MIDI Interface Problems

[EGGHplayer]

I am a newbie, and recently built a computer based on the EPoX 8RDA+ motherboard only to find that it did not support full duplex MIDI interfacing through the gameport, where I conect my MIDI keyboard. Since I am a professional musician and composer the new computer is totally worthless to me, and I need to replace my motherboard with one that will allow me to hook up my keyboard.

Any suggestions how I can repair my problem? Does the A7N8X support full duplex operation, or will I have the same problems with it that I have with the 8RDA+? Are there other solutions any of you can offer me?

Many thanks.

 

[eclectro]

Disable the onboard soundcard and install another soundcard such as the Turtle beach Santa Cruz or other card that has midi port on it.

 

[EGGHplayer]

Thanks for the response -- another possibility is to install the EPoX board in another system destined for my daughter and get a new motherboard that will support my needs -- but I don't want to buy a new motherboard only to find it has the same incompatibility. Is it common for midi ports to be one way, as the EPoX is, ir more common to be dual, as is needed for my keyboard. Do you know of a motherboard equivalent to the EPoX that will communicate with my boar w/o needing to install a sound card? It seems silly to have sound (and good sound, at that) built into the motherboard and be unable to use it . . .

 

[eclectro]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but all onboard sound solutions use essentially the same two or three chips, like the realtek al650 (very popular), or the cmedia cmi 8338 (maybe a variant like the 9739, they make a lot of chips).

The main overriding purpose of the "gameports" that you will find on the motherboards (on those few that still have them, USB is king now) is to get a joystick working, not a keyboard. The onboard sound is there primarily for "gamers", not musicians, and are noted for their generally poor performance.

Because most motherboards tend to use the same chips, they are going to be wired the same from board to board, and manufacturers will tend to provide the driver that the chip maker provides. So if you are having problems with your keyboard now, and you find and use another board with the same chip, chances are extremely good that you will have the same problem. I see that your board uses the al650, which most of the new motherboards use. So your choices are going to be limited to those with the cmedia chips. Looking in the newsgroups I see that a couple of people are having midi problems with the cmedia chips also. Looking at cmedia's driver release notes for their older chips they had problems with midi keyboard "hangs".

Asus came out with the p4pe that has the analog devices "soundmax" audio solution, that is supposed to be a "high end" audio solution. But the're alot of reports in the newsgroups of this onboard sound solution not working and noisy sound. Users have had to install a soundcard just to get their sound working right.

I too wanted to find a motherboard with a "decent" onboard sound solution, but I found myself limited to a couple of boards that had good sound, but poor cpu performance, or was very limited with other features I wanted. When the day was done it just didn't make sense to have onboard sound as the deciding factor of a motherboard purchase.

I know that it seems a gyp to buy a board and not have the midi working, but the fact is onboard sound solutions can not be trusted to provide high performance, and that goes for the midi too. Thems just the facts. It makes much more sense to buy a soundcard that has been for sale for a while (like the santa cruz or soundblaster live) because the product is mature and most of the driver bugs have been worked out.

So you can dink around with the onboard gameport all day with some motherboad trying to get the midi working and still not have it working when you are done, or you can plop in a $30 SBLive and be done with it. How much is your time worth???

 

[KF]

> to find that it did not support full duplex MIDI interfacing through the gameport,

Who would have thought? It is amazing and apalling to find out what they cut. I see no reason to cut this. All that is required is to implement an I/O port, which is trivial and something that even the junkiest soundcards did way back when DOS was the usual operating system.

How did you determine it did not support full duplex? What doesn't it do?

1) Does not respond to keys pressed?

2) Does not send midi out to create sounds?

3) Will not send midi messages out in response to keys pressed?

 

[EGGHplayer]

Thanks for the responses. They were very helpful, and clarified for me why the keyboard wasn't working. Since I am a musician and not a techno junkie I needed to know just what you told me about chip design, and tells me just what my next step should be -- which is to install a sound card and get on with it. Or get a USB interface to act between the keyboard and the computer. I decided, by the way, on the EPoX board because of its performance, not because of its sound and in that regard I am not disappointed. It is a great board.

I also note that the computer may someday become a source for high end audio and video processing. Some manufaturers are making now cards that may someday rival the best high end sound processors available, and with HDTV right around the corner (or even, really, here now) that's not nearly so far fetched as it sounds. Think of it! High end audio and video from a computer . . .But high end sound probably won't be built into a motherboard.

I also agree with the second response: why did they remove some of these things with current board design? But it is true that the game port has always struck me as a highly unreliable way to input MIDI data. And for info, I found it didn't work because it neither played back sound nor input data when associacted with Sibelius. When the keyboard didn't work I e-mailed EPoX Tech Support and they confirmed that the board was designed as a one-way port -- MIDI out only -- and they did not recommend using it for MIDI data input. In other words, it's not a full duplex port.

In any case, the problem was not caused by something I had installed incorrectly. That's why I am glad to know that other mother boards will as likely as not produce the same conditions that I have experienced with this one. That's exactly the piece of info I needed.

Now I can't wait to learn about overclocking. . .

 

[EGGHplayer]

A bit of info for those who search for ways to connect MIDI devices -- there is a converter that adapts your MIDI in and output to USB. Roland makes one, and so does Yamaha (though I have not found a source for the Yamaha stateside it seems readily availabe in Europe.) Cost is about $60, and I have one on order. If it solves my problem I wil post it here. This solution actually appeared in another post somewhere on thsi site, also without confirmation whether or not it is a good solution.