I use an AWE64 for all my MIDI needs (note: using external gear, not the internal synth through a MIDI mapper, although you can certainly do that too.) I'm running FreeDOS on a Pentium system.

There's no point in getting an expensive hard-to-find Roland interface for software from the timeframe you're looking at. Sound card MIDI was well supported by then and worked fine. If you want a Soundblaster stick with the AWE64; it has the best DACs and no hanging note bug. If you don't want a Soundblaster there are fantastic options from e.g. Terratec, Turtle Beach, MediaVision...

Formulator wrote:

I am curious to know what anyone's choice of MIDI hardware on a Socket 7 Windows 95 machine for serious music production would be

Nothing. I would not do serious music production on a Windows 95, socket 7 system. I'd be using something like a Core i7 with Windows 7 or 8 instead.

Any card with a MIDI interface will probably work. The machine I am retiring which I used for this task utilized;

> AWE64 Gold
> CMI8738
> SCC-1 (Previously, long removed and I don't recommend it as it tended to lag when driving larger synths quite hard)
> Yamaha SW1000XG

I have also used other cards in different systems, notably the Envy24 which studio cards were usually based on (Buy a cheap one, the $800 versions are no better) an Audigy 2 and even a VIA on-board controller. Latency might vary a bit so look out for that if you want to drive more than one synth in real time. If you're just running one synth, one interface or are multi-tracking the latency doesn't matter as much except when you are recording the keyboard in because you will have to shift the piano roll.

Generally, unless you have crappy luck and find a rare example of awfulness, anything the OS can run will work and do so well enough that it doesn't really matter who made it.

realnc wrote:

Formulator wrote:

I am curious to know what anyone's choice of MIDI hardware on a Socket 7 Windows 95 machine for serious music production would be

Nothing. I would not do serious music production on a Windows 95, socket 7 system. I'd be using something like a Core i7 with Windows 7 or 8 instead.

That is practically impossible if you actually want to do real MIDI and not primitive VST cacophonies. Also, USB is pretty useless for this kind of thing and older software using real MIDI doesn't run well on later operating systems.

Edit: As an example, it would be almost impossible to exercise this level of control over the synthesizer using a modern platform; https://soundcloud.com/high_treason/driving-at-night most software can't even fire SysEx down the line on demand anymore, something this track made heavy use of. There were also parts which required direct editing of the event list, a feature absent or anemic in most newer, bloated software solutions. The track was produced solely with Windows 98, the recordings were pieced together on a newer box for convenience sake, but the same process would have worked on the 98 box.

I guess our views of what is "serious music production" differs. I can't imagine "serious" being MIDI sysex messages these days.

Apparently so. I'm only working in the context of the thread, the OP refers to MIDI so I assume he's using older MIDI gear, therefore the best thing to control it is older MIDI software/hardware.

Had the OP wanted to drive a Yamaha Motif XS Rack I would be more inclined to recommend a newer system with USB and whatever software people use now (FL/Reason/Whatever), especially given that most of this stuff has its own software too which generally requires a new OS. In my case, with my MIDI gear, none of its dedicated software works after 98SE, meaning I can't gain adequate control. For example, I can't dump the entire patch memory of the CZ-5000 using modern software in a modern OS and have to use an old 16-Bit application or Cakewalk to achieve this. I also cannot use serial control of the MU90R's 32 Channels after Windows 98SE (May work in 2K) or really do anything but play notes with the Korg O1 past that point either. Inversely, I imagine if I tried to run an XW-P1 I would probably have more control in a modern environment, I seriously doubt they exposed all of its features to the onboard MIDI ports in this day and age.

Generally though, I don't like newer implementations and I still feel that even new stuff out of the box lacks the level of flexibility that the older implementations had to offer. The simple fact I can talk directly to registers for the LCD on the MU90R seems to indicate this might be correct, but I turned my back on the industry years ago so who knows by this point. I can only think it has probably gotten worse with how bland most of the music made with this stuff seems to sound. I suppose it would be at least 1000% (Not a typo) more boring if everyone did things the same way though.

realnc wrote:

I guess our views of what is "serious music production" differs. I can't imagine "serious" being MIDI sysex messages these days.

My "serious music production" workstation is a Pentium MMX with FreeDOS as mentioned above. It is MORE than powerful enough to drive 28 audio channels' worth of outboard MIDI gear and also sends a MIDI clock across the room to my DJ setup. The PC isn't modern enough to act as a full featured DAW so I do the multitrack recording & final mixdown on a dumpster rescued PowerMac. You can swish VSTs around on a laptop screen if you want but I find that instantly saps my creativity and makes music production into a *chore*.

Besides, no-one does "serious music prodcution" on windows. Get a Mac. 😜

On that note I have *never* seen a USB-MIDI interface under win* give timing accuracy anywhere near as good as a DB15 soundcard MIDI under DOS. Even Linux and OSX have issues.

xjas wrote:

My "serious music production" workstation is a Pentium MMX with FreeDOS as mentioned above. It is MORE than powerful enough to d […]
Show full quote

realnc wrote:

I guess our views of what is "serious music production" differs. I can't imagine "serious" being MIDI sysex messages these days.

My "serious music production" workstation is a Pentium MMX with FreeDOS as mentioned above. It is MORE than powerful enough to drive 28 audio channels' worth of outboard MIDI gear and also sends a MIDI clock across the room to my DJ setup. The PC isn't modern enough to act as a full featured DAW so I do the multitrack recording & final mixdown on a dumpster rescued PowerMac. You can swish VSTs around on a laptop screen if you want but I find that instantly saps my creativity and makes music production into a *chore*.

Besides, no-one does "serious music prodcution" on windows. Get a Mac. 😜

On that note I have *never* seen a USB-MIDI interface under Win*.* give timing accuracy anywhere near as good as a DB15 soundcard MIDI under DOS. Even Linux and OSX have issues.

QFT

Except the Mac. At least, in my case, never owned one, so I've tried. That might change as I do plan on starting to mess with Apple gear later this year, so who knows where that might lead to.

HighTreason wrote:

QFT

Except the Mac. At least, in my case, never owned one, so I've tried. That might change as I do plan on starting to mess with Apple gear later this year, so who knows where that might lead to.

Heh, well, I did find my Mac in the bin afterall. 😉

The important thing is to use a setup you feel creative on, not what other people think you should use. If you enjoy the immediacy of a DAW with a bunch of VSTs go right ahead. I personally don't, I prefer the interactiveness of hardware and I think whomping on sliders and spinning dials is fun, and that makes more creative music in my opinion. I also enjoy routing cables & patching instruments and effects into each other for feedback.

I see my socket 7 sequencer rig more as hardware gear than a PC anyway ... Something like an Akai MPC that happens to have a fullscreen interface and QWERTY keyboard.

I suppose the other argument you can throw out there is that a "serious musician" with any degree of ability could make music using almost anything. Even with my own meager skills have I managed to make acceptable music with the bare minimum of equipment. But if you want serious people with real talent who made great things just think of artists in the past who didn't have sequencing and MIDI on their side or more recent people who've managed to make great things in unconventional ways. Think of Jean Jacques Perrey with little more than a 1940s Ondioline or The Zombies who had to rely on a Mellotron because of budget constraints and still achieved some of the best production quality I've ever heard. In more recent times and in the world of gaming there are people like Pierre Estève who used a mixture of traditional instruments, electronics and things he came up with himself, it sounds like nothing else which is kind of the point of creating music in the first place.

I suppose everyone has their own instruments, equipment or musical objects that they feel most at home with. Most important for me personally is that I'm having fun, if I'm not enjoying working on something I put it aside and won't touch it again unless I want to and start to enjoy working on it, this is why it has taken over a decade to get as far as I have with my cartoon, music included, and I actually think the end result is better. I noticed that if I drew when I didn't feel like it the level of detail and accuracy dropped significantly, so now, because I care about the project, I only work on it if I am in the right mood and am having fun doing so. There's no deadline and I never indented to make it for anyone else, maybe nobody else will even see it, but I'm happy with it, I enjoy working with it and even if it is rubbish to the outside world, I don't care because it's my project and it's what I want it to be.

Great, some good ideas here, thanks for the input. I have an AWE64 gold in there so I will start with that and work from there.

I compose merely as a hobby, and I find that working on different systems/mediums inspires different forms of creativity and in some cases the limitation of the platform can foster a unique arrangement (how about a Synclavier!) I never have tried composing on a Win95 platform, so I thought it might be a nice diversion and am curious to see if anything worthwhile comes out of it. The gear I plan to use will be an original Nord Lead, a Chroma Polaris, and a Waldorf Microwave XT rack.

You should ping that chrisNova777 guy who runs http://oldschooldaw.com/

formulator: check links in my signature

I love my Yamaha UW500.

xjas wrote:

realnc wrote:

On that note I have *never* seen a USB-MIDI interface under win* give timing accuracy anywhere near as good as a DB15 soundcard MIDI under DOS. Even Linux and OSX have issues.

This is pretty much the main problem with USB-MIDI. You can't get the timing accuracy of a real MIDI interface because of the way USB works.

Good USB 2.0 MIDI interfaces are much better than USB 1.0/1.1 interfaces, but the accuracy still isn't there.

The other options besides sound card MIDI for accuracy are Parallel and Serial.

like i said, check the links in my signature;
ive done EXTENSIVE research on this topic + continue to do so..

Roland MPU-IPC (1984) mpu for IBM-PC, XT, AT
Midiman MM-401 (1991) ISA MIDI interface
Motu Midi Express PC (1993)
Midiman Winman 1x1 (1995)
Steinberg PC-Midi-1 (1994?) ISA card 16 channels
Voyetra v22 (late 1990)
Midiman Winman 2x2 (1996?)
MIDI Edge 1x1 - compatible with windows 3.1, win95
MIDI Edge 1x4 (Aug 1996)
Opcode (Music Quest) PC MIDI Card II (1993)
Computer Music Supply CMS-401 (1988) 8bit MIDI interface card
Roland MPU-401 (1984) + MIF-IPC-A (1988) 2 out / 32 channel
Music Quest MQX-16 (1989?)
Midiman mm401 (1991)
MIDI Land DX-401 (1988?)
MIF-IPC-B? (2015)
Voyetra OP-4001 (1987)
IBM MFC (Music Feature Card) (1988?)
voyetra v-4001 (1988)
Roland MPU-IPC-T (1984) 32 channel?
Roland S-MPU/AT
Roland MPU-401AT (1994?)
Roland S-MPU-IIAT (1995) Intelligent MIDI Processing Unit
Roland LAPC-I (LAPC-1) (1988)
MusicQuest PC MIDI (1989) + PC MIDI II (1993)
MusicQuest MQX-32 (1987) ISA MIDI interface win3.1/95/NT/98/ME