CopperLan
For anyone trying to connect external MIDI gear – and tighten up timing & sync – give CopperLan a shot. I'm finding success with it so far, and am surprised at the lack of info online. A quick search of SoundonSound magazine reveals literally no articles on the subject despite being in development since 2010.
CopperLan is kind of like Logic's MIDI Environment but hosted outside of the DAW (where it should be, to be honest) so your real-world MIDI routing and studio configuration can be re-used with any software / hardware; in fact any computer on your local network, guest laptops can hop on and use your MIDI setup etc. etc. with literally no configuring and almost-zero latency. Very cool.
The biggest plus point for me is sending MIDI (and CV/Gate and eventually audio, apparently?) over ethernet infrastructure without the jitter or lag of USB-to-MIDI interfaces. This performance requires CopperLan enabled hardware such as the Alyseum AL-88c and MS-812.
The only direct competitor to CopperLan – apart from the long awaited MIDI-HD which arrives ... soon? – are solutions offered by Expert Sleepers (makers of the most excellent Silent Way DAW to CV/Gate plug-in) but as the ES stuff relies on DAW hosted plug-ins and ties up audio interface outputs I personally found this an imperfect solution to my particular MIDI needs. CopperLan seems ... neater.
Check out the free CopperLan Manager software / environment at the following link and have a poke ... http://www.copperlan.org
p.s: if you like technical articles – words! – alongside the videos here, let me know one way or another. I’m not going to write for the sake of writing, just now & again where there is something that might be useful for readers. D