On Tuesday 13 February 2018 16:00:20 Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > Does anyone have a MIDI-to-USB adapter they could recommend for Debian > and/or linux? > This is just for a point-to-point connection from a Yamaha keyboard to > a laptop. Software on the laptop remains undetermined, probably some > combination of Rhythmbox, CSound, Supercollider and god knows what > else. Thanks......Nick
There may be such a critter, but expect to pay thru the nose for it, and that the midi timing may suffer critically. The usb chips are all optimized for std serial port speeds, but midi is not a std serial port speed, its 31,250 baud falling smack in the middle between 19,200, baud and 38,400 baud. I do not know of a usb chip that would recognize a 31,250 baud signal as anything but noise to be ignored. You would, for performance reasons, be far better off to search for a card that was designed from the gitgo, to run at midi speeds. And expect that its going to need a desktop to house it, primarily because the full sized din connector is going to use the full width of a cards back panel. Frankly, as an operating electronics technician involved in television broadcasting since back the '60's, I am amazed at the longevity exhibited by midi. It should have been replaced with better, faster ways of doing it several times over the last nearly 60 years. Modern RS-485 hardware can be bidirectional, is a low voltage differential signal on two wires that do not within reason, need a ground reference, and can run at several megabuad for signal rates. And I can buy them on fleabay for less than 10 bucks for 10 of them. Sure, midi still manages to get the job done, but when you have the equ of a 40 piece orchestra being played, you cannot get away from the impression that Floyd Cramer is playing every instrument. And that is not how the original paper copy of the music was written. So find a real midi card, and forget about the effects of usb's latency (which can be tens of milliseconds) as it translates the speed differences. -- Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
