Cable Pinout for MIDI Express XT Parallel Cable

[lnegro]

I think I have a cable issue with my Parallel MIDI Express XT. Since you can't get these anymore, I guess I'll have to make my own so...

Does anyone have a pinout for the parallel cable that goes with this unit?

Thanks for the help

Larry

[Jidis]

Larry,

Coincidentally, there's a thread a few posts down by Celt- "Parallel Cable for MIDI Express XT". If that's the connector you're talking about, it's just straight through 25 D-Sub female to 25 male. They're flea market junk, just not as common as the 25 to centronic style printer cables. I wouldn't bother making one.

-Take Care

[lnegro]

Thanks Jidis....I think you're right....just have to go to a cable supplier.

Larry

[evilben]

Hi--sorry to dredge up this thread, but has anybody been able to verify the pinout for the parallel cable? I guess I could get a random one and try all the different rewirings...but that's 25*24*23... different permutations, and that's only counting the simple arrangements.

Thanks!

EDIT: Re-reading, Jidis sounds pretty sure. I just hadn't gotten the impression that he had one to try out. Dunno.

[Jidis]

Evilben,

I meant to post this last night, but was too tired to search.

http://tinyurl.com/96jf2

I thought I had checked it once. Should be a straight through 25<->25. I think the 25 pin computer port doesn't use them all, but a male to female cable will probably have them anyway.

-Take Care

George

PS- If you're going for XP or 2K, don't get your hopes up.

[evilben]

Thanks--I had read that thread but still wasn't sure. I was about to order a "null modem cable" before I found this site (which would have been bad).

I'm going to be using it with Gentoo Linux, so all my hopes are pinned on the snd-mtpav driver included with the kernel. It's reputed to work with the parallel versions of the AV, the Express XT and the Micro Express. I don't think it'll allow for the same things that can be done with Windows, but that's ok since I only need the MIDI interfaces to work.

I'll let you know how it works out.

[Jidis]

I envy you. If that's some sort of open source driver that Linux people put together, I'd expect a lot more from it than the currently supplied Windows ones.

I personally don't care for most of the bloat features and panels. Like you, I really just need the routing and would be fine with individually assignable separate ports within Nuendo (as it should be). Timecode via MIDI interfaces (not MIDI clock) is also seeming rather pointless for most audio-only people these days, and I can't see myself needing much custom routing outside of my sequencing app.

-George

[evilben]

http://www.linux-m32r.org/lxr/http/sour ... rs/mtpav.c

So it's full GPL--I'd imagine they reverse engineered it, given the view of MOTU support I've gotten from this board. Googling, it looks like somebody is still tinkering with it in 2.6.15, which is good, since the driver crashed my computer last night (I'm using 2.6.14, and of course didn't have the MEXT hooked up, which is the more probable cause of the crash).

I noticed a little anti-linux sentiment on the board, as far as sound apps goes. I just started using the sound stuff a few months ago, and supposedly it's maturing very quickly. The new kernels have low-latency built in, and many things are possible with JACK. For people who dismissed it a couple years ago it's definitely worth taking another look.

[Jidis]

I really like the idea of Linux, and have tried to set up machines a few times, but I know very little. The attraction for me was being able to run the really compact builds with very little GUI or window manager mess, and still have your familiar sound app (sort of like if Nuendo had it's own OS behind it). That's the first thing I do on Windows and previously Mac installs, to try to strip the system down as far as I can. I don't know where people are going with this 2Gig base install crap, but I wish they'd slow the heck down. There's no way we need all that just to host our one or two apps.

I could probably learn an audio sequencer app under Linux, but not having my main program or plugs support it makes it not look so good. Also, the distros I checked out were getting about as big and heavy as the stuff I'm stuck in now. I'd need to have learned a lot more to get one of those stripped down setups working. The big ones were more "newbie friendly".

I'll admit, Ardour looked pretty cool when I saw it, as did the whole ALSA concept. I know there's probably politics, design ideas, and copyrights involved, but I wish more hardware manufacturers kept their driver's source freely available. I've never underestimated the power of young code monkeys. I think if a popular device with flakey software was made open source, the problems with it would last about a week, or until a programmer who owned one found out the code was available. I wish someone could reverse engineer a Linux driver for the Lexicon Core2. That card on a stripped down "single board computer" with an LCD would make a really nice, budget, porta-studio thing. It was an underrated card for it's price and I/O. I've got a board, screen, and Core2 here that I'm planning to do that with, but I'll be stuck in 98SE (w/98lite).

Take Care,

George

[evilben]

Gentoo is really nice for doing pared-down systems--I set up one Celeron 400 MHz box to boot into an MP3 player in about 45 seconds, with a 400 MB disk footprint. Gentoo does take a lot of time to learn, though.

My sound uses are pretty limited--but I'm firmly stuck in Linux because of the Aeolus organ synth. I downloaded all the free soundfonts on the web, but neither timidity nor fluidsynth can make them sound like they're supposed to, and my Audigy2's (*cringe*, I know) wavetable also doesn't function correctly. And some of the soundfonts were Gigasampler things, which don't work at all in Linux. So if my stuff is a representative sample, I'd say all the native Linux stuff works well together, but compatibility is not so good with Windows.

The RME cards are supposed to be about the best for Linux functionality--the ALSA setup guides demonstrate using several of them off the same clock. That probably still doesn't approach the Lexicon card's abilities.

Things may be looking up--NVIDIA is cooperating pretty well, and with OS X around it's theoretically easier for the manufacturers to put out Linux drivers. With businesses doing company-wide installs, I really believe that a much larger chunk of users will be on Linux within ten or fifteen years.

Ben

[Jidis]

That probably still doesn't approach the Lexicon card's abilities

The Lex wasn't any awesome amount of i/o, but it had plenty for doing on-site multitracking. It has a single ADAT in and out, if you want external A/D, 8 separate unbalanced analogs, and 4 analog ins (enough for 4 track), plus coax s/pdif. The analog outs actually sound fine for basic monitoring, and the ins are pretty good if you need them. They've got a switchable soft-distort dbx circuit inline too. Contrary to popular belief, unless you use a board that it doesn't like, it runs almost trouble free and stays out of the way after it's set up. I've got two, and I'd probably trust them more than the MOTU. The Mac driver, surprisingly, worked right when it came out (under OS8&9), and I've even seen it work on an AthlonXP1800 under 98SE (they say it doesn't do AMD's). I had also done the 8 ADAT ins, along with an analog or two for talkback or something on a G4. Best thing is, after it had been killed, people would sell them for like $50. I just saw two completed eBays where they went for 20 (not bad for a 24bit 8 track). If anybody ever looks at one, don't bother with the effect add-on. I've got it on one of mine, and unless you just want to use it as an effects box, it has a crappy interface and a weird way of working as a VST plug-in.

I think the compact Linux I went for may have been Slackware. It was a version designed to run from a zip drive, and could be squashed down to something under 100megs (maybe much less?). I think it was a kernel or two behind, but seemed to meet most requirements. FWIW, if you haven't already, check out Shane Brooks' 98Lite. If you mess with it, go with the "Stealth" install ("Micro" can be messy). I usually do that, along with no IE, and all the gimmicky crap and effects turned off or removed. I'll also usually run it with Opera 6.0.5, and DX 8.1. If you know how to fish around, that setup can run most anything that's not 2K/XP only, including whatever codecs it needs to play videos or encode them or MP3's and I've run it on Intels and AMD's from 100 or so MHz, up to over 1.5GHz. With some desktop appearance and font tweaks, it not only looks great, but it's fast as lightning and has been rock solid here. The 98lite responsiveness made me hate XP when I had to switch. Footprint of the base install, DX8, basic utilities and crap (WinRAR, Winamp, ACDSee classic, Acrobat 4or5, regclean), can be around 100 to 150 megs, and a compressed emergency Ghost image of that can be in the 50-80M size range. It reminds me of my MacOS 7.6 days.

-Take Care (and sorry for all this text)

George

[evilben]

Just letting you know--that linux driver doesn't appear to work with the newer kernels. I got it to load without freezing by turning off pre-emption, but it still wouldn't do anything useful. Oh well.

[Seppuku]

The cable you need is a DB25 M-DB25 F straight thru. You will most likely find a 25DB M-25DB M. It can be fixed with simple gender changer. I found my parts @ Fry's Electronics. The 10' cable cost me $5.99 and the gender changer cost $4.99.

Part Numbers:

Cables - Micro Connectors, Inc PLU# 1652785 $4.99
Changer - Micro Connectors, Inc PLU# 1066593 $5.99