Anyone excited to control their VSTs with Akai Advance?

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Yea I don't really understand your point. Lots of midi interfaces are multi-client. In fact most today are. As such, more then one software program can be using it at the same time.
MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

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not on PC. And even if it was, then you could have another client sending messages to the hardware at the same time, possibly messing up with the screen.
Last edited by Big Tick on Mon May 04, 2015 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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yes on PC too. its entirely up to the midi driver though. But check out this little tool on PC which can enable multi-client capabilities for when you have a midi interface that doesn't provide that.

http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/proxymidi.html
MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

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Right, what I meant is that the Windows USB-class-driver (that the Akai Advance uses, like most midi controllers) is not multiclient. This tool looks really cool though, thanks.

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I didn't realize the Akai Advanced is using the standard USB class driver. Really? Very interesting if so, and also its very interesting to me that the windows USB class driver is not multi-client.
MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

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Yes it uses the standard one for midi I/O - but not for the VIP <-> screen communication (for the reasons listed above).

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Dewdman42 wrote:I didn't realize the Akai Advanced is using the standard USB class driver. Really? Very interesting if so, and also its very interesting to me that the windows USB class driver is not multi-client.
Really? My experience with Windows over my lifetime has been that it hates sharing anything with anything. I'm still surprised IRQ sharing works, ever, for anyone. Windows hates audio devices being used by more than one program, hates MIDI devices being used by more than one program, hates to close file handles...
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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Astralp wrote:
Doc Brown wrote:^^^^I'm with you. I am wondering if the key beds on the nektar and the novation are the same? Anyone use both? Which do you prefer?

I am all for great integration but if the keys are mediocre it's all moot for me at least.
I can only compare with my X-Station and Keylab, and the Nektar is far better for my taste than either of them. I'm not a pianist and so don't like heavy velocity and the Nektar has a velocity setting that makes it just right for me. Also the aftertouch is also a perfect response for me, the X-station was too sensitive and the Keystation far far far too hard. I've owned many synths/controllers over the years and this is my favorite by far in terms of keybed. But it's a very personal thing and depends how you play, so you should try and play one in a shop somewhere if you can.
Yep, Nektar has great keys but poor support. I tried for a year to get my panorama P4 to work with Cubase including emails and tickets with multiple Nektar employees but no luck. No one could get it to work. Finally gave up and sold it. Won't buy another Nektar product.

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T-CM11 wrote:I was asking about synths that have a built-in usb midi interface together with regular 5-DIN Midi. It's of course a complete different matter if we're talking about non-class compliant audio/midi interfaces and no alternative interfacing. ;)
And there's no (good) reason why an editor would be slower or more crash-prone using a separate midi interface vs. the one built-in.
Built-in MIDI interface? You mean the 5-pin DIN connectors? Those are what I'm talking about. MIDI is a messaging standard. USB vs DIN is merely conduit tech for the messaging. The old classic DIN conduit is very slow.

My point about speed and stability is between USB MIDI vs DIN MIDI. The old style standard 5-pin system communicates at a MUCH slower rate. Putting MIDI over USB has helped the speed problem big time (even USB 1 kicks the old DIN MIDI standard's ass), but that's only with a direct MIDI-over-USB connection (USB built into the device). If you're plugging your synth into a USB MIDI interface from the synth's DIN ports, you're not getting any benefit of USB's faster serial data speeds, nor any benefit of stability in xfer.

Through that old DIN pipe, bank, patch, and sample transfer is slow as tar. Editing might function ok (if the software is robust, and much of it isn't), but still, the device might spaz out if the software tries to pull/push sysex data too fast. This is common with older devices that lack USB altogether. I'd be unsurprised to find the modern MIDI ports (and their related UARTs) still result in buffer overflows/underruns when communicating sysex or other dense MIDI messaging.

In fact, putting old style MIDI through a USB MIDI pipe is historically known to be problematic for heavy MIDI streams and have very poor timing (jitter). IIRC: When USB MIDI was devised, and against the MIDI association's advise, the transfer method used in USB was chosen wrongly (bulk vs isochronous??). I can't remember the details or if this was corrected in later generations (seems Windows XP was a disaster here, as direct hardware control was killed). I DO know that my Yamaha UX256 can cause crashes (on Win XP, which I've not used in many years) when dealing with heavy MIDI streams, while the same MIDI through my Edirol UM-880 has no problem. That was some years ago via a 32-channel MIDI project in an Akai S6000 with two full MIDI ports. That hardware, by the way, is yet another USB device i own that was abandoned by its maker as new OS versions came out. There's no 64-bit AkSys driver, even though Win XP was 64-bit when the AkSys stuff was developed. So... yet another bad Akai experience.

I repeat: I'm not talking USB MIDI. This is classic MIDI over DIN connectors. Adding a USB MIDI interface doesn't help. But using a built-in USB interface on the device, and transporting MIDI messages through THAT, can and does offer great advantages over using the old DIN standard hardware. So, yes, it's very annoying when hardware developers drop driver support for their hardware. No one wants to support product. They just want to sell new product a few months later. If they developed a standard interface, new hardware could sell after old hardware, and they could all use the same drivers, maintaining support of legacy hardware on new OSes. But few hardware companies think that way. It's not in their interest, unless they're thinking about not pissing off their customers (which most apparently don't care to think about).

I restate my thesis: I'm not interested in throwing more good money after bad. If we had an actual free market, maybe we wouldn't constantly be forced to dump all our tech every three years. There's zero reason other than greed and Wall Street for our current lack of long-standing standards and hardware devices. It's not "progress" that makes your latest gadget "expire" a year or so later. Notice how household appliances have been going the same direction...
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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Jace-BeOS wrote:
T-CM11 wrote:... built-in usb midi interface ...
Built-in MIDI interface? You mean the 5-pin DIN connectors?

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Dewdman42 wrote:yes on PC too. its entirely up to the midi driver though. But check out this little tool on PC which can enable multi-client capabilities for when you have a midi interface that doesn't provide that.

http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/proxymidi.html
download coming soon
How did you check it out?

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i got a chance to play the MPK 261 today at my local Guitar Center which the advanced board is supposed to be based on this same keyed.

I wasn't at all blown away by it. To my taste the Keybed on the NI Kontrol S blows it out of the water FOR FEEL, but this is all subject to ones own pref's.
Last edited by trusampler on Thu May 07, 2015 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
INTERFACE: RME ADI-2/4 Pro/Antelope Orion Studio Synergy Core/BAE 1073 MPF Dual/Heritage Audio Successor+SYMPH EQ
SYNTHS: Yamaha Montage M8x/Sequential Trigon 6/Take 5/ASM Hydrasynth
Korg Prologue16\Behringer DM12D/Pro-800/Meris Pedals

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Has anyone found a manual on the advanced board yet?
INTERFACE: RME ADI-2/4 Pro/Antelope Orion Studio Synergy Core/BAE 1073 MPF Dual/Heritage Audio Successor+SYMPH EQ
SYNTHS: Yamaha Montage M8x/Sequential Trigon 6/Take 5/ASM Hydrasynth
Korg Prologue16\Behringer DM12D/Pro-800/Meris Pedals

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MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

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Thanks
INTERFACE: RME ADI-2/4 Pro/Antelope Orion Studio Synergy Core/BAE 1073 MPF Dual/Heritage Audio Successor+SYMPH EQ
SYNTHS: Yamaha Montage M8x/Sequential Trigon 6/Take 5/ASM Hydrasynth
Korg Prologue16\Behringer DM12D/Pro-800/Meris Pedals

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