A modern MIDI patchbay?

[ramthelinefeed]

Readers, my Audio Architecture Function Junction Plus (a formidable 16-DIN-in, 16-DIN-out MIDI patchbay from 1989 - see https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/func ... ction/7331 ) has broken down for the second time in 2 years And whilst Synth Prof got it working again the first time, I fear we are getting into 'uneconomical to repair' territory now. (A shame - I still get about 1 or 2 forum reader per year messaging me for a copy of the User Manual!)

Repair costs aside, I have a few MIDI devices these days which send MIDI over USB, and so the Function Junction couldn't deal with them.
I think I might need to treat myself to a new MIDI patchbay.

But it doesn't look like there's anything on the market with 16x16 capabilities these days!

Does anyone have any experience of the current products available? Sound on Sound don't seem to have reviewed devices like this recently.

There's an iConnectivity mioXL https://www.iconnectivity.com/mioxl which looks fairly decent.... although I'm reading some grumblings online about the PC app used to configure it, saying the UI is pants.

And there's a Conductive Labs MRCC https://conductivelabs.com/mrcc/
I like the look of the tactile interface on this ('press the source button, press the destination button -> routed!') but I am a bit wary of claims that 'it doesn't transmit SysEx' (?! ... reading their forums, it seems a firmware update fixed most of this last year, but it seemed a rather worrying and basic omission....). The MRCC is also expandable if you fork out for extra modules... although it already costs nearly twice the price of the mioXL as it is!

Are there any other devices I've overlooked?

[The Elf]

As a once owner of a FJ+ too, I feel your pain. It was a device ahead of its time in some ways. The software never met its full potential.

My solution was to drive past MIDI pachbays altogether, grab a couple of MOTU MIDI Express 128s, and do all the switching in my DAWs. Never looked back.

[ajay_m]

This is also my worry, that my old ensoniq kmx8 8x8 midi patchbay may fail at some point. Although if it does, I have the technical chops to build something from scratch, probably using a Pico pi 2 which ought to have enough grunt. I don't know given the renaissance of retro synths etc why nobody seems to make these now, at least at higher channel counts. You would think seeing some of the more bonkers products in SOS recently ( the amp that cost several grand with gratuitous lights and stuff for instance, not to mention the endless vintage mic clones) that perhaps a midi patch bay might sell, but what would I know?

[ramthelinefeed]

As a once owner of a FJ+ too, I feel your pain. It was a device ahead of its time in some ways. The software never met its full potential.

Yeah the FJ+ can do a *LOT* of processing and filtering of MIDI data... to be honest, I've never really used that functionality - I am more interested in just the raw connectivity and patching.... and yeah, I get the impression that it's CPU wasn't quite powerful enough to support all that functionality anyways... if you tried to do too much of it, you'd run out of processing power.

My solution was to drive past MIDI pachbays altogether, grab a couple of MOTU MIDI Express 128s, and do all the switching in my DAWs. Never looked back.

I really like being able to patch out-of-the-box, though! Sometimes I just wanna play things without even booting up the computer.

[ramthelinefeed]

I don't know given the renaissance of retro synths etc why nobody seems to make these now, at least at higher channel counts. You would think seeing some of the more bonkers products in SOS recently ( the amp that cost several grand with gratuitous lights and stuff for instance, not to mention the endless vintage mic clones) that perhaps a midi patch bay might sell, but what would I know?

Yeah - and I wish a big reliable manufacturer would make bread-and-butter kit like this.
I am always wary of getting involved with products which are made by tiny start-ups where basically one dude is designing and coding everything, there's no proper documentation, and it's funded by Kickstarters! (Which seems to be the case for 'Conductive Labs' — I'm reading threads on their forum running for 3 years with people saying 'hey this thing is great, but when are you gonna support SysEx?!?' and the dude comes back 'yeah it's on the to-do list, I'm trying to figure it out' ... I mean come on, can't Roland or Korg make one of these? Or can't Behringer rip off some old design?

[Hugh Robjohns]

I think the hardware MIDI patchbay is a casualty of the DAW as Elf says. Most people with lots of synths will control them with a DAW which is perfectly capable of handling midi patching, too.

In other words, the market for a versatile hardware MIDI patchbay is probably too small to sustain the R&D and manufacturing costs.

[Eddy Deegan]

I agree. Like Elf I use the DAW for routing. However my MIDI interfaces have a standalone mode whereby a copy of the data coming in on port 1 is sent to all the outputs so although not as flexible as a full-fat intelligent patchbay they are still useful when the DAW isn't running.

[ef37a]

Since MIDI only requires two conductors and a screen, you could use a TRS jack bay? Not a good idea though to have even a remote possibility of mixing MIDI and audio signals. I suppose you could use 3.5mm TRS but I hate'em!

My DIY solution would therefore be an RJ45 patchbay. Most of the work is done for you except get the DIN wires into the IDC blocks. (Or just solder them to the back of the blocks?)

Yes, you have 3 redundant pairs in each port but maybe that could be used for some fancy LED indicators? Even send talkback down a pair?

Dave.

[ajay_m]

The huge advantage of a patchbay is that you can connect one synth to another without faffing around in the DAW. I have the hydrasynth, an fs1r, a seqtrak, and an akai force as well as a Roland sonic cell, and an 88 note weighted keyboard plus 5 octave controller keyboard and I often like to do creative sessions where I go nowhere near the computer at all. My dm3 will record everything to a stereo mix so if I come up with an interesting idea I am still capturing it for later but it feels far more like fun given I work with computers all day. (The sonic cell mainly gets underused as a hi-z input for bass and electric guitar, rather than a sound module, admittedly. But I am also quite fond of Roland's drums which are crisp and punchy in a retro kind of way)

[ajay_m]

As for mixing audio and midi in a normal patchbay, I can't see this doing any damage. Midi out is 5v through a 330 ohm resistor so it's not gonna hurt anything audio, (though don't plug stuff live with gain up or you'll get a pretty loud transient) and midi in is an optocoupler with again a resistor so putting audio into that won't hurt anything either.

[BillB]

Regarding actual patchbays, there will be a limit to how many MIDI inputs you can drive from an output (2 ins always seems to work fine when I have used a splitter cable). You would also have to think about the mechanics of connecting an output to multiple inputs assuming you might want e.g. a master keyboard driving multiple modules perhaps using keyboard splits over multiple channels, so I’m not sure about the basic principle. Depends how you work.

Slightly more modern than the FJ is the Edirol UM-880, 8 in and out, switchable from front panel, plus USB interface. I have two and I plug master keyboards, synths with sequencers/arps, etc, in to the first one, then a patch from one output to an input of the second one, to which are connected modules, and keyboards which I don’t want to ‘drive’ anything else. This gives a fair degree of flexibility outside the box, and full flexibility via a DAW.

The downside is that they are from around Year 2000 and I haven’t seen any advertised for years, so they are a bit hens’ teethy.

Also mentioned earlier, I have an iConnect (MIDI 4+) and would confirm that the config software is not easy to use, although that is mostly because it’s hard to figure out the significant flexibility of the system. If they could ever create a version that showed blinking lights for MIDI activity on the ins and outs of the config interface, that would make it a doddle.

[James Perrett]

I really like being able to patch out-of-the-box, though! Sometimes I just wanna play things without even booting up the computer.

But you are booting up a computer - that's exactly what the FJ is!

You could use a general purpose computer to do the same thing if you were disciplined enough to not load up all kinds of other software on it. Maybe a couple of multi channel interfaces hooked up to a Raspberry Pi running Jack (or Reaper if you want something more versatile) would serve the same purpose?

[BigRedX]

IIRC the larger MotU MIDI interfaces will store a number of routing pre-sets that can be recalled from the front panel, so unless you need a completely new configuration you won't need to boot up your computer.

[Forum Admin]

If you can find one on eBay or Reverb, the 20x20 Sycologic MIDI Matrix was always a well-designed, robust patchbay unit.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I was going to suggest the same thing.

The MOTU Express XT (and the Micro usb) can store 8 user-preset routing configurations in an 8x8 matrix which can be used without a computer (although you need a computer to configure them via the Clockwork app). It also supports various filtering modes if you need that.

So if you can cope with a selection of eight different 'standard' studio configurations in your setup, rather than the total reconfigurability of a manual patchbay, the MOTU offerings might be a viable option.

[ramthelinefeed]

Since MIDI only requires two conductors and a screen, you could use a TRS jack bay?

Electrically, this would probably be 'unwise, but not illegal' (the design of the MIDI hardware standard very sensible uses optoisolators to avoid earth loops...)
However it would only provide 1:1 routing.
It is often highly desirable to have many-to-one routing (i.e. MIDI merging), and that needs a microprocessor to handle.

Also, the above approach would not be able to deal with USB MIDI devices, which are increasingly common.

[ramthelinefeed]

But you are booting up a computer - that's exactly what the FJ is!

You could use a general purpose computer to do the same thing if you were disciplined enough to not load up all kinds of other software on it. Maybe a couple of multi channel interfaces hooked up to a Raspberry Pi running Jack (or Reaper if you want something more versatile) would serve the same purpose?

The FJ+ has an on/off switch and boots ups in less than a second, though!

[ramthelinefeed]

If you can find one on eBay or Reverb, the 20x20 Sycologic MIDI Matrix was always a well-designed, robust patchbay unit.

Yeah but the Function Junction Plus was also well-designed and robust - it's just that these devices are now respectively 35 and 25 years old, which is longer than the intended life of their various components and they start to fail.
It's sometimes possible to get them repaired by one of the handful of competent specialists who still exist on these islands, but turnaround times are usually a couple of months and couriers not unlikely to smash them up again on the way back, and a couple of repair bills adds up to more than the cost of a newfangled unit that supports USB MIDI and comes with a warranty.

FWIW, I have ordered a mioXL from Thomann.
Thomann have a splendid no-fault 30 day return policy, so I will try the mioXL out, and if the worst comes to the worst I will send it back and spend twice the money on a Conductive Labs gizmo.

(Another point in the mioXL's favour: is a 1U rackmountable device.
In contrast, the Conductive Labs one is 2U and you have to pay £40 quid extra for rack ears and all the sockets are on the front so you kinda need 3U if you wanna snake them in from behind without covering the front of your rack in a rats nest of cables...!)

[ef37a]

Since MIDI only requires two conductors and a screen, you could use a TRS jack bay?

Electrically, this would probably be 'unwise, but not illegal' (the design of the MIDI hardware standard very sensible uses optoisolators to avoid earth loops...)
However it would only provide 1:1 routing.
It is often highly desirable to have many-to-one routing (i.e. MIDI merging), and that needs a microprocessor to handle.

Also, the above approach would not be able to deal with USB MIDI devices, which are increasingly common.

I only included the TRS point as illustration and I did say it was not really a good idea! The OP asked for a "MIDI patch bay". That means a passive device to me unless otherwise indicated.

One to two "fan outs" shoud be doable.

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Dave, while 1-to-1 MIDI patching is technically possible via a simple balanced audio patchbay, that approach doesn't address the functionality typically needed, such as merging data from multiple inputs, or feeding multiple outputs simultaneously.

Active — usually microprocessor controlled — solutions are needed for this kind of application.

[James Perrett]

it's just that these devices are now respectively 35 and 25 years old, which is longer than the intended life of their various components and they start to fail.

I'd say that you are being a bit pessimistic here - while there are certain electronic devices that have known failure mechanisms which shorten their life, there are many components that will still be as good as new after 50 years or more.

Since they still seem to be working, you've probably gone past the time that most badly made components will fail. If you keep them at a reasonable temperature and free from mechanical shock then you'll probably find that they'll still be working in 10 or 20 years.

[ramthelinefeed]

I'd say that you are being a bit pessimistic here - while there are certain electronic devices that have known failure mechanisms which shorten their life, there are many components that will still be as good as new after 50 years or more.

Since they still seem to be working, you've probably gone past the time that most badly made components will fail. If you keep them at a reasonable temperature and free from mechanical shock then you'll probably find that they'll still be working in 10 or 20 years.

Well, I have to say, I own a fair amount of 70s and 80s gear - up until the 'noughties', most of it worked reliably, even with a bit of gigging - but in the last 10 years or so, as these machines have entered their 4th and 5th decades, pretty much all my collection has needed a visit to the repair shop to keep it functional.
(And actually, things I bought brand new in the noughties are packing up now too - and are much harder to find someone who willing to repair them... if anyone knows someone who'll take on an Akai MPC4000, for instance, let me know!)

[The Elf]

The huge advantage of a patchbay is that you can connect one synth to another without faffing around in the DAW...

Cantabile and my MIDI Express 128 - one button. No faffing!

[ramthelinefeed]

I sat down for about an hour and a half last night, trying to compare all the features and gubbins of these two gizmos (MRCC vs mioXL).

This is not easy as the MRCC does not even appear to have a user manual (ffs!) and so you have to harvest info from scrolling around its 'mobile optimised' website and doing archeology in its forum threads.

I fear my conclusion ultimately was, although the iConnectivity people seem a bit more professionally organised than Conductive Labs, as a like-for-like replacement for my Function Junction Plus, the mioXL could only just squeeze in what I currently have in my home studio, and if I bought one single more device over the next 10 years, I'd have nowhere to plug it Whereas the MRCC is more expandable. It also more directly matches the 'press two buttons on the front panel to patch and input to an output' workflow of the FJ+. But it also costs twice as much. Pity my wallet.

[Forum Admin]

Start messaging Music Tribe and encourage Uli and Co to build you an affordable MIDI Patchbay?

I bet they'd sell a good few....