Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Let me know if you find anything, a friend of mine is in the same quandry 
with his Opcode interfaces...

rEalm





"Andre Lewis" <andrel@...>
05/21/02 11:09 AM
Please respond to xl7

 
        To:     "Xl7@Yahoogroups. Com" <xl7@yahoogroups.com>
        cc: 
        Subject:        [xl7] [OT] Midi Merging


Anyone know of a decent midi patchbay?  I have two Opcode patchbays but 
they
aren't exceptionally usefull now that they aren't supported and I can't 
get
drivers that work with my computer.  That means I don't get multiple 
output
ports from my computer.  I want to replace them but they do have a few 
very
usefull features that I would like to replace:

Selectively filter:  Filter out any kind of midi message and reroute that 
to
another port.  This is usefull if I have one device setting the midi 
clock, and
all the other devices sync'ed to it, but don't want the midi note on/off
messages or anything else.  I can filter out sysex, timecode, note on/off.

Bump channels:  I can set the port to bump a channel coming in on 1 to 
channel 2
or whatever.

Work Offline exactly the same way as online:  I had a Midisport 8x8 and 
was not
impressed.  Other than the lack of filtering it also wouldn't allow you to 
keep
your offline patch setup at the same time you were using your computer. 
You had
to disable the USB on the front.  Pretty weak.  They said it was simply 
not
something they were used to doing.  For instance with my Opcode I used to 
be
able to treat the 8 ins and 8 outs as if they were all independant midi 
devices
and set filtering , and routing to each.  When online the computer would 
get
whatever was routed to it's ports and the other ports would only get what 
was
routed to them.

Multiple configurations:  Easy switching of configurations when not hooked 
to
the computer.

The other thing to note was the power management on the Midisport.  I 
fried mine
since the USB port on it supplies power, as well as the wall wart it comes 
with.
When the unit wasn't shut off properly (someone tripped over the power 
cord or
the clubs circuit breaker went) if the computer was on a UPS then the unit 
still
got voltage supplied on the USB port apparently causing the main chip to 
fry.
They were kind enough to replace it quickly but it was still something 
which is
likely to happen.

Anyway I was also trying to track down a product I think is only available 
in
the UK:

Philip Rees Little 2M Midi Merge.
http://www.philrees.co.uk/products/mergebox.htm

Anyone know if these are distributed in the US?

Thanks for checking this out, this has been pretty painful ever since 
Opcode was
bought by Gibson.

Andre Lewis





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