E-MU EM8780 Professional USB Bus powered Midi Interface with 1 in 1 out and Midi Status Indicator Lights

One of the most important facets of a home studio for me is how quickly I can get set up to do some recording. This simple interface helps enormously. I leave the MIDI cable attached to my Yamaha P-155 and when I arrive with my MacBook Pro all I have to do is plug in the USB end and the two dongles needed for Ivory pianos and Cubase (That's the crazy part, especially when one dongle is shaped like a large plastic key). There's no power (and associated cables) to worry about.This arrangement is also very useful for an outside gig.With the new MacBook Pro (Quad-core) you can install an SSD (I use a 120 GB Intel X25-M) in the Optical drive bay for the Mac OS and Cubase projects, leaving you with the hard drive bay for a 7200 RPM large capacity drive to partition for data and instrument samples. This combination makes for zero latency - hit a key - hear a note - amazing.For audio recording (I don't do this very often) I use the E-MU 0404 which is great also. Remember to put the MacBook Pro into 32-bit kernel mode first though. There are very few 64-bit drivers out there. You can use a terminal command string to force 32-bit mode on startup. The MacBook Pro comes with 64-bit kernel set up as default. You don't need to think about this for the Xmidi however, it works right out of the box using Apple core MIDI.There should be no confusion about which MIDI connection to use. When you come out of the MIDI (OUT) connection on your instrument you need to go to a MIDI IN connection. This is clearly marked on the Xmidi 1x1 adapter and anyone who uses MIDI regularly is probably used to this convention. Still, I can understand that some newcomers might expect that the MIDI OUT on the cable should be connected to the MIDI OUT on the instrument - it's a reasonable assumption however it would be contrary to normal MIDI conventions.I've seen some complaints about the lack of indicators but I can't say I agree. There is one white indicator light on the USB end which lets you know that you are getting a MIDI signal (It flashes as it receives MIDI signals). This is really all you need. I agree that the Amazon model is really the "TAB" version of the product (the latest) even though they show a picture of the old and the new. I think they should clear this up because I was not sure which product I was going to receive. I would much rather get the latest version which fortunately is what they sent.So I give this product five stars for making my life easier and for being plug and play with no latency.

Awesome MIDI cables. Lives up to its "ultra-fast" message reception. I wrote a Python script that accepts incoming MIDI messages from the keyboard and bounces them back 3 semitones higher. It sounded like I was playing intervals, which meant that the round trip delay of the MIDI packets were below my distinction threshold. I played chords with both hands - same thing. Pretty responsive. I tested these with Yamaha P-95 and Roland FP-80 keyboards. There were some issues with the Yamaha:With the Yamaha P-95. the white LED flickers and turns off shortly after the keyboard is powered on. If you leave it connected for a while (1-2 min) WITHOUT pressing a key or sending any MIDI to the keyboard, the MIDI messages will be severely delayed (1-2 seconds between pressing a key and receiving the corresponding MIDI message on the computer). This can be remedied by simply re-plugging the MIDI Interface, or keeping a steady flow of MIDI across the interface. It's a minor annoyance. Perhaps the Yamaha P-95 port MIDI ports are not supplying enough power or something. It also might have something to do with the white LED flickering, since I did not observe this with the Roland FP-80; the light stayed on all the time while the cable was connected.The Roland FP-80 has no issues with this cable.Regarding the price, I prefer to have one good product rather than a few poor ones, especially in the case of electronics such as these. It's reliable, does what it's supposed to do, but has some issues with my Yamaha P-95, which is what Yamaha wants anyway, as they want you to buy their own MIDI interfaces which will perform better only on Yamaha keyboards. Good product!

On a quest to turn my synthesizer into a midi controller for VST instruments in Acid Pro 6.0, I found this little gadget (and if you don't know what that means, you probably don't need this).First off, Acid won't recognize the hardware without the drivers, and the included software refuses to install on a pc running Windows Vista. On the bright side, E-MU has a patch on their website under support that WILL work with Vista. After installing that, everything ran perfectly for me.The cord's a bit short and won't wrap behind my desk, so I ordered a usb extension to avoid having to unplug it all the time. E-MU should figure out that in a home studio with speakers, guitars, and such, not every piece of equipment can get shoved into the same corner.Yes, the midi plugs are labelled backwards. Or perhaps not, depending on how you think about it. Arrows to indicate data flow direction might have been helpful.PROS:Low price compared to fancier, muti-track midi converters.Does what it says.No noticable delay or lag, great for live recording.CONS:Requires patch for Vista.Cord is only about 8 feet long.Midi plug labels might be confusing: in = out, out = in?