Am getting quite tired of USB hubs. I find them annoying and they take a power outlet. I like how the Kontrol Z2 has a built in USB hub, though i still find two to be limiting, and the Xone K2 has the X Link port. I think all USB controllers should have a hub. Macbooks are so limited with just two hubs, so the audio interface takes one and the then everything else goes in a Hub. A FW interface would free up another USB port but its limiting.
Manufacturers really need to address this, other than the all-in-one controllers like the S4, combinations of multiple controllers, which are more common among professionals it seems, all require quite a few USB ports.
hemmm my laptop has 4 usb hubs but im going to switch to a surface pro or something simaler soon so a powered usb hub is the way to go. get a good power strip for your gig bag and you should be able to plug in everything thing you own. i agree that more usbs on things would be nice but there is a issue of power, most of the modular products are usb powered and usb is only allowed so much draw per port so if you start chaining a bunch of stuff together you run out of power very fast. i think the way to do it is just make good non usb powered mixer that has extra usb ports on it (grabs mixer, usb hub and screwdriver) .
You don’t actually NEED powered USB hubs for most devices, that’s one of the biggest “DJ myths” around tbh.
I can happily run 4 controllers (1x Reloop Contour IE, 1x Reloop Contour CE, 1x Kontrol F1 and 1x Korg nanoKONTROL) off a single, unpowered hub.
It’s rare that units without audio interfaces draw more than a couple of hundred miliamps each, and most USB ports can safely deliver 1-1.5A, because the official USB specification states that the MINIMUM a port should be able to provide is 500mA; in reality, most machines can provide significantly more than that.
Best practice these days seems to be: audio interface/controller with audio interface into one port, everything else into an unpowered hub on the other port. Problem solved
I’m using a MBP with 2 USB 2.0 ports in my studio. Running my soundcard out of one port and a 4 port USB hub out of the other.
Got a MIDI keyboard, Maschine, wireless mouse and another controller running from the hub, no proplems what so ever, no latency, not underpowered, works like a charm. All done through a pretty cheap hub.
The point I’m trying to make is that using a USB hub is completely fine for controllers, they don’t require too much power and only send MIDI data back to you’re computer.
Here’s the problem. You never know how much power your controller is going to draw. That APC40 might be fine mapped to other software, but when you attach it to Live and load a session you can double your power consumption. The other side of this is you also don’t know how much power your computer is going to allocate to your device. Your computer doesn’t allocate full power to your USB device just because you plug it in. And once allocated, there are situations where that value can change.
There are also other influencing issues. For example, when I was at another company we received a batch of USB cables that were of poor enough quality that they took one of our products that was marginal and pushed them over the edge to intermittent failure.
A powered, multi-T hub makes life easier and WAY more reliable. Is it needed 100% of the time? Of course not. But I for one would rather have it and never worry about these issues. All it costs is one mains plug. And if you’re a DJ and you don’t have a traveller’s power strip in your gig bag, that’s on you.
LOL…The VCI100 comes shipped…without the power adapter.
So yes..its USB powered (power comes via the USB cable)…unless you buy the adapter.
It is half assed as its plainly just not true.
If you have powered USB devices…(that have their own power cables) then you do not need to have a Powered USB Hub.
If you are hanging devices off your hub that have no power cable and have a load of LED’s and other goodies that suck power…you will run into trouble with a USB hub that is not powered.
Its is very simple my friend. Not trying to knock anyone, purely saying that you can’t call that a myth. HAHAHAHA
Go and try it and have a look.
I have a USB hub that can work without its power cable. If i hang an external HHD off it with no power…a mouse…a VCI100 with no power cable…things start going wrong quickly.
