> On Fri, 2004-09-10 at 07:49, Martijn Sipkema wrote: > > >> [...] the USB specification. And it even appears like some vendors > > >> are (finally!) starting to follow suit: > > >> > > >> http://midiman.com/products/en_us/KeystationPro88-main.html > > >> > > >> - "USB class compliant-no drivers required for > > >> Windows XP or Mac OS X" > > > > > > M-Audio started following suit only after they hung their engineers > > > with a USB cable and bought Evolution who had always made > > > class-compliant devices. > > > > The problem here is that class compliant devices suffer bad timing > > because they use bulk transfers for MIDI data. The standard for > > MIDI over FireWire is much better. > > Hmm.. I'm just about to drop $400 on a USB MIDI interface (Edirol > UM-880), so that's not something I want to hear! > > Is the timing really that bad? I don't even think a firewire 8x8 > rackmount MIDI interface exists, so my options are kinda limited. :/
Timing is especially bad when there is other data being transferred on the same USB bus, as is the case with combined audio/midi interfaces. There are several USB interfaces that don't use the standard MIDI-over-USB protocol, but I don't think information about these protocols is available. Perhaps there are interfaces that support both the standard protocol and one with better timing... --ms
