MIDI Patchbays

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harmoncollege

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Does anyone have a patchbay they swear by or recommend? I'm looking for 4 or 5 ins and at least 6 thrus/outs.

I've never used one, so the older, simple ones kind of appeal to me. I'm looking at a Kawai MAV-8 right now. Or I was also thinking about the Korg KMP-68. They just look easy to use.

Thanks for any help.
 
MOTU MIDI Timepiece. Be careful when buying them on Ebay though. Sellers will list them hoping you won't notice it's an old, unusable Mac mini-DIN8 serial port version instead of a USB version. Be sure to ask questions first so you'll know what you're getting.
 
Thanks for the response. Are those pretty expensive? I assume the ones that hook to the computer allow you to save settings, etc. I don't know if I need all that...that's kind of why I like the old ones that just have the switches...then I don't have to worry about having the latest drivers and all that junk, and I can look at the front of the patchbay and see the routing.

As I said, I've never used one before, so I'm not real knowledgeable about them.
 
The current USB driver actually works with my old parallel port version. It may work with the Mac version mentioned above, but I don't want to pay for the adapter/cable to find out. I understand about the standalone patchbay thing though.
 
I have used several midi patchbays over the years. One of my favorites is the 360 Systems Midi Patcher. It's just what you are looking for. Practically everyone made a midi patcher back in the day. Roland, Yamaha, Kawai, JL Cooper, 360 Systems. Keep searching eBay, they do come up and are relatively inexpensive these days.

Avoid that MOTU Midi Time Piece for your purposes. It's a great midi patchbay, but is computer based and is not convenient to use without a computer. The other stuff is intended for keyboard rigs and doing the kind of patching you want to do.

The important question is: do you want the midi patchbay to be able to send patch changes, or do you just need to route the midi signal? Some are more programmable than others, so make sure you do your homework in that regard.
 
Thanks, Albert! Good info. I think I really just want to route the midi signal, so I'll just keep it simple.
 
If you do not have any near term plans to integrate your hardware midi devices to a computer, there are several workable options available, new and used. Ebay is rife with good, old MIDI mergers and routers that are being abandoned simply because more and more people are switching to computer based recording and MIDI manipulation.

I picked up a MOTU Midi Time Piece AV a couple of months ago for about $50. It worked fine for MIDI routing but would not hold my settings. I did a little research and the MOTU web site suggested changing the battery out. And they were right. I spent an additional $3.50 and I now have a very powerful MIDI router in which I can connect up to 8 MIDI devices. I can also have up to 8 different combinations of MIDI connections among the devices without having to change a MIDI cable.
 
Thanks, Junius. I was watching several older MIDI patchbays on ebay, and they were going for $30 to $50. Any of them would have worked fine for my application. I'm going to take my time and make sure it's something I really need as I figure out how I want to work. I may just sell my hardware and go to a software setup. I'm being really wishy-washy right now!
 
SonicAlbert said:
Avoid that MOTU Midi Time Piece for your purposes. It's a great midi patchbay, but is computer based and is not convenient to use without a computer.
Click to expand...

All too true. My computer died the other day. Now the MOTU is useless. My Roland sequencer can stripe FSK, so I'm not completely screwed. Since my core studio is all analog now, I'm gonna look for a standalone patchbay myself.
 
If you already own some MIDI interface, check out freeware Soundigy Midi Patchbay (there are supposed to be Android/iOS/Windows Phone versions available soon).
 
I went looking for one on ebay about 2 years ago and found a Roland UM-550 for quite reasonable.

It has 5 Ins & Outs as well as merge, and Ins & Outs to & from the computer via USB.

You can also save & load 5 patch configurations with it.

One more thing it has which is very cool, is a MIDI cable check by plugging a MIDI cable into ports 1 In & 1 Out, and then pressing a button to make sure the cable is ok.

There is also a bigger one that has 8 in & outs called the UM-880. Roland still lists drivers for them as well.
 
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