Laptop / Macbook owners - lack of USB ports and external synths

[thecontrolcentre]

I'm using 3 USB hubs and a 10-out midi-splitter to connect 15 hardware synths, a digital mixer/audio interface and 4 midi keyboards/control surfaces to my 2014 Scan 3XS i7 laptop (with 4 USB ports). Works great with Live once it's all connected up. I have a couple of external SSD's too.

I take it most of your synths are modern units with USB MIDI connectors? I'm curious. How does the MIDI splitter work? Is it one 16 channel MIDI port and you connect synths to it each on their own separate MIDI channel?

My synths are from various eras from the 80's onward. Mainly MIDI or CV/Gate connections, with only a couple of USB ports. Only 1 of the synths is connected over USB. The rest use mainly MIDI cables, hence the splitter. Each synth gets it's own midi-channel.

But wouldn't that prevent you from using multitimbral synths?

Don't know. I don't have any multitimbral synths

I don't see how you could run a similar setup unless every one of your synths has a dedicated USB MIDI port.

Please enlighten me.

As above ... I'm using USB, MIDI, CV/Gate and a MIDI to CV/Gate convertor. MIDI from the laptop goes into the MIDI Splitter via either my audio interface/mixer or my midi-controllers.

[keyman_sam]

Wireless MIDI controller + built-in audio interface?

[tehlord]

Oops I should have mentioned I was wanting to negate the need for a USB hub. I hate the clutter so if an audio interface could do both jobs in one that would be desirable to me.

I'm not sure what solution you expect to a problem that you don't want to solve with the solution that's actually required. You either use a USB hub or switch to midi and use a midi interface. Either way there will be a box connected to your computer.