MOTU Midi Express XT USB vs. SERIAL

[Datus]

Has anybody had any experience with either of these midi devices? I am looking to buy one, and I can get a couple of really good deals on the the serial, the usb is a bit more expensive and harder to find (at least on ebay). Does anyone know if there are any performance issues with the serial, basically any latency concerns? I know this isnt really PT related, but hey you guys are like Jack's of all trades so I figure somone should know...

[fresh_meat]

I have serial and it works totally perfectly. i run a bunch of modules, two pods, an s2000, an mpc2000 and all of my sync-able effects (delays, filters etc) all from it and its totally solid. i got mine cheap too so if you can get one go for it!

[rfreeman]

Check out the Midiman 8x8. My understanding is that MOTU drivers are known for being a little more quirky and difficult. This was the case with the MIDI Express PC I used for years (although it's an older device with an ISA card). Midman drivers are "rock solid" as their literature says.

[Daniel Wellman]

Originally posted by rfreeman:
Check out the Midiman 8x8. My understanding is that MOTU drivers are known for being a little more quirky and difficult. This was the case with the MIDI Express PC I used for years (although it's an older device with an ISA card). Midman drivers are "rock solid" as their literature says.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">As an owner of a MIDI Express XT serial (parallel port, really), I can second that. Things were fine when I was running on Windows 9x, but moving to 2000 caused a few hiccups. First off, MOTU didn't release NT/2000 compatible drivers for a long time -- I think they were first released around the end of last year.

Now that I run those drivers, I have some weird problems - the device has a tendency to come up as a two port PC Flyer instead of my eight port Express XT. It's extremely flaky but tends to work if you manually scan for the device with an included software utility.

I can't comment on the USB version. I will say that when the XT has worked, it has been a nice unit. Especially for live merge situations away from the computer.

-d