MIDI Interface -ACID Product Family - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:MIDI Interface Posted by: BarryBond Date:3/8/2005 6:56:43 AM I was wondering if anyone knows what the best MIDI Interface would be to use with ACID Pro. I've been researching the MOTU MTP AV and it looks like everyone is having problems with it on a PC. I have 4 pieces of gear I need to hook up and possibly more in the future so an 8 x 8 would be the best choise. Thanks
Subject:RE: MIDI Interface Reply by: Iacobus Date:3/8/2005 9:57:21 AM Dig hard enough and you'll always find someone having problems with something. :) Might want to check out M-Audio's offerings. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Buy Instant ACID by JohnnyRoy and mD! mD at ACIDplanet
Subject:RE: MIDI Interface Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:3/8/2005 6:59:37 PM MOTU is pretty much a Mac company that tolerates PC’s. You might want to stay away from their stuff for PC’s. As Iacobus said, M-Audio has some nice MIDI offerings. I have their Midisport 2x2 on my laptop and the Firewire 410 on my desktop and I’m very happy with both. They make a Midisport 8x8 which sounds perfect for what you need. ~jr
Subject:RE: MIDI Interface Reply by: pwppch Date:3/8/2005 10:11:11 PM I use an MOTU MPT AV everyday. Rarely a problem with it, other than I forget to set the correct base setup when doing a particular task. The only downside is that the driver does not support DirectMusic i/o natively, but rather emulated. This is only a problem if the software you use only works with the DirectMusic protocol. It is actually rare for a MIDI hardware driver to support DirectMusic natively still. (Why is this important? DirectMusic MIDI i/o can be very accurate because the hardware is allowed to actually time stamp the MIDI msg vs the PC/software having to do the timestamping.) The REALLY cool part about the MTP is that I can network my old MTP II with it and have 16 x 16! I have a MIDIMan 8x8, 2x2, and a Unitor - along with a number of other MIDI interfaces. I choose the MOTU because it just works for me and has a reasonable configuration tool. (It also does SMTPE and MTC and other clock conversions for me. Very flexible in all things like this. Connect it to a Digital Timepiece and a MOTU 896HD, and you have a really powerful setup.) Peter Message last edited on3/8/2005 10:21:15 PM bypwppch.
Subject:RE: MIDI Interface Reply by: Rednroll Date:3/9/2005 7:18:07 AM I have a couple MOTU midi interfaces, and one has served me well and the other one has been nothing but problems getting it to do what it was suppose to do. My interfaces are older parelel port MOTU's but to me this shouldn't matter. A midi interface to me is a piece of hardware I should need to buy once and it should work until it physically dies. My setup goes like this and here's some of the problems I've experienced over the years. PC#1 Win98se exclusively running my midi sequencer, with a MOTU Micro Express 4x6 with smpte I/O interface. This one has worked pretty well for me. PC#2 WinXP running Vegas,and Acid with a MOTU Pocket Express 2x2 with smpte I/O. This one has caused me unreliable results for the purpose I purchased this interface for. I mainly got this Midi interface to send and receive MTC to my external hardware and when Vegas sprouted external hardware control, I would use this as my interface for Vegas and midi external controler. Here's a few of the problems I have ran into. 1. Sending MTC to my Yamaha mixer from Vegas, so that I can do automated mixing with my external mixer chasing to MTC. My Yamaha mixer can not translate the MTC data it's receiving. Work around: I send MTC out of the Pocket Express 2x2 to the Micro Express 4x6. I have to have my external sequencer up and running where I have it receive the external MTC and then regenerate it out a port on the Micro Express and now my Yamaha mixer can read the MTC coming from the Micro Express. If I directly move the Micro Express to my WinXP machine and use this with Vegas/Acid, my Yamaha mixer has no problems reading the MTC from the Micro Express. 2. I use to use the Pocket express when running Win98se on PC#2, and used this device to do midi bulk dumps to and from my TC Finalizer to my midi sequencer for backing up mastering project data. In doing this process, I found I could save a Maximum of 4 user presets on the TC Finalizer. If I tried to make 5 user presets during transfering the data back to the Finalizer, there is a problem where the Pocket Express can't shovel out the data back to the Finalizer and I can't restore the presets to the Finalizer. Work around: I master 3 songs, dump this to midi sequencer track. Do a dump back to the Finalizer of the initial setting in the Finalizer. Master 3 more songs, record this as a bulk dump on a seperate midi track. 3. I have a Tascam DA-88 with a sync card. Again using this inteface, it was to send the DA-88 MTC, so the DA-88 could chase to that, so I could layoff tracks from the DA-88 to Vegas. The DA-88 can not translate the MTC being received from the Pocket Express. Work around: The pocket express can translate the MTC coming from the DA-88, so I have Vegas chase the MTC coming from the DA-88. 4. Using the Pocket Express as an interface between Vegas and my Yamaha mixer, to use the mixer to control faders in Vegas. Regularly, the midi interface locks up, when receiving too much data, while I'm doing simple fader adjustments in Vegas. Work around: Don't use that feature in Vegas that I've been asking for, for the past 3 releases. 5. Like JR mentioned MOTU is a MAC based company first and PC support seems to be a pain in their rear. Before WinXP was released, I had tried to upgrade to Win2K to run Vegas and Acid on that. I couldn't move to Win2K because MOTU never released a driver for these midi interfaces for the total life span of Win2K. It wasn't until WinXP was released that they finally released a new driver, while during that time they never missed a MAC OS driver release and those drivers where always developed first before the PC. Work around: Skip using Win2k with my music setup PC's 6. I contacted MOTU tech support several times regarding these issues and also expressed my discontent with them for not making a Win2k driver release available. It was on the 7th attempt where I finally got a reply back because my tone was rather rude at this point in my messages. The reply back I got was, "Yeah...well we don't make Linux drivers either and we can't support every OS out there." and "Have you contacted Yamaha, and Tascam regarding their problems?" Workaround: Never buy another MOTU midi interace again, and share with as many people as I can the pains I've been going through with their devices. <Edited added additional problems> 7. When using Acid 4.0, everytime I would hit the Stop button or minimize/Maximize Acid, it would send midi out that would turn off Channel 1 on my Yamaha mixer. Now with Acid 5 it no longer does it when I hit the stop button, but still does it when I minimize/maximize the Acid window. Work around: disable the midi port in Acid connected from that interface to my mixer 8. Everytime I turn off my PC and then restart it the next time. The Pocket Express will start up in a "Stripe Smpte" state, where it's spouting midi data from the smpte time code being generated. Work around: Remember to hit the "Stripe" button on the Pocket Express to stop the Smpte being generated, everytime I start up my PC. Other than that, yeah they might be some good devices. It could just be my 3 external hardware devices, made by 3 different manufactures (Yamaha, Tascam, and TC electronics) or Acid or my Studio Sequencer that is the problem. Well at least if you ask MOTU, that's what they'll tell you. Message last edited on3/9/2005 11:06:24 AM byRednroll.

I have a couple MOTU midi interfaces, and one has served me well and the other one has been nothing but problems getting it to do what it was suppose to do. My interfaces are older parelel port MOTU's but to me this shouldn't matter. A midi interface to me is a piece of hardware I should need to buy once and it should work until it physically dies.

My setup goes like this and here's some of the problems I've experienced over the years.

PC#1 Win98se exclusively running my midi sequencer, with a MOTU Micro Express 4x6 with smpte I/O interface. This one has worked pretty well for me.

PC#2 WinXP running Vegas,and Acid with a MOTU Pocket Express 2x2 with smpte I/O. This one has caused me unreliable results for the purpose I purchased this interface for. I mainly got this Midi interface to send and receive MTC to my external hardware and when Vegas sprouted external hardware control, I would use this as my interface for Vegas and midi external controler.

Here's a few of the problems I have ran into.
1. Sending MTC to my Yamaha mixer from Vegas, so that I can do automated mixing with my external mixer chasing to MTC. My Yamaha mixer can not translate the MTC data it's receiving.
Work around: I send MTC out of the Pocket Express 2x2 to the Micro Express 4x6. I have to have my external sequencer up and running where I have it receive the external MTC and then regenerate it out a port on the Micro Express and now my Yamaha mixer can read the MTC coming from the Micro Express. If I directly move the Micro Express to my WinXP machine and use this with Vegas/Acid, my Yamaha mixer has no problems reading the MTC from the Micro Express.

2. I use to use the Pocket express when running Win98se on PC#2, and used this device to do midi bulk dumps to and from my TC Finalizer to my midi sequencer for backing up mastering project data. In doing this process, I found I could save a Maximum of 4 user presets on the TC Finalizer. If I tried to make 5 user presets during transfering the data back to the Finalizer, there is a problem where the Pocket Express can't shovel out the data back to the Finalizer and I can't restore the presets to the Finalizer. Work around: I master 3 songs, dump this to midi sequencer track. Do a dump back to the Finalizer of the initial setting in the Finalizer. Master 3 more songs, record this as a bulk dump on a seperate midi track.

3. I have a Tascam DA-88 with a sync card. Again using this inteface, it was to send the DA-88 MTC, so the DA-88 could chase to that, so I could layoff tracks from the DA-88 to Vegas. The DA-88 can not translate the MTC being received from the Pocket Express. Work around: The pocket express can translate the MTC coming from the DA-88, so I have Vegas chase the MTC coming from the DA-88.

4. Using the Pocket Express as an interface between Vegas and my Yamaha mixer, to use the mixer to control faders in Vegas. Regularly, the midi interface locks up, when receiving too much data, while I'm doing simple fader adjustments in Vegas. Work around: Don't use that feature in Vegas that I've been asking for, for the past 3 releases.

5. Like JR mentioned MOTU is a MAC based company first and PC support seems to be a pain in their rear. Before WinXP was released, I had tried to upgrade to Win2K to run Vegas and Acid on that. I couldn't move to Win2K because MOTU never released a driver for these midi interfaces for the total life span of Win2K. It wasn't until WinXP was released that they finally released a new driver, while during that time they never missed a MAC OS driver release and those drivers where always developed first before the PC. Work around: Skip using Win2k with my music setup PC's

6. I contacted MOTU tech support several times regarding these issues and also expressed my discontent with them for not making a Win2k driver release available. It was on the 7th attempt where I finally got a reply back because my tone was rather rude at this point in my messages. The reply back I got was, "Yeah...well we don't make Linux drivers either and we can't support every OS out there." and "Have you contacted Yamaha, and Tascam regarding their problems?" Workaround: Never buy another MOTU midi interace again, and share with as many people as I can the pains I've been going through with their devices.

<Edited added additional problems>
7. When using Acid 4.0, everytime I would hit the Stop button or minimize/Maximize Acid, it would send midi out that would turn off Channel 1 on my Yamaha mixer. Now with Acid 5 it no longer does it when I hit the stop button, but still does it when I minimize/maximize the Acid window.
Work around: disable the midi port in Acid connected from that interface to my mixer

8. Everytime I turn off my PC and then restart it the next time. The Pocket Express will start up in a "Stripe Smpte" state, where it's spouting midi data from the smpte time code being generated. Work around: Remember to hit the "Stripe" button on the Pocket Express to stop the Smpte being generated, everytime I start up my PC.

Other than that, yeah they might be some good devices. It could just be my 3 external hardware devices, made by 3 different manufactures (Yamaha, Tascam, and TC electronics) or Acid or my Studio Sequencer that is the problem. Well at least if you ask MOTU, that's what they'll tell you.