The exciting world of MIDI interfaces

[Tony Scharf]

This has never been the sexiest of topic, but I have to rave about the iConnectMIDI 4+ that I got and have finally gotten around to putting to full use.  
I won't bother with a full in-depth review, but Ill say as much that it does exactly what it says it will do and does it without fuss.  The UI software could use a face lift as it is counter intuitive in places.  
For those not familiar, the iCM4+ is a half rack box with 3 pairs of MIDI din ports on the back, 3 USB Device ports, 1 USB Host Port and an Ethernet port for MIDI over Ethernet (the only feature I haven't tested).  It lets you connect multiple host devices (i.e. laptop and a desktop computer) and share MIDI and audio data (two channels only) between them.  You can also hook up an iPad (comes with both an old style cable and lightening cable for the newer iPads).   The USB host port also lets you hook in a USB hub so you can have up to 8 total USB devices connected to it. 
In my rig, I've got all the DIN ports for my older gear, the Analog 4 and Kronos on the USB Host jack through a small hub and my iPad and laptop connected as additional host devices.  Everything routes, everything synchronizes and I haven't had a crash yet!  
Best part is, once the routing is setup you don't need the PC at all.  You can save the settings to flash and just take the box with you.  Ideal for configuring stuff before a gig, or taking one of those MIDI controllers that don't have DIN ports on them and using it to control a Modular or something else.  There is iPad software for it (that I haven't tried) that lets you load new configurations or edit them live.  That could be interesting..
I could see a lot of uses for this for a band with two to three laptops and controller rigs.  So long as one laptop is the clock master, 2 others could be slaves and everyone have their own software loaded and running in sync.  
So if you have a need for something like this, I can highly recommend it.  
Tony 		 	   		  
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