4x4 midi box for $35 great alternative for Win 7 users

[Steviebone]

I recently moved to Win 7 64. I found out sadly that my MidiSport 8x8's were not going to be supported by M-Audio bastads. They want you to buy their "Anniversary Edition" stuff. No drivers available for Win 7 except for the anniversary edition. How nice of them. Dump on customers who paid $300+ for units. I have several, 6 to be exact. So this was a BIG piss-off for me.

I started looking at their "anniversary stuff". There is NO alternative that has the same functionality. The closest is their 4x4 which does NOT have the PC programmable merge and route function. They want 149$ street price for this puppy. I bought one (and some 2x2's). Not all that impressed. Seems like a lot of money for what it is.

Then I spotted a unit made in Hong Kong by an unknown manufacturer called MidiBox (and apparently a few other names lol). $35 with shipping! You read right... $35 delivered to your door! It seems to be the exact same unit near as I can tell.

Delivery took about two weeks for me. Unit so far seems every bit as functional as the M-Audio 4x4 anniversary and in fact I like the indicators a bit better.

$150? or $35 (26 plus hipping). So M-Audio is crapping all over their customer base. No 8x8 Win7 support and make them buy two 4x4's at 150 each which are really worth about $50. $300 or $50 people you decide....

Here's a link to an ebay offer. You can also find them if you google a bit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

So long M-Audio... adios muthafookahs.

[whyterabbyt]

I recently moved to Win 7 64. I found out sadly that my MidiSport 8x8's were not going to be supported by M-Audio bastads. They want you to buy their "Anniversary Edition" stuff. No drivers available for Win 7 except for the anniversary edition.

erm...

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=sup ... c346f15396

[Steviebone]

You don't read all the way thru pal. Try selecting the drivers for download. Win7 64 drivers only available for anniversary stuff, no 8x8 support.

Also this: * Note: The Midisport 8x8 Remote Panel is discontinued and will not be supported on Windows Vista/Windows 7

And in any event street price for the 4x4 is 150, the MidiBox is 35.

I recently moved to Win 7 64. I found out sadly that my MidiSport 8x8's were not going to be supported by M-Audio bastads. They want you to buy their "Anniversary Edition" stuff. No drivers available for Win 7 except for the anniversary edition.

erm...

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=sup ... c346f15396

Edit: Ok they do have a BETA driver that supposedly works with the 8x8 (not listed in their regular download section and u have to register to download), minus the remote routing panel (PC mode on the 8x8). This is still a big flaw for me. I will try their beta, but I wont buy any more of their units when the same can be had at a fraction. Plus, I need the PC mode.

[whyterabbyt]

You don't read all the way thru pal.

Edit: Ok they do have a BETA driver that supposedly works with the 8x8 (not listed in their regular download section and u have to register to download), minus the remote routing panel (PC mode on the 8x8).

Yeah and thats what I linked to. You dont read all the way thru, 'pal'.

[joseche]

I have several, 6 to be exact.

so... 8 x 6 = 48 midi ins and outs ?, this seems like more than what depeche mode will need for a concert !

why do you need so much !?

just wondering...

[TiUser]

...

$150? or $35 (26 plus hipping). So M-Audio is crapping all over their customer base. No 8x8 Win7 support and make them buy two 4x4's at 150 each which are really worth about $50. $300 or $50 people you decide....

Here's a link to an ebay offer. You can also find them if you google a bit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

So long M-Audio... adios muthafookahs.

Interesting.

No shipment to Germany

But I guess it would be price wise the same with other gear too if you would import it directly from the HongKong or whatever factory...

On the other hand it may be probably an illegal copy and I doubt for any type of support too...

[WOK]

No shipment to Germany

http://www.tomtop.com/midi-4i4o-merge-2 ... s-box.html
But who guaranties that they will support drivers after the next Win service pack or so..... ?!

[TiUser]

No shipment to Germany

http://www.tomtop.com/midi-4i4o-merge-2 ... s-box.html
But who guaranties that they will support drivers after the next Win service pack or so..... ?!

Thanks for the link... not sure if I get one of these. It's abit hard to see shipment adds and import tax to germany there which can quickly sum up to something finally uninteresting... that a potential trap with all these deals I guess...

I fancy for longer with a simple cable interface to have a simple connect on occasion for this and that. But looking at the prices this box is really tempting. On the other hand I don't like these big boxes much - regardless of maker and price...

I already said this: "...and I doubt for any type of support too..."

On the other hand I once bought a small touchscreen with one of these Chinese import guys and was more than surprised about support. The included power supply failed after some time. One mail was enough and I got a new one free of charge without sending the faulty one back or other further questions and hassle. Two years or so later I needed a 64 bit touch driver driver for Vista. Again one mail and after two days I got the reply with the download link. These experiences were not worse to big companies.

OK I agree, you never know and it's a risk.

But as you see with Steviebones original post - there is no guaranty with brand makes too that you get the support you need...

[TiUser]

I'm just a bit googeling...

What I miss with the midi box is any type of documentation, a manual or something.

Closest to the Midibox looks the ESI M4U XL. It's sold for €79 at thomann in Europe. Probably it lacks some stand alone functionality and is a pure midi-usb interface only - no clue.

Merge functionality on classical midi level is just an emergency helper imho. I would never use it if I had other options. The need for classical merge really looks like a lot of legacy stuff involved in a setup.

Concerning drivers I trust more in Edirol as I have made good experiences with their driver support for my Edirol PCR. But their midi interfaces are more expensive too.

To be honest - when looking a M-Audio products I never had the feel these are something top of the line - just some of their stuff is simply "cheap", and you get what you do not pay for.

Finally with all these gadgets I never felt that any maker really gives a guaranty for driver support or anything similar things in the long run. Unfortunately these companies do not make a living from free of charge support of their legacy gear - so what?... I really don't want to take a word for makers here but some expectations concerning support seem simply not realistic to me...

Concerning prices in general 19% VAT in Germany is an issue making everything more expensive than in US. And for sure retailers are no social care institutes either.

[Steviebone]

The MidiBox is no doubt even lesser quality than much of the M-Audio stuff, but certainly not less than 1/4 the quality (tho it is 1/4 the price)... which was my point. For anyone needing an inexpensive solution where a 2x2 will not suffice, this may be a reasonable alternative.

Support? Warranty? I think not. At that price you can afford a spare tho.

As for the legacy drivers for the 8x8 I had to search really hard for the betas as there is no official release as of yet due to problems with the driver functioning correctly under Pro Tools. Even so, installation was problematic and functionality was greatly reduced with the total abandonment of the PC mode.

And a word about USB. USB is not suitable for large amounts of bi-directional midi traffic. Because it is a polled device (among other things) it simply cannot keep up and remain reliable. Bus powered or fire-wire (if no other choice) remains much better for professional performance grade systems which must meet some minimum standards. Assuming that the end user need only USB for an 8x8 system is in my humble opinion a dis-service to those of us who were building sophisticated rigs using multiple 8x8's. This is no doubt a miniscule percentage of their user base tho so... all's fair in make a buck I guess... but I really wish they would rethink the legacy PC remote support thing...

[Biopharmer]

Hey, on a different note: Are those MOTU Midi Express units compatable with windows 98? I'd like to use one with Cubasis.

Is there a modern equivalent to Cubasis by any chance?

EDIT: When I say "modern equivalent to Cubasis" I mean JUST a simple multi-track midi sequencer. No need to get smart and say "Cubase, duh". And i'm not talking open source either, I mean made by Steinberg or another top company. Ah Hell, I'll just google it.

[TiUser]

And a word about USB. USB is not suitable for large amounts of bi-directional midi traffic. Because it is a polled device (among other things) it simply cannot keep up and remain reliable. Bus powered or fire-wire (if no other choice) remains much better for professional performance grade systems which must meet some minimum standards. Assuming that the end user need only USB for an 8x8 system is in my humble opinion a dis-service to those of us who were building sophisticated rigs using multiple 8x8's. This is no doubt a miniscule percentage of their user base tho so... all's fair in make a buck I guess... but I really wish they would rethink the legacy PC remote support thing...

You've stated this in another thread as well. Not sure about your experiences but it's a bit hard to follow your arguments.

What has "bus powered" to do with speed? Either it's sufficient or not...

When you refer to a "polled" device this sounds like messages can get lost which is a typical problem on polled devices - but I've never heard of this with USB. Also not knowing I guess there is a buffer in between, otherwise all USB communication would suffer from lost bytes all the time... Midi is hundreds of times slower (31.5 kBit/s) than USB 1 (11 MBit/s), ten thousand times slower than USB 2 (480 MBit/s) bandwidth. Even if you have multiple ports in parallel I can't see a severe bottleneck even assuming the worst raw polling.

Again, you may have experienced something but I can not really understand what this may be about.

What's the point with "bi directional" midi traffic? I can't imagine there is a big difference to uni-directional communication - referring to the general bandwidth situation.

Hey, there are devices working fine with midi AND audio over USB 1.x Don't tell me audio is less critical than some midi bytes...

"legacy PC remote" - what do you mean by that?

I think you have to give more details - you seem to deal with an extraordinary huge studio setup that is hard to imagine for me just by your message here. Even then you still can use multiple USB interface cards to resolve the potential bottleneck. can't you?


But what's for sure a bottleneck is driving many midi channels - with probably a lot of cc messages too - via one midi cable... that's a problem of low midi speed @31.5kBit/s - not USB. The weakest part determines speed and that's for sure speed you have over classical midi cable.

[Steviebone]

Yes USB is polled not interrupt driven, therefore it wastes cpu cycles even when there is nothing to do. You can do more research on this on your own, its beyond the scope of this discussion.

Bus powered is NOT limited by the bandwidth of USB and it is interrupt driven rather than polled which is very important in any DAW. Polled devices steal CPU cycles needlessly and drain your DAW of potential resources. Interrupts are 1000x more efficient.

And yes, USB is slow and does not do well (in my experience) especially in situations where there is alot of bidirectional traffic going down one pipe, be it a single midi cable or a usb cord. Also, adding USB ports doesnt normally fix the bottleneck problem as all USB is processed the same, more USB devices merely means more of a bottleneck.

Also, don't kid yourself, no USB actually transfers sustained at 480. Thats total BS. In fact, USB rarely reaches SUSTAINED transfers of half that.

PC legacy mode is where the unit acts as a standalone midi device, NON-USB. It allowed for remote configuration using a programmable matrix of inputs and outputs with multiple routes and merging functions. These features are not available via USB. By USB all you get is your ins/outs in your host. Your host is responsible for routing and merge if any.

Granted, my setup is not typical. But Ive been building computers for 30 years since the days of BIG BLUE and running fairly complex studio rigs even longer.

Midi bytes isn't the issue, maintaining timestamps is. With alot of traffic going both ways small time-stamp errors occur. Add to this the DAW that is busy processing many tracks of audio at the same time and USB midi is simply NOT as robust as some other solutions. Hell the whole point of multiple 8x8's is too balance the load across multiple channels and cables. Sticking 3 8x8's all on one MIDI bus is problematic. It seems to do ok if the USB channel is all outs. But doing in and out with lots of audio is a different story. Unplugging the USB and going str8 MIDI always clears up the problem.

[Jim Y]

USB midi is certainly an imperfect world.

I would suggest you check out the Edirol units. I don't have one of their midi boxes, but I do have a PCR controller and the amount of midi it can reliably put out over USB surprised me. I've got sysex controls on the knobs, the after touch and playing organ palm swipes without a hitch. All thanks to their USB2 driver I think.

I do wonder why nobody made an 8x8 pci midi port. I think 2x2 is the most I've seen on a card based device. Maybe there aren't enough interrupts available on a card slot?

Jim

[TiUser]

@steviebone

Some of your points are still confusing - probably you see them in a different context.

I know too that theoretical USB speeds are often not reached - but to be honest, does it matter if bandwidth is 10.000x or just 1.000x higher than needed?

I still don't get what bus powered has to do with "interrupt driven"... is there any USB spec forcing this? I can't see any technical necessity for this.

No doubt that IR driven is preferable to polling - in other words let the HW do the critical actions rather than the cpu.

Still I ask myself at which size of installation things start to matter.

In which range are the timestamp errors?

Plain classic midi speed forces 1ms delay per single note! No classic midi cable connect @31.5 kBit/s can provide high accuracy midi timestamps - that's impossible and pretty simple logic.

If you really have a lot of traffic I think you get more than little timestamp problems already by using classical midi... that was already so when there were no USB interfaces or cpu's polling that.