Hi Tom,
>Here we go- spend some MORE money hahahahaha!!!- There's a really interesting
>article with Howie B in this month's "Sound On Sound" magazine- exemplifiying
>this very point! (and If I had a spare 10 Grand- I too would go out and buy 2
>Notrons,
>2 Nord lead 3's and a Mackie 24 channel desk!!). It's also highly irritating
>that in
>a way we have (as musicians) become the beta-testers for the latest computer
>hardware. There ARE good people around (like Digital Village here in
>Birmingham),
>who will loan you out the stuff to test before you buy- but it is rare.
I recognize your dilemma, and I'm not saying that you should go out and spend a lot of money. I'm just saying that there is a downside to selecting the lower-cost alternative. I'm an engineer, and I do this all the time -- and I spend a lot of time and effort getting things to work, sometimes! Typically, the lower-cost devices are tested less; and they use lower-cost components, which may seem to meet the needs of the design, but might have subtle differences from the originals.
If you look at the problem from a computer (or software) designer's point of view, when trying to "test everything" related to computers and music:
1 computer * 40 apps/variants * 20 MIDI interfaces * 50 synths/modules * 1 hr. testing
= 40,000 hours!!!
No one can afford that, and the boredom that would come from repeating the same test over and over would lead to missing some things, anyway -- like your shipping deadline! ;^) Now factor in an out-of-production synth (the Annie), an interface that has at least some report of issues (the MIDIman), and I practically guarantee that the developer has NOT tested your setup.
If you want to be certain that your setup has been tested, then only use "industry standard" devices -- which unfortunately, doesn't include the AN1x. (We're a very loyal -- but rather small -- niche group, IMHO.) If you want to save money or vary from the "average" user, fine, but recognize that you may well have some difficulties along the way.
The "musician as beta tester" dilemma is real, but it's also part of the proliferation of cheap, high-power musical electronics -- sort of a Yin/Yang relationship. Today, my PC + AN1x + S4 + software is more powerful than a Fairlight CMS III, at a fraction of the cost. The good thing about the Fairlight was that it just sort of WORKED; the bad thing was that it cost more than a healthy down payment on a house! In the US today, average engineering time is probably $60-70/hour, and even if we drop back testing to a "practical" 3,000 hours, that's $180K-210K. You have to sell a lot of product to cover that cost, or sell the product at Fairlight/Synclavier prices. The alternative is to test only certain "mainstream" configurations, and live with the fallout.
You were asking for a low-cost, yet reliable, MIDI interface. [I don't sell computer interfaces, BTW. :^( ] Notice that you want it reliable, yet want not to pay a lot for it. I'm not trying to belittle you: Your financial situation is legitimate, and you're not even alone. It's just that nothing is free, so tradeoffs between cost and performance are made every day. Let's say that I decide to make my own MIDI module. I plan to market it on my own, so I think I can build it for $375, and sell it for $500 -- a nice profit, right? OK, now I start testing it and find that it has a couple of problems with certain MOTU interfaces, and I need to add $75 worth of fixes to the design, plus spend and extra 400 hours working on and testing it -- there goes my profit. I could still sell them, but at $50/unit, unless I can build them in 10 minutes each, and sell a bunch of them, I'd probably be better off doing something else. I could raise the price to $600, but my market research
shows that $500 is a "sweet spot" for my potential customers, and I'm only going to sell half as many units if I raise the price. So, I've either got to release a product that has issues with some MOTU gear, or take a risk on selling an over-priced product. Either way, I'm going to piss off some potential customers.
Regards,
-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions\ufffd http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@...
