MIDI cable question???

[N.U.G.]

I had to exchange some 5 foot MIDI cables for some longer ones to connect a keyboard I recently bought to my PC. The guy at the music store said that I should consider that the signal gets weaker with longer MIDI cables. What does this actually mean???

I would have to totally rearrange my setup to make the 5 foot MIDI cables fit, otherwise it looks as though I'll need to use some 20 foot cables. I just really need to know what diffference the cables will make.

Anyone???

 

[God]

Dear N.U.G.:

20 ft. should be fine, although it is kind of long, you might want to consider the setup of your studio for practical purposes.

There are people who claim that longer cables, if they are not high quality will deplete the quality of the MIDI impulse signal. So, you might get stuck notes, dropped notes, out of sync situations, etc. But 20 ft. sounds OK, from what I've heard from the pundits, it's actually borderline long before "depletion of signal" sets in. So MIDI cable length may affect the reliability of your system, but make sure to check what is AROUND the cables that can interfere in transmission of MIDI signals.

Sincerely,
God

 

[N.U.G.]

^^^

thanks God!

 

[Medicine Man]

I know for a fact that a midi cable can be up to 50 feet in length before it looses any power. I learned this when I went to school for audio production. I have a degree in audio engineering and use a 30 foot long midi cable everday to make beats, and have never had a single problem. So I wouldn't worry about a 20 foot long cable. Just remember audio cable is different, it can go longer.

 

[N.U.G.]

Originally posted by Beats Perfected
I know for a fact that a midi cable can be up to 50 feet in length before it looses any power. I learned this when I went to school for audio production. I have a degree in audio engineering and use a 30 foot long midi cable everday to make beats, and have never had a single problem. So I wouldn't worry about a 20 foot long cable. Just remember audio cable is different, it can go longer.

alright cool, thanks for the confirmation. I'm actually buying some Audio cables tomorrow, so you're saying with audio cables, any length is fine right?

 

[The Bastard]

i dunno whut school u went to but at mine they told me unless its an xlr cable that audio cables will get weak after a certain length

 

[Formant024]

WE ordered 30 feet ( 10Meter ) at a store and the clerk replied that it's impossible. I replied whaddayamean impossible you moron and hung up, wennt to store downtown and friggin ordered it there. I think it's very relative, I mean, midi doesn't send out pulses al at ones, theyre one after another with 0.x ms delay already in polyphonic transmit. in case of instruments I wouldn't be so bothered about timing, if it's recorders it's a different thing. We use a midi patch bay and and we have a snake going into a corner of the control room where a rack of synths and keys are placed remotly from the desk. Everything patched and no sync/timing problems whatsoever ( I clock sync midi gear too ).

 

[Medicine Man]

NUG- audio cables shouldn't be much longer than 20 feet in a studio set up, but you can go alot longer if you have to be. It all depends on the width or gauge of the cable. The thicker, the longer.

inspecta wu- xlr cable's sound quality starts to degrade after about 50 feet, but their are other types of cables out there that can be alot longer. The length a cable can be has to do with the gauge or width of the cable. The thicker, or higher gauge a cable is, the longer it can be before it looses sound quality. I've ran snakes at live concerts before that were a inch or so thick, so they could be hundreds of feet long. But a home stereo RCA cable is so thin it can't be that long, maybe like 15 or 20 feet at the most.

Formant024- technically MIDI cables can be up to 50 feet long, and I have seen them that long. But one shouldn't use cables much longer than like 6 feet, just to be sure you don't have any problems like dropped notes, or a delay.

 

[SyN]

Cableage OI!!!

yo, i am just writing in response to some of the ideas that have already been made... the major problem with audio cables getting longer is Radio and Electro Magnetic Interference. The longer an audio cable tends to get, the more like an antenna it becomes. Becoming more likely to recieve interference from the cab driver outside or the local spanish radio station. You are also likely to pick up more interference from electrical interference around getting hums and line noise. In order to avoid these types of problems you should look at making your cables Balanced cables(3 conductors as opposed to 2 conductor instrument and rca type cables), these cables have a shielding wrapped around your main possitive and negative cables creating a resistence to noise and interference. And as far as the electric thing goes... do not run your power and audio cables right next to each other. and if it is necessary to cross power and audio, try to do so at a 90 degree angle..... and as far as the MIDI is concerned... i think it has been covered... but the cables should not exceed 50 ft in lenght... and the shorter the better as with any cable carrying computer data... after all, MIDI is a series of binary messages...

good luck

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Ok I won't brag about an audio engineering degree I wish I did but I have an AAS in Computer Electronics Engineering and Syn hit it dead on it doesn't make me an expert but.....OHMS law is inescapable and laws of Impedance(also what Syn mentioned in so many words capacitive and resistive reactance) come into play when you deal with unusually long cables and the other cabling that tend to be unusually long or might have the tendency to pass thru areas where you have ac voltages can possibly induce errors and you might be able to operate and never see an error, but also each device has its own electrical characteristics in the circuit too.....but midi cables might be more susceptible to interference because I don't think the insulation is shielded or is it Syn??
max I used it 20 feet and I had no problems......

 

[SyN]

MIDI

A MIDI cable is actually pretty much the same cable used for an XLR mic cable... the connector has 5 pins, but only 3 of them are actually used... A true MIDI cable is usually shielded... however, you have to make sure that you are using a MIDI cable and not just a 5 Pin Data cable as for that is normally not shielded and has all 5 cables hooked up as opposed to the 3 pins of MIDI...