MIDI Hardware
By Robbie Rhodes
Here's yet another mail-order catalog, but this company has a lot of Midi devices which aren't in computer catalogs and magazines:
Musician's Friend
P.O. Box 4520
Medford, OR 97501
tel: 800-776-5173
tel: 541-772-5173
fax: 541-776-1370
Examples:
1. I'm watching the price of the Roland SC-88 Super Canvas; their
price is $849. Not bad, but I'll wait a while longer. This is
the 32-channel synth which I hope can sound like a band organ.
It has all the capabilities which George Bogatko says are
needed.
2. Music Quest Midi Strip $49 (for Macintosh). Just about the
lowest price I've seen for a Mac Midi-adaptor. The mini-DIN
connector plugs into either the modem or printer port on later
Macs. I use a very similar box, the Opcode "Professional Plus
Midi Interface", for which I paid $79.
3. Roland SCP-55B Sound Canvas on PCMCIA card $359, for your new
laptop. If the size of the hardware keeps shrinking, someday
we'll have an Electronic Player Harmonica!
4. MIDI Solutions Merger $60; this little box mixes two Midi
sources to one output line. David Wasson uses it while editing
music for Mike Ames' 97-key Mortier, so that a simple keyboard
and the computer can send data simultaneously to the organ. Why
is that needed? So that David can alter the registration
(stops) while the music is playing. Otherwise he has to stop
the computer. Very convenient!
Regarding devices for long-distance Midi cables --
The Anatek line driver (reported by Mike Ames) is a simple, no-frills box which accepts Midi wireline current data and outputs differential bi-polar voltage using a relatively high-power integrated circuit amplifier. No data processing is performed: it only amplifies the signal. It's power consumption exceeds the power which can be derived from the Midi input source, so it comes with its own external power supply. Both ends of the cable have the same style boxes. The system closely resembles the hardware used for computer terminals located far away from the "mainframe". (Remember those days? ;-)
The Aquila and MidiMan wireless devices (reported by Will Dahlgren) are used by performers who would otherwise trip on their cables! The "filtering algorithms" may be needed by Midi-guitarists (!), but I can't imagine much use for organ or piano performances. ... The "Midi Match extender" device sounds similar to the Anatek line driver.
-- Robbie Rhodes
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(Message sent Thu 25 Jul 1996, 02:08:28 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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