[sdiy] MIDI + Ethernet

[Paul Higgins]

On Thursday, July 8, 2004, at 11:59 PM, Colin Hinz wrote:

> Looking at the specs on M-Audio's website, it's not surprising it
> doesn't have MIDI. This card, like (virtually?) everything marketed
> to the comsumer market, is designed to be primarily a "multimedia
> entertainment" playback device.

Well, the "Revolution 7.1" is kind of a joke when it comes to pro audio 
specs/features, but it's "good enough" when it comes to software synths 
and monitoring non-critical edits, which is all I'd be using it for.  I 
have a very professional MOTU setup for recording, but using that to 
run virtual synth stuff is complete overkill, not to mention it takes 
up resources from the recording side of things.  So that's why I'm 
looking at pretty inexpensive sound cards; I already broke the bank on 
the HD recording stuff, and I'm about to break it again on a new G5!  : 
)

Actually, the more professional end of M-Audio's product line starts at 
a price not that much higher than the "Revolution", so that's probably 
what I'll go with.  Thanks for the tip on M-Audio and Linux.  There are 
some really interesting things available in Linux that DIY people would 
probably enjoy.  There's also a pretty good book called (I think) 
"Making Music with Linux" (from No Starch Press) and the author has a 
decent website, too.

> Good grief, S/PDIF output but no input? Unbalanced analog over
> stereo minijacks? That's definitely in soundblaster territory.

Even a lot of the dirt-cheap PC soundcards have MIDI connectors, so I'm 
not quite sure why M-Audio omitted it on the "Revolution".  Minijacks 
are the norm with a lot of that stuff too, or even (shudder) RCA jacks. 
  Even on the more pricey stuff, believe it or not.

>> So far, I've been using an ST Audio "Media 7.1", which is great but a
>> little expensive when you're talking about running two or three in a
>> system.
>
> Not bad, not bad. The RIAA preamp is a nice touch.

I recommend the "Media 7.1" to anyone who doesn't need all the overkill 
features of the MOTU stuff.  I happen to have some ADATs hanging 
around, so the MOTU system was perfect for me (although not cheap), but 
I actually use the ST card more.  I must say the RIAA preamp has been 
pretty helpful; I've lately been doing a lot of restoring of old LPs.

> About the only room for improvement would be to move the A/D and D/A
> conversions *outside* of the damn-noisy PC enclosure.......

In fact, that's exactly what the "Media 7.1" does.

-PRH

Paul Higgins
email: higg0008 at tc.umn.edu