Actually yes, we interviewed Florian Bomes who is one of the holy gods of midi - He makes Bomes Midi Translator which is arguably the best commercial midi utility on the market. Personally i take anything he says about midi as gospel as hes far more experienced with the intricacies of midi than anyone on this forum - Is your Midi Controller Late? - DJ TechTools
Sharing midi and sound over the same cable is a no no if you want the best performance, you will increase the jitter in the midi messages which is a performers worst enemy. You can deal with latency but no amount of practice can prepare for midi jitter.
Max One: Agreed. It is pretty surprising that no-one has nailed this yet. People have wanted exactly what you just described for a few years now - plenty of time for the manufacturers to have responded to the demand.
Wow - that is an interesting read BentoSan, thanks for the link. I should have known that DJTT would be one step ahead on this one and had a look in the archives!
I noticed that the DX has a 5-pin midi out on the back… I wonder if you can configure it to send just the audio via USB and the midi messages through the dedicated midi output?
If so that would seem to be a better setup, based on what I just read.
Thanks for the input BentoSan. I myself was looking for an all in one solution (controller + soundcard), but after discussion with other DJTT heads (JesC & Mike O), this seems to be the general consensus: Keep your MIDI and sound separated.
I did get a chance to play with the Xone DX while at NAMM and I’m also interested to see how the unit will perform in a club environment. I have a friend who has the 4D and have never had a problem with the unit, so hopefully the Xone DX is of the same build quality. One thing I didn’t like about the Xone DX was that some of the buttons did feel somewhat plasticky. Also, the Cue and Play/Pause buttons are actually metal, so it feels a little weird against your fingers when you tap them. Prob something you just need to get used to, but it kind of threw me off.
I also took a look at the American Audio controller I spent a little time messing around with it. It feels like a pretty solid controller. The jog wheels on it are solid, as well as all the faders. Buttons are very responsive and the rotary knobs (for eqs, gain, etc…) all have rubber around them (similar to the VCI-100). Again, my concern would the integrated sound card with the controller, but I suppose we’ll find out about that in the near future.