When you have a good amount of gear that use MIDI you start to have a hard time finding a MIDI-to-USB solution that is capable of handling everything.
For a long time i used only MIDI chains, you know, from Audio Card MIDI Out to First Keyboard MIDI In then from that keyboard MIDI Thru to the next keyboard In and so on.
This solution is not optimal, specially if you, like me, like to organize patch libraries, backups, and such.
Modern gear will have USB for this, but i do not even like the idea of a single keyboard or sound module to take one of my USB ports, there´s also the fact that 75% of my gear does not have USB (they call it “old” i think, but guess what i still love that gear). There´s even another weird fact, sometimes when i have a keyboard USB connected to my laptop and it´s Audio Outs to my Firewire card there´s some “ground loop” noise going on, it goes away if i disconnect the USB, never even lost time trying to figure this out, i just rather use MIDI.
One of my favorite apps to organize my different Synth patches/setups/settings is Midiquest Pro, it just works, i can upload and download all my patches from all my gear, i use it with my JV2080, Korg03RW, Nord Lead, Novation Nova, and so on… it works and it´s easy, just how i like it.
The thing with uploading and downloading stuff using MIDI is it needs MIDI in Both ways, In and Out, so if you like to always have everything ready you will need something like a Midi Patchbay or a Midi USB interface.
And let me tell you, if you have all your devices connected to your DAW using MIDI IN and OUT you can do a lot of fun using your DAW for routing, adding patchchanges to your projects, sending sysex stuff, it´s a world of geekness that opens up.
So I WANT A MIDI USB Interface!
Here comes the problem, i started looking at the prices and i was a bit disappointed, hardware wise i know pretty much what´s inside, the components for this are UBBER CHEAP. So why would i want to pay 450€ for 8 MIDI IN / OUT ports?
So lets look at the cheap stuff, maybe it works right? Well guess what it does, wonderfully….
MIDITECH Midiface 4×4 costs 49€ each! Yeah you guessed it, you buy two and you get 8 ports for less then 100€, nothing beats this price!
Ok i will need two usb ports instead of one but HEY! i can live with that…
Also it looks decent, its not a plastic piece, it´s actually a full metal body, there´s leds flashing all over and it works!!
Spent a great deal of time using it with Midiquest and Midi-OX had no problem working with both at the same time with Windows 8.1 Pro x64. Just plugged both, did the basic software configuration (routings from Midiquest to all my devices) and voilá!
Let me point out that i am not in any way endorsed by or affiliated with Miditech or anyone who sells this product, i´m just writing this because i had it for some months now and i have to recommend it.
But wait, in the topic title it says “+ some tricks”, why is that??
Well, although this product seems to work fine when using two units at the same time – MidiQuest (main reason to buy this)/Midi-OX/Most of my Standalone Software Synths/Almost all Virtual Midi Routing software, all run perfect with two units at the same time, even most of the DAWs i tested work fine with two units, there´s just one that does NOT. One DAW that is important to me can not handle two units at the same time… Cakewalk SONAR X3 my nº1 Software for Music Production… how lucky am i right???
So what´s the problem with SONAR? Well this unit is one of those USB Compliant / Driver-less thingies, and when using two units at the same time, SONAR gets confused and can not differentiate one from another.
At this time i thought to myself “well since both units will generate the same midi devices names Sonar must be basing it´s MIDI drive detection only on MIDI ports name”… basically when you plug a USB compliant unit Windows will get it´s name and capabilities from the usb unit, both generate same device name and same MIDI ports name, that´s the problem right? I thought so…
So what can be done? I found another hardware maker with same problem and with a easy solution, they released a firmware update that changes the name of the second unit. So i contacted MIDITECH to see if they have a firmware update, they were very kind and fast to reply, unfortunately with bad news, the firmware chip can not be flashed. Even if they sent me the firmware so i could mod it i would have to get a firmware chip and a chip burner to flash it… i then thought “oh that´s a whole lot of NOP, ain´t nobody got time for that”.
At this point i thought that a easy solution would be to just edit Windows Registry and change one of the units name, but the thing is, you can change the name it shows in Device Manager (friendly name) but you can´t change the names of the MIDI ports each unit creates, to my understanding for SONAR to work i would have to change the MIDI IN/OUT ports name which is impossible since they are fetched from the unit, so it would have to be a firmware mod, this was my initial thought…
Well i was wrong. Simply changing the device friendly name in Registry is ENOUGH for Sonar to Work.
So here´s my device manager:
This works, makes no sense to me, but works! If you happen to need to change a device name here´s how you do it:
http://www.eightforums.com/customization/15321-tutorial-how-change-device-names-device-manager.html
There´s a lot of permissions and “take ownership” stuff in that guide which is not actually correct, so if you get permission denied just follow this guide:
http://www.askvg.com/guide-how-to-take-ownership-permission-of-a-registry-key-in-windows/
Also the changes should stick, but i would advice to always connect the units in the same USB ports.
Oh there´s also another solution for this, but its late, im tired, so won´t write much about it, basically is using a Virtual Midi Routing software, there´s plenty out there.
Basically if this virtual MIDI routers can identify both Miditech units you just have to create 8 virtual MIDI ports and map them to the MIDITECH ports, then in SONAR you would only use the vitual ports.
If you find this solution better for you, here´s some that i tested and i can confirm that works:
-You can create virtual MIDI devices with LoopBe and then do the routing with MIDIOX
If you have more ideas please share by adding your comment bellow! Going to sleep now, bye bye!
Miditech Midiface 4×4 + some tricks When you have a good amount of gear that use MIDI you start to have a hard time finding a MIDI-to-USB solution that is capable of handling everything.
