On Friday 10 September 2004 02:07 pm, Martijn Sipkema wrote: > > 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
"Especially bad" is still pretty vague. What might look bad on paper might be acceptable in context... > the same USB bus, as is the case with combined audio/midi interfaces. > Perhaps, but midi takes a lot less bandwidth than audio so how much worse could it get? It sounds like it wouldn't be a problem if you were overdubbing, but potentially in a live recording/performance if you are using the audio ins for a vocal mic or whatnot. > 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
