MOTU MIDI Express, Emagic AMT8, Windows, and Linux

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

Couldn't find a more appropriate forum to post this in. My question does pertain to sequencing, via MIDI.

I have a MOTU MIDI Express XT and an Emagic AMT8. I got the AMT8 because MOTU and Linux do not get along. OTOH, the AMT8 doesn't show up in Sonar on Windows.

I would like to rig my stuff together so I can use any of my synths in either Windows or Linux without having to manually re-patch everything every time I switch (which would be 6 ins and 6 outs), which would be frequently if all goes well with a new computer I'm getting soon. Does anyone think I could patch my synths into the MOTU and plug the MOTU into the AMT8 via #8 in/out on the front of the MOTU, with the MOTU plugged into the Windows machine via USB and the AMT8 plugged into the Linux machine via USB?

Or am I plugging stuff into my ass here?

BobTheDog · Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 8:45 am Post subject:

Hi,

I haven't got an AMT8 but doesn't it allow you to program internal routings?

If so you could plug the synths into the AMT8 and connect the XT to the AMT8 and maybe route via channel in the AMT8?

Or you could use routing software on the pc to accomplish the same thing with the XT but the machine would have to be on.

Andy

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall something about routing. I'll have to look it up and ultimately just try it!

I'll post back what I find out. Might be a week or two as I set up my new computer first.

jksuperstar · Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:52 am Post subject:

I have both of the same (AMT8 and Motu MIDI Express (Micro though).

The MOTU allows routing, in standalone mode, or even while attached to the computer.

The AMT8 routes in stand-alone mode, but does not route while attached to the computer. However, this doesn't seem to matter for you!

[edit - by routing, I mean the device does it's own remapping and routing. When attached to the computer, all 8 ins & outs show up as direct ports to the computer. the MOTU however has the 8 physical ins & outs that can still be routed among themselves despite having a computer attached.]

I'd route all your synths into the MOTU.
- Then for Windows, attached the MOTU via USB to the PC.
- For Linux, your idea is solid: attach the AMT8, and talk through 1 or more MIDI channels to the MOTU.

This way, you could have BOTH computers attached to ALL of your gear, and each other Wink

(Unless this is a dual-boot situation)

BobTheDog · Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:16 pm Post subject:

Ah I missed the XT bit, sorry about that!

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

jksuperstar · Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:40 am Post subject:

Sure! I hope it works as described Rolling Eyes

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

jksuperstar

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

No, but it comes with that geeky-cool Robbie the Robot look.

Gotta move things into their final positions. Pics to follow!

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

This deserved its own slot!

http://electro-music.com/forum/post-281094.html#281094

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

I just tried Clockworks, from MOTU, for internal routing of the XT, but it seems a bit limited. I'm hoping you'll have more insight, but it's looking like the best solution is to keep the XT and the EMT8 stacked together and physically switch the cables when I need to. Which is not too big a deal. I just set up Ubuntu on my "new" Proliant and I'm able to record audio and MIDI without xruns or glitches (although I haven't run a heavy-load test yet). If this setup works out, I'm going to be converting old project files over to formats I can work with in Linux anyway, which will mean the MOTU will eventually get shelved. If not, I can live with manually re-patching as needed. Maybe even turn the units around so they're facing ass-out. Razz

jksuperstar · Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:26 pm Post subject:

Clockworks is a lot more confusing to me than the Emagic editor for the AMT, too!! It has the possibility of routing *while* being attached to a computer, so things are more complicated anyways, I guess. For certain, it can do more than the Emagic can do. It's probably just a matter of find how to do it Sad

[edit - changed so phpBB didn't muck with the formatting]
It seems you want to route

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

I think that's what I did. The problem, though, is right back at square one - that MOTU is hostile to Linux and there is no current way to see the box on a Linux machine - and hence routing is moot while I'm working with Linux. I tried running Clockworks under Wine - and I can - but the operating system can't see the MOTU.

I don't for the life of me know why some programmer somewhere hasn't simply written or reverse-engineered a Linux driver, and screw MOTU's copyright and proprietary bullshit.

CJ Miller · Joined: Jan 07, 2007 Posts: 368 Location: 127.0.0.1

I have read that there are Linux drivers for the MOTU MTP-AV, but I haven't tried it myself. Either this model is easier, perhaps, or it's just what the coder had on hand.

You could also try using the Linux and Windoze versions of MidiShare and send MIDI between them over ethernet.

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

Midishare sounds like fun either way. I'll check it out!

elektrik_muz · Joined: Mar 11, 2010 Posts: 4 Location: way out

Hi. Was just digging info on this and passed this thread so I might as well dump some of it here--

There is indeed an open source driver for the MOTU midi interfaces, but it only works with the pre-usb models that included the PC parallel port interface. The only way to use the current usb models with this driver is to connect them to one of the old parallel devices via the network port (for the models that include a network port, obviously).

Variants of the driver are available for linux, BSD and BeOS/Haiku. The name of the linux driver is snd-mtpav.ko and it's already installed on all the distros I have and appears to be part of a standard ALSA package. There is a trick to get it to actually load and work: more on that here:

http://osdir.com/ml/linux.agnula.general/2005-07/msg00043.html

I'm preparing an old box with a parallel port to test this at the moment so I can't vouch for the info in the above link just yet. I have tried the BeOS driver with a pair of networked MTPs. On the system I put together it was too buggy to be usable but it does see the device and all sixteen midi ports (has trouble keeping track of them, unfortunately). I'm hoping for better luck with linux when I try it

One last thing: If you really want to use MOTU's internal routing functions on these boxes, I would strongly advise against using the windows or osx versions of Clockworks. The last "real" Clockworks was the Mac OS9 version and after that MOTU stripped out at least half the functionality as they weren't interested in supporting those features anymore. They're buggy too -- I've noticed that even starting the program in osx with connected hardware will cause instant patch corruption. So if you really want to use those features, get an old mac that can run os9 directly (emulators won't cut it here, you can read up on the old freemidi standard if you really want to know why) and use it as a dedicated MOTU interface control box. OS9 Clockworks does have it's kinks but if you make sure the "auto tech assistant" option is enabled it should work well enough.

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

Holy crap. It sounds like MOTU's interfaces are pretty much crap if you need more than simple connections. Don't get me wrong - my Express XT works great with my current Windows/Sonar 8 setup, but ALL I need is to connect my synths to the computer. I don't need any fancy routing (my simple routing needs can be handled in Sonar anyway).

I'm glad I got the AMT8. I have no trouble using it in Linux with snd-usb-midi.

msepsis · Joined: Oct 21, 2008 Posts: 15 Location: oakland, ca

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

msepsis, I know about the ALSA MOTU driver in Linux, but it doesn't run the XT.

It's a moot point now - I no longer use Windows for my DAW, and now that it's been brought to my attention, I realise I don't need my XT any more. I need to take it out of my rack and put it away.

msepsis · Joined: Oct 21, 2008 Posts: 15 Location: oakland, ca

nobody · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 1687 Location: Not here

Groovy. If so, that'd be great because at some point I will run out of ports on my EMT8. If I can get the XT to work, that's an extra 8 ports.

elektrik_muz · Joined: Mar 11, 2010 Posts: 4 Location: way out

So anyway about a million years later...

I did put that machine together, but unfortunately the hardware was a bit sub-par and I think the motherboard just expired. Also had a lot of trouble getting it to run recent distros. The best I could do for midi stuff was last dyne:bolic alpha that was released for testing purposes -- the last official release has kernel-related issues that completely nix the external midi input.

Anyway it did work for awhile -- sort of. As soon as I enabled the interface with "modprobe snd-mtpav" the midi output from the computer seemed to flow through pretty well (not that I performed any exhaustive timing measurements -- just seemed to be basically OK on the TX).

Unfortunately midi input to the computer from the interface didn't fare so well. In fact it only worked slightly better than the BeOS version of this driver in that it didn't crash the machine. I could only get fragments of the midi data stream through to the software if at all, as the input would frequently just quit entirely.

As I said this isn't a fair test but I'll have to wait till I get another box with a parallel port to try again. Dyne:bolic seemed to have no trouble enabling the interface with the single command but it's still possible some other modules were getting in the way and causing the input problems I experienced.

BTW I think there might be some confusion on this thread about which specific hardware the mtpav driver works with. The O.P. stated that he has the USB version of the XT. If this is the case then he is correct in stating that it will not work because it is designed for the previous generation of motu interfaces that used the parallel port and can only connect to the newer USB versions indirecly in the manner I described in my previous post. People sometimes make this mistake since motu more or less re-released the old units with the new interface and the letters "USB" tacked onto the end of the old model names.