Firewire/etc. Roland conspired with Microsoft behind the backs of numerous competitors in order to create the MIDI over USB standard, which was later expanded by the IETF into the MIDI over Ethernet standard (IETF RTP-MIDI), but many manufacturers still refuse to get on board because they think the standard is a bad one. Apple adopted it, too, so it's become a de-facto standard, but mostly used by low-end entry-level keyboard controllers.
3. Manufacturers have a vested interest in locking consumers into their products. Witness the Protools monopoly. There has not been (IMHO) widespread industry interest in standardization since 1982 when the MMA issued the first MIDI standard. For instance, Alesis licenses the patents to ADAT, but such licenses are a not-insignificant fraction of the cost of any ADAT-compatible unit. Of course, Alesis doesn't have to pay that licensing cost for its own units, so it can compete well in the same space against anybody licensing its product. Vendor lock-in pays off, as Microsoft, Apple, Alesis, and others know well.
4. As far as Bluetooth goes, the IEEE examined it for suitability for real-time control systems in 2005 (including MIDI and industrial controls) and found the standard was inadequate. However, wireless USB using the existing MIDI over USB standard might work just fine. At this point, though, you still need adapters to make that work. MIDI over Firewire is already an accepted standard, but only found in high-end equipment (IEEE RP-027).

I think wireless has a fundamental problem with data transmission for real-time applications. Traditionally, MIDI transmission times are measured in sub-millisecond frames, while a 802.11n frame might take 6 or 7ms round-trip (3-4ms one-way). Listeners are extremely sensitive to transmission delays. MIDI allows the use of very long cables; firewire/USB don't. I think part of the problem here is coming up with a superior standard to the decrepit MIDI standard. It should be wireless and it should be real-time within 1 millisecond.

Of course, you can go wireless MIDI if you want to right now, for an extra $100 per synth. You're locked into a particular vendor's brand of wireless MIDI, though.

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Matthew P. Barnson

Matt,

Somewhat related to our MIDI savior search, I found last night a retail box solution for mic-in, vocal audio recording. There were a couple interesting turn-key packages on the MicroCenter shelves from various vendors, offering:

• decent condenser mic, USB powered
• Direct USB connector, no outboard converter necessary
• Table mic stand, with mini tripod
• CD install for audio recording software (Cakewalk light, Acid light, etc.)

For under $100, it's not a bad deal if you're just looking for home basement voice audio, not instrumentation.

I saw one the other day called a "podcast kit" that surprised me at the value for $99. It doesn't match my needs now, but I just was thinking that if I were getting started in home studio recording again, such a kit would not be a bad start at all.

Most of the podcasts that I listen to from non-professionals end up goofy, annoying, or dull, though. Maybe putting the power into the hands of the people like that is a bad idea...

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Matthew P. Barnson

I'm lead author and protocol designer on RFC 4695
(RTP MIDI), and I've never even read the USB MIDI
specification. Any similarity between the two
network protocols is coincidental. See the
homepage link on my name atop this posting
for more info on RTP MIDI.

John,

Thanks for chiming in on the discussion! Unfortunately, there is a lot of disinformation on the 'net, apparently including my comment above. It reflected my understanding according what I'd been able to piece together about the MIDI wars since the 1980's.

I appreciate the correction.

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Matthew P. Barnson