Proposition: Desktop Modules should have audio and midi over USB.

[Phil Aiken]

Whereas.....

It is by now fairly common to have usb audio/midi on stage pianos and work stations. And if you are using something else, something like a Radial Key Largo basically gives you that capability. I love using my Yamaha YC88 with my laptop running MainStage. A single USB cable and the audio comes out of the Yamaha. 

But what I would REALLY love is to bring, say, my Prophet 10 desktop, connect with a single USB cable and do the same thing.  I think the Iridium has that capability. 

Yeah, it's only one extra cable - midi to the module, and audio out of the module. But it is nice to have master volume in the same place, nice to not eat an extra amp or mixer input, etc.

 

On the flip side - keyboards that have that capability should allow the USB audio access to any onboard effects. There are some that do, but nothing I own does.

 

If I were producing the album, this is how things would be.

 

Thank you for listening, and for just being you.

 

 

[Baldwin Funster]

Make it so, Number One....

[BenWaB3]

2 hours ago, Phil Aiken said:

 

 

On the flip side - keyboards that have that capability should allow the USB audio access to any onboard effects. There are some that do, but nothing I own does.

 

If I were producing the album, this is how things would be.

 

 

 

 

The Korg Nautilus will do this. Probably a lot of other brands will as well but the Korg is the only one I have a working knowledge of.

[Garubi]

The Gemini acts as USB host, but only for MIDI, not for the audio part

[Motif88]

and yet, at $5600, the Nord Stage 4 88 still doesn’t have a built in audio interface.

[Phil Aiken]

32 minutes ago, Motif88 said:

and yet, at $5600, the Nord Stage 4 88 still doesn’t have a built in audio interface.

That, even though they DID include the ability to control an external instrument from the synth section. How cool would it be to bring the audio in and have it present in the FX section? 

[Stokely]

I'm not sure it's all that common still.  Or at least, it doesn't seem like a lot of keyboards have a class compliant audio/midi interface that will reliably work with non-computer devices.   The Key Largo's isn't class compliant and I've read that it works with such devices for some people and not for others.   Yamaha puts interfaces in (I gigged a bunch of times with my ipad supplying my b3 organ), Studiologic does...not sure if there are any others.   Roland Fantom's doesn't do audio, or doesn't for outside devices (it may for its own, which isn't of interest to me).   Proving Yamaha still has its quirks, my Modx had the annoying setting where you had to choose usb vs midi for midi transmit...wtf.

I realize the OP is a bit different from what I'm talking about, as they mentioned desktop synths, but the idea is the same.  An Ipad makes for a killer "module" considering the quality of some of the apps, and is so much easier to deal with than a laptop (my ipad velcroed flat to the angled top of my Modx like a larger, second screen).

I'm no programmer (other than sql for databases!) but I imagine the challenge is that every different tabletop device would need to have an OS that the interface could talk to, and the whole deal would need to be a standard (class compliant).  In other words, I think there'd be more to do by those individual device makers than the keyboards accepting usb, but that's an ignorant guess.

[Theo Verelst]

There is a sync and standards problem, either there is one system-wide audio reference clock, which is driving the audio clock rate of all the digital audio machines/software products, or there is a need for clock conversion between the independently clocked modules. That latter isn't good for quality, unless the setup is pro and accurate.

 

When you also have AD conversion, the clock for that must be very accurate (or everything will sound iffy), and such ADC clock coming through a usb cable isn't really an option because it won't be like a sync connector and a steady electronic signal, but a protocol stack, which is unacceptable for high accuracy solutions.

 

TV

 

 

[AnotherScott]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:51 PM, Phil Aiken said:

I love using my Yamaha YC88 with my laptop running MainStage. A single USB cable and the audio comes out of the Yamaha. 

But what I would REALLY love is to bring, say, my Prophet 10 desktop, connect with a single USB cable and do the same thing.

At first, I thought you wanted to connect the Prophet to the laptop, but you mean you'd want to connect the YC88 to the Prophet, right?

 

22 hours ago, Stokely said:

Yamaha puts interfaces in (I gigged a bunch of times with my ipad supplying my b3 organ), Studiologic does...not sure if there are any others.   Roland Fantom's doesn't do audio, or doesn't for outside devices (it may for its own, which isn't of interest to me).

AFAIK, Fantom works the same way as Yamaha and Studiologic here... except only with Mac/Windows (as opposed to the others which are Mac/Windows/iOS). (It's because Fantom requires custom drivers, and iOS does not support that.)

 

22 hours ago, Stokely said:

I realize the OP is a bit different from what I'm talking about, as they mentioned desktop synths, but the idea is the same.  An Ipad makes for a killer "module"

I think the idea isn't actually the same, if I'm understanding the OP correctly. I think we're conflating two things...

 

... (a) the ability of a keyboard to send/receive audio and MIDI over USB, and

... (b) the ability of a keyboard to act as a USB host.

 

The first is what you need for using an iPad as a module, or running Mainstage. The iPad or the Mac function as the host. But to connect one device directly to another over USB (the YC88-to-Prophet module example), one of the two items being connected needs to function as a host, whether for just MIDI (which some boards from Yamaha and others can do at least to some extent, but I don't think the YC does), or for audio as well as MIDI (which I don't think any keyboard does?).

 

 

[D. Gauss]

before we get to modules, If we could just get casio to do it in their keyboards, i'd be happy. Yamaha has been doing it for years now, come on Casio, wake up.

[niacin]

The Dexibell SX7/8 does audio and midi over usb, as does Roland's Integra 7.  Roland's SH-01a, a digital clone, has audio over usb but the Toraiz AS-1, basically an analog single voice Prophet made by Dave Smith in association with Pioneer, has only midi over usb and no audio.  I don't know of any analog boards, such as your Prophet, that send audio over usb.  And then there's the issue AnotherScott raises above.

[Phil Aiken]

18 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

At first, I thought you wanted to connect the Prophet to the laptop, but you mean you'd want to connect the YC88 to the Prophet, right?

 

AFAIK, Fantom works the same way as Yamaha and Studiologic here... except only with Mac/Windows (as opposed to the others which are Mac/Windows/iOS). (It's because Fantom requires custom drivers, and iOS does not support that.)

 

I think the idea isn't actually the same, if I'm understanding the OP correctly. I think we're conflating two things...

 

... (a) the ability of a keyboard to send/receive audio and MIDI over USB, and

... (b) the ability of a keyboard to act as a USB host.

 

The first is what you need for using an iPad as a module, or running Mainstage. The iPad or the Mac function as the host. But to connect one device directly to another over USB (the YC88-to-Prophet module example), one of the two items being connected needs to function as a host, whether for just MIDI (which some boards from Yamaha and others can do at least to some extent, but I don't think the YC does), or for audio as well as MIDI (which I don't think any keyboard does?).

 

 

Yes - you have it right. It would be swell if modules could function as host the way a laptop/iPad does so I could plug one USB cable from YC88 to Prophet.  Yamaha, Roland, and StudioLogic at least all make stage pianos with audio/midi interfaces as mentioned in item a) above, so that you need only plug one USB from keyboard to computer to get the audio at the keyboard outs. No need for an external interface. I was waxing rhapsodic about being able to replace the computer with a desktop module. Anybody who uses a desktop module by definition is driving it from either another keyboard or sequencer. It would be a handy feature to have. I understand there would be challenges involved, and that it is not a horrible inconvenience and some cases even preferable to simply take the audio from the module. It was a "wouldn't it be nice" post. 
Agreed with a post above that an iPad makes for a great module, and it works now.  Now that there is Logic for iPad, perhaps MainStage for iPad is on the horizon.

[Dr Mike Metlay]

As a heavy iOS user, both live and in the studio, I very much favor this. My setup works, but the whole need for a USB hub is kind of a pain.