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MIDI to USB cables all the same?


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I see MIDI to USB cables for $8-$15 on Amazon. But they are $40 on Sweetwater. Aren't they basically simple cables that all render the same latency? Of course some would have a sturdier construction than others.

 

("With 2 different MIDI interfaces (EMU 1X1 and Iconnectivity MIDI4+), produces the following result : 5 ms latency. Probably due to the USB/MIDI Conversion.. But this latency is reduced to 1 ms when using the internal routing of the interface (Iconnectivity) between its various MIDI DIN plugs." ) ......??? what does it mean???

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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"In summary :

MIDI DIN and MIDI USB have exactly the same latency.

But a conversion from one format to another will add a few ms (3 ms in my test)

The best thing you can do is to plug in all MIDI DIN or all USB MIDI."

 

https://keyboardwaves.com/midi-din-vs-midi-usb-latency-test/

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Thanks for this. I've been considering hooking my Akai MPK25 to the Presonus Quantum via the MIDI DIN cable simply because I have limited USB ports on my Macbook Pro and haven't loved my experience with USB hubs. When I eliminate all USB except a mouse I get no crashes on my Thunderbolt network. Too lazy to figure that one out if I have a workaround.
It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I know you're asking about latency, @Jazz+ but just a reminder here to also check that whichever one you get works for the computer or tablet that you intend to connect it to. Some are not iOS compatible and some only work with only certain versions of the computer or tablet's OS. I suspect I'm not the only one who has made that mistake. :eek:
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They are not "simple cables," the MIDI signals have to be converted to USB signals (entirely different protocols, including the fact that MIDI is parallel and USB is serial). Some people have reported problems with the generic non-branded ones, others have found them to be fine. The M-Audio Uno has issues with some Yamaha keyboards, so I guess that's evidence that they're not all identical. You could try a cheap one from a place with good return policy, and see if it works fine for you... and if it doesn't, get a Roland or iConnectivity for $40.

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They are not "simple cables," the MIDI signals have to be converted to USB signals (entirely different protocols, including the fact that MIDI is parallel and USB is serial). Some people have reported problems with the generic non-branded ones, others have found them to be fine. The M-Audio Uno has issues with some Yamaha keyboards, so I guess that's evidence that they're not all identical. You could try a cheap one from a place with good return policy, and see if it works fine for you... and if it doesn't, get a Roland or iConnectivity for $40.

 

They are both serial:

 

MIDI is a very slow serial interface 31K bits per second, USB 2 is a very fast serial interface 480Mbits / sec

 

I bought a cheap MIDI USB cable couple of years back. It was poor and could only handle simple Note On/Off messages. Anything else like pitch bend caused notes to drop out etc. Do the job properly with something like ICM2 - very powerful and reliable box.

 

 

 

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Not sure what happened today but I tried a USB cable I found in my desk (probably previously used for a printer) to connect my Kurz board to my V3 piano module and three songs into my set it stopped transmitting any data. Don't know if it's a bad cable but I think I'm going to stick with standard MIDI cables for right now, never had issues with those ever.

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