your experience with midiquest/xl please

[kmonkey]

I think you should ask the Q over on GearSlutz - more hardware users.

We are here to

Anyway i had halfhalf success with Midiquest. While some things worked quite a lot did not. VST editor refused to remember settings, some editors didn ot worked at allm, some did and whey did they worked magically etc.etc. I had a lot more success with Sounddiver but it is pretty much dead by now..

All in all idea is very nice but in practice you'll pull your hair or you are gonna be satisfied. Depending on hardware you have.

[coincidental]

I came up against this recently, and wasn't too impressed with what was on offer either. However, I did stumble across the Guru addin for Renoise, which (as long as you have the full MIDI implementation for your hardware) looks like it should allow you to roll your own editor without too much grief.

I haven't had time to tinker with it yet (and probably won't for some while) but it seems to work with the demo version of Renoise and might be worth a look. A Renoise licence (to allow you to Rewire from your DAW of choice should you prefer) would still be cheaper than the commercial editors available (which are of questionable value anyway).

[osiris]

This is the low end stuff. That being said, I used it on Vista with a MicroKorg with no problems.

[Jace-BeOS]

I came up against this recently, and wasn't too impressed with what was on offer either. However, I did stumble across the Guru addin for Renoise, which (as long as you have the full MIDI implementation for your hardware) looks like it should allow you to roll your own editor without too much grief.

I haven't had time to tinker with it yet (and probably won't for some while) but it seems to work with the demo version of Renoise and might be worth a look. A Renoise licence (to allow you to Rewire from your DAW of choice should you prefer) would still be cheaper than the commercial editors available (which are of questionable value anyway).

Cakewalk used to have something like this in Sonar called StudioWare, but, instead of improving it, they removed the editor from Sonar around version 3(?). It was useful but apparently there's just no market for hardware editors and Cakewalk didn't want to support it. Every time I find out about a hardware editing product for multiple devices, it's expensive and quickly left to rot by its developer(s). Unisyn (ugly, hard to use, expensive, abandoned on Windows, junk on Mac), SoundDiver (Apple killed it, but it was ugly, clumsy, buggy), MIDI Quest (from user reports, it's rotting while being marketed), Cakewalk's StudioWare, countless other little editors for countless hardware... I don't understand why this category of product is so historically bad. Hardware isn't as ephemeral as software but software FOR hardware is twice as ephemeral as other software.

[Acrobat]

Unisyn (ugly, hard to use, expensive, abandoned on Windows, junk on Mac)

No, it was very nice for me, on MacOS8 and 9, many years ago.

[MFXxx]

Demoed it.

Not bad and does what it says on the tin.

Nice touch with the vst integration for external hardware.

Personal beef is TC Electronics Fireworx not supported and doesn't appear to support newer manufacturers.

Dated now.

If they supported vst or midi integration for the Fireworx they'd have my money quicker than they could gasp

Good but overpriced.

[munchkin]

I bought it years ago but it's now dated and overpriced. If it was regularly being updated and expanded then maybe it would have kept pace with technology but this isn't the case now. Look for an alternative.

[UltimateOutsider]

I tried out the MIDIQuest XL demo this morning. Most of my MIDI units are rack modules with no keyboards of their own, so it's really important for me to be able to play notes on my MIDI controller while editing patches from the PC.

So far I have not been able to do this on MIDIQuest. I've been using my MPK49 MIDI controller and editing on my Roland D-110. I've only been able to actually hear my edits by continually re-selecting MQ's MIDI Controller window- and the window flips back to MIDI channel 1 every time I click it, which means I have to re-select Channel 2 every time I want to hear this particular part.

The manual says I'm supposed to be able to audition patches in the editor by CTRL+right-clicking but that doesn't seem to be doing anything.

To others experienced with this product: Is there a way to play notes live while editing patches? I just bought two really nice rack units (still in the mail) expecting to be able to use this program, but I'm starting to get worried now.

(I sent in a support query also, will report back if I hear anything.)

EDIT: They did get back to me and solved my problems. See below.

[Acrobat]

To others experienced with this product: Is there a way to play notes live while editing patches?

You might need a hardware MIDI-merge unit to do that.

[Shabdahbriah]

hi all,

i'm looseley thinking about getting into midiquest/xl for my hardware synths, however, i don't know anything about it exept the rough specs from the website. up to now i use the rusted old sounddiver by emagic, and although it still serves quite good, it's limited, not running on win7 and it's not being supported anymore since long anyway. is there anyone who can give me information and his experience with midiquest/xl? i.e. is it stable, does a win7 version exist, will it be future proof (as much as one can tell anyway), ect...
i'm willing to try the demo but hesitate up to now to install it, as it may mess with my midi configuration, etc... so if anyone could give me more insight i might try it... or not, depending on funded info here...

thanks in advance!

I haven't used it, or should say; "attempted" to use it, for well over a decade, but unless you can find some very positive user input (anywhere) with specific regards to the synths/hardware YOU wish to use it with, I'll add my "avoid it", to those who have posted here.

[2c]

[dayjob]

i'm on a mac.. i used midiquest for a while some time ago.. off an on w/kawai XD-5 and K4-R. i didn't attempt to use it w/other synths as my other synths have knobs.

it was hit and miss. sometimes it would sync up fine and shake hands and i could edit as needed but usually it jus didn't work well.

i found it really frustrating to use... and i updated OSX somewhere during that time.. just a .x update and then midiquest totally took a dump.

i emailed midiquest people about it and got a rant back about apple sucks for changing things in the OS that break 3rd party apps etc etc etc...

so, i didn't find it very constructive help though i was sympathetic.

[munchkin]

i'm on a mac.. i used midiquest for a while some time ago.. off an on w/kawai XD-5 and K4-R. i didn't attempt to use it w/other synths as my other synths have knobs.

it was hit and miss. sometimes it would sync up fine and shake hands and i could edit as needed but usually it jus didn't work well.

i found it really frustrating to use... and i updated OSX somewhere during that time.. just a .x update and then midiquest totally took a dump.

i emailed midiquest people about it and got a rant back about apple sucks for changing things in the OS that break 3rd party apps etc etc etc...

so, i didn't find it very constructive help though i was sympathetic.

This was my experience and I'm on Windows. It's like buying a car and the wheels fall off now and again for no discernible reason. One time it works and the next it doesn't. Whole mornings wasted rechecking cables, synths and software settings to no avail. Once you start spending more time trying to get a piece of software to work than making music it's time to move on. I'm still annoyed I invested in it and this thread has recalled all those frustrations.

[Jace-BeOS]

Heh. That's my experience with everything on Windows. "Why won't sound come out THIS time?"

[UltimateOutsider]

Sound Quest support did get back to me. Most of the problems I was seeing were due to the fact that my D-110 defaults to MIDI channel 2 for the first part. I knew this, which is why I kept re-selecting the channel, but MIDI Quest uses the port/channel settings from Preferences > MIDI for live previewing, and those were set to channel 1. (I expected that explicitly setting the keyboard controller channel window to 2 would fix it, but that window just pulls the preferences setting whenever you activate it.)

Last night I worked with the MIDI Quest demo on my MKS-50. I was frustrated at first, because it would never download my MKS-50's patches or tones, but it was then that I discovered MIDI Quest's Fast Tips feature, which opens up a little window with usage notes specific to each device it supports. The MKS-50 requires some manual steps on its front panel to dump stuff to MIDI Quest. Once I got that going, everything worked great.

If I find it works with my Yamaha SY85 (checking that out tonight or tomorrow), this is going on the must-buy queue.

[songshark]

It was many years ago, but my experience with midiquest was the single worst and most dishonest experience I've had with a developer.

After telling me directly it would work with my setup -- IF I bought an additional 3rd party wrapper to make it work -- it did not. When I reported this back to them, their response was essentially, "Oh we were wrong. It won't work." But they would neither refund me NOR even offer me a free upgrade to the upcoming version which they claimed would solve my problem. In fact, as I recall, they told me I had to buy the whole thing again for full price!

I personally found this to be SO outrageous and egregious that it's stuck with me for all these years -- and seeing that they just announced some new version of it, I found this thread and wanted to share my experience with this dishonest and unethical company. I have no idea if it's the same people or not, but as far as I'm concerned they still owe me a refund. I would encourage anyone NOT to give them a penny.