I have used a few basic MIDI Thru boxes over the years and wondering (looking at my desks spare rack space!) that maybe I should grab a MIDI interface / router etc wire everything up and be done with it all.
I have lots of DIN MIDI and USB MIDI devices with usual synths / drums machines as well as
A few Keyboard Midi controllers
Multiple sequencers (a lot more if including Elektron eg Octatrack)
Multiclock for DAW sync
I have been unplugging / plugging different keyboards and sequencers etc depending on mood and now wondering if I would benefit from a MioXL.
I like the idea of the preset aspect where for instance I presume I could have the Hapax for one preset / Oxi or Octatrack as main sequencer for another or if possible have dual sequencers on another preset controlling specific hardware each to experiment and have benefit of different sequencer styles combined. Also presume I could choose what devices get sent to my Multiclock and make presets with that also
Anyhow would love to hear any experiences or examples from fellow Elektronauts as guess there will be some downsides - slow, buggy, crap software etc. Also not sure if the USB MIDI can power things like the M8 / Launchpads / TE devices.
You can power with USB and midi over the same cable, convenient for controllers, however I did run into ground hum issues if those devices do audio as well.
I don’t have a MioXL but have thought about getting one to replace my MOTU MIDI Express 128. The reason I haven’t done this yet is that the MOTU is very straight forward - 8 INs and 8 OUTs, USB powered, small and light and serves my needs at the moment.
I will say that a rackmount MIDI patchbay like this has been a great investment. I have been able to connect pretty well all of my gear, and because my use-cases are pretty basic, I can have any keyboard play any synth, or have my Digitakt or Ableton Live sequence any machine. I also have MIDI connected to things like delay pedals that can sync to MIDI.
You would probably find a lot of value in the Mio XL.
Many thanks! Yes - I have quite a few bits of hardware capable of controlling others but never get around to using it that way due to having to reconfigure MIDI cables etc and crawling behind things to do this doesnt motivate me to try
I have the MioXM and am very pleased with it. I just learned how to use the presets and it has been a godsend. Preset one is for my Maschine+ to control the whole setup and Preset 2 is for the Digitone II to control the setup. My favorite part is being able to have almost all of my non Elektron kit in one DIN, then each of the other three DINs connected to each Digi box for their respective midi channels.
Ah cool. Thats the kind of thing I was looking at. Presume you could also have a preset of each sequencer controlling diff hardware at the same time if you wished etc
I guess the other good thing is not relying on the DAW to route USB keyboards to hardware for DAW-less jamming / play and when using the DAW it would all MIDI be configured under one MIDI device (with its channels) instead of separate hardware
Exactly. I don’t really use my computer until after I have got the song written, then I go in to the DAW. So not even having to turn the computer on is great.
The USB ports power most of my kit (I wish there as more on the front), and then route MIDI from them across my devices. Hapax, OXI E16, Tonverk and the Nome II are USB connected - the “virtual cable” of the Hapax is amazing since v3.
Everything else is DIN MIDI connected and can be filtered/routed in the same way as USB. One of the major upsides in this setup has been making multisampling in the Tonverk simple to route to particular equipment without rewiring. I’m not using RTP MIDI, but it looks to be as simple as USB or DIN MIDI is to use.
I have a few different presets, that allow me to change whats clocked by what (eg Hapax or a Nome II) and how that clock is routed. And most importantly, to then filter clock on ports that would result in a MIDI loop. In particular, having the Nome II as a master clock helps integrate this sloppy TR-1000 better
The Auracle app for mapping the connectivity is super simple to use too.
I have the Oxi, Hapax, and OT for sequencing duties as well as Launchpad and Oxi16! Hapax not arrived yet - the visual cables appear in the MioXL and not just the DAW?
users of WebMIDI in a software i created reported issues with iConnectivity devices i’d still like to get to the bottom of.
any users report/notice any issues when using webmidi?
I have it, it is currently packed up but I am going to do a full reset when I move and set up again. I do have a Hapax and a Nome connected to mine. The Nome is the main clock that routes to the Hapax and the hapax sends that clock to all my gear. Or I just work on the hapax and use start stop on it to send its clock to everything until I need the DAW.
Cool things are : USB midi synths come in as their own connection so I can use a Minitaur sequenced by Hapax but also can open the Minitaur plugin if I want to dial in a sound more. The hapax USB can use a lot less cables because of the new firmware that allows for 16 seperate virtual midi cables, like a cirklon does.
Bad things are : it’s easy to screw things up in this setup and have MIDI loops. I had MIDI loops to my minitaur and I could not figure it out. So I am going to haver to start from scratch and make sure I filter everything properly. It is a pain in the ass.
I typically don’t sequence my drum machines with hapax and just send them clock. So again, that can be a tricky thing since I will have multiple drum machines connected in my studio so I can patch in different ones on the fly. If a MIDI note hits a drum machine, it can be super annoying to track down what is causing a random rim shot…etc. I was working around this a little by using a DIN out to a MIDI splitter to feed all my drum machines only start/stop and sync clock from hapax. There is probably a better way to do this just using Hapax, but again, it can get real complicated very quickly.
Some synths like the Virus will benefit from all 16 channels so you need to be able to dedicate all of that just to one synth. This is not a problem, but you want to map your studio out properly so you don’t have a ton of cables running around.
Which leads me to the last part - the MIO has a DAW USB connection that you will use to connect your DAW to the MIO. This lets you play software synths or your hardware with the same MIDI controllers, and many other cool things. But you will want to plan out where you put the Mio again, so you don’t have a bunch of cable runs going everywhere. Ideally you want to rack your Mio near your gear and then use MIDI snakes to have a clean setup that feeds everything.
Point is, you really need to take time and plan things out to optimize the MIO and not have a bunch of wires running everywhere and/or MIDI feedback loops.
I should be ok on cable runs as most my gear is in a Jaspers and that is next to my desk on the same side as the desk rack where the mioXL will live. I will use the front MIDI inputs for any desk hardware.
The Hapax should arrive next week and glad to hear about the virtual cables - will help cut down on cabling. Like yourself I plan to feed it MIDI clock when syncing to a DAW and prob omit it when song building or jamming
Myset up with mioXL is simple but effective in my studio. I would recommend to anyone with enough hardware and sequencer to make it worth.
I have my Ableton sending clock to Sim’n Tonic which feed my mioXL. The clock is then distributed to my Cirklon & Torso T-1 from which I will sequence all my remaining synths and modular.
I connected all my in & outs midi from my synths, including usb slots and everything is now in relationship.
Standalone interface is extremely easy to configure once you named all your in & outs.
As someone mentioned earlier, be careful of midi loops but you should be able to figure it out easily.
It’s a time saver once everything is connected and save you loads of headache and messy cable management.
I wish I could find a cheap digitally controlled version for audio instead of a patch bay, similar to this piece of gear.
Do you sometimes use both sequencers at once (Cirk and Torso!?)
Yeah I did have the Flock Patch a few years back which I guess is the audio equivalent. I didnt like it as it depended on the software / Computer running at the time and the fan was noisy. Not sure if thats still the case with updates. Anyhow crazy expensive
I’ve had the xl for a couple years now and it’s been worth it. Felt like overkill at first, but once my routing got more complicated the features really started coming in clutch.
One of the coolest parts is I connect the xl to my laptop via ethernet, so the usb host port stays open for a friend. We can both control my gear at the same time from separate laptops. Yesterday my friend was sequencing 2 synths while I was automating the filter cutoff on those same synths lol.
The filtering/remapping is super useful too. My drum machine only receives cc on a specific channel, but the way my ext seq is set up, I can’t send cc’s to just one channel, so I used the xl to remap the cc’s to the correct channel. Worked perfectly.
Auracle confused the hell out of me at first though lol. I was deff creating midi loops by accident until I slowly started understanding MIDI better.
