EES PC-MIDI

1/4 PC MIDI Interface

Reviews : MIDI Interface


As PC musicians expand into the world of MIDI outside their computer casings, they'll find a few more MIDI outputs never go amiss. MARTIN WALKER enters a parallel dimension.



As reported in our recent roundup of PC MIDI Interfaces (see SOS August 1997), Cimple Solutions have recently started to market a 1-In/4-Out interface from manufacturers EES in Germany. It's an external device, which attaches to the parallel (printer) port on the PC, and comes in a neat but tough ABS casing, with a connector for the parallel printer port at one side, and a through connector to attach additional devices (such as your printer) on the other. (If you buy an interface without a through port, you'll either have to buy a parallel port switching box or expander card to simultaneously attach your printer -- around £15 -- or power-down and change the cables every time you want to print something.) A cable is provided so that you can place the interface a short distance from the PC, rather than trying to hang it off the printer port itself.

CONSTRUCTION & OPERATION



The PC-MIDI 1/4's MIDI sockets are all along one side, with a single MIDI In and then four identical MIDI Outs in a row. These are discrete outputs, each providing a totally separate 16 MIDI channels, giving a total of 64. Unusually, the PC-MIDI 1/4 case contains a mains power supply, and if the unit is powered up without the PC the MIDI input is passed 'thru' to Out 1, so that you can play attached modules without switching on your computer.



On the top, there are two LEDs: the red one initially comes on to show that mains power is reaching the unit, and the other lights up green when the interface is active, whereupon the red LED flashes if MIDI activity is detected. Driver installation from the floppy disk is fairly painless, although some of the text options on the review model were still in German at the time of the review (I have been promised that this will have been sorted, as well as the drivers being upgraded for multi-client use, by the time you read this issue of SOS). Once the driver has been installed, you need to tell it the settings of your parallel port (look in Device Manager first). Having clicked on the correct values (see screenshot, below), click on OK, and then reboot the PC to initialise the interface.



I decided to plug the unit into the chain of other devices that I already have hanging off my printer port (Cubase Score dongle, Waves Native Power Pack dongle, and an Epson Stylus Color printer), to see if anything untoward happened. I connected my devices in the order 'PC, dongles, MIDI interface, printer', and everything worked first time for me. However, in the interests of thoroughness, I persevered, and did manage to make Cubase throw a wobbly by reconnecting the devices in the order 'PC, MIDI interface, dongles, printer', as Cubase then refused to see its dongle. It seems that leaving the dongles nearest the computer is the way to do it. Some people have apparently had trouble with fast parallel ports recognising Cubase dongles (see the Steinberg web site for more details), but as long as your dongle worked before installing this interface, there seems no reason why it should not continue to do so afterwards.



Unlike some interfaces which provide no through port, this one allows everything to co-exist in relative harmony. This is because the MIDI interface is automatically disabled by the interface driver when you send the first byte to the printer, so there cannot possibly be any interaction. Whenever a subsequent MIDI application is run, a small utility automatically reactivates the interface. This all worked well for me, and the LEDs were useful for indicating current status.

SUMMARY



This is a robust interface that has sensible precautions designed into it, so that it works alongside other devices using the parallel port. It also seems to be the cheapest 1-In, 4-Out device currently available. Most people only need a single MIDI In, but nearly always need more outputs, so this interface ought to find a lot of potential customers, especially once the multi-client drivers have been finished. Sometimes the Cimple things are the best!  

Published in SOS November 1997