Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:yawetaG wrote:Continuing my journey into professional audio land with a 1980s stereo mixer in 19" 2U format:
mx8sr1 .jpg
8 stereo line inputs (2 also mic inputs), each with adjustable fader, gain, panpot, and effect volume, 2 effect returns (one stereo), master faders, headphones out with separate volume knob, stereo out. $40.
Very interesting. Is that active mic mixer (so you don't need external power amp), or passive?
Passive only, I think. I still have to buy a modern audio interface to be able to record my music, and that one will take care of any active mics. However, I wanted to be able to make music with multiple electronic instruments without being dependent on a computer, so the mixer was pretty much a prerequisite - and stereo mixers are hard to come by.
yawetaG wrote:Last month I already got this thing ($35), which will soon be en route to me:
mav 8 1.jpg
That's a MIDI patchbay, a 19" rackmount unit that allows easy routing of MIDI devices, so instead of swapping cables I can just hit a switch to select a different MIDI module.
Does it work "many-to-many"? For example, to switch between multiple retro rigs and multiple MIDI devices? Let say I have three retro computers. I also have a Roland MT-32 and a Roland SC-88. Can I use it to switch between computers and MIDI modules?
Yes. MIDI patchbays have multiple MIDI INs (typically 4 or 8 ), each of which can be routed to one or more MIDI THRU/OUTs. The one I picked up is quite simple and not programmable, using hardware switches to change the routing by hand (I actually bought it for that reason, it's pretty much indestructible) - it has 4 INs, each IN can be routed to 1-8 OUTs. However, it lacks MIDI merge, so it can't merge MIDI signals coming from multiple INs. There are small MIDI merge boxes available for that, but most programmable MIDI patchbays have the merge function build in. More modern patchbays can also be connected to computers via USB and be used as MIDI interfaces for communication with instruments (note: not from DOS - they are not MPU-401 compatible AFAIK).
So in your example, as long as your three retro computers each already have a MIDI interface available (e.g. game port break-out cable), you'd hook up each computer's MIDI OUT to one of the MIDI patchbay's MIDI IN ports (three total), and the two MIDI devices' MIDI IN ports to two of the MIDI patchbay's MIDI OUT ports. Then you can just hit a switch on the patchbay to switch between computers and MIDI devices. E.g. Computer A -> SC-88 and Computer B -> MT-32 (both routings can be active at the same time), or even Computer A -> SC-88 + MT-32 (the same signal gets send to both MIDI devices). If your MIDI patchbay has MIDI merge, you could also have Computer A + Computer C -> SC-88.
If you were to connect a MIDI device's MIDI OUT to one of the patchbay's MIDI INs, and the patchbay's MIDI OUTs to your computers' MIDI INs, you could also do sysex dumps to one of your computers pretty easily. There's one hitch, and that's that some MIDI patchbays don't work nice with sysex (the one I got does it well, one that doesn't is the MOTU MIDI Express range).
The other hitch is the price of the things. I got mine via Yahoo Auctions Japan, as the vintage ones on Ebay are usually overpriced by about 300%. Japan seems to have way too many MIDI patchbays, the rest of the world too few... 😵 There are a few modern options that can be used with retro computers, but they are expensive.
My best advice would be: do the research first (manuals are easy to find via Google), decide what you need, and only then buy.