USB, musicians and hair loss
Ok, so I've not gone bald, but I've been pulling my hair out a fair bit of recent days !!
After having my MPK49 for about a week now, I am continuing to be impressed by the spec and functionality of this controller, as well as it's rugged build and ease of use.
One thing has become blatantly clear however, and that is the fragility, instability and overall incompatibility inherent within the USB protocol. This is not the fault of the MPK, I hasten to add. In my first week I have purchased a new USB hub and USB PCI card in a vain attempt to have all of my USB devices working in perfect harmony.
I've just counted the total amount of USB devices I have that I could potentially connect to my PC and that is 20. Now, I may not have all those devices connected at the same time, but the potential is there. Now, when USB was first introduced as the all singing all dancing replacement for the old legacy serial and parallel ports as well as many other legacy connections, it was touted as being able to connect up to 127 devices, in a daisy chain fashion, to one single USB port.
HA !
If only !
How many USB devices do you see with input and output ports ? Exactly. So, once we've filled up our complement of USB ports on the PC, we're left with no choice but to buy a hub. Now, I've lost count of the amount of instruction manuals for USB devices that state in large letters, "Ensure you connect this device directly to your PC's USB port, NOT a hub". Not entirely helpful.
Anyway, we all inevitably buy these hubs and most of the time, we don't experience too many problems. Of course, it doesn't help either when certain devices draw power from the hub as opposed to having their own power supply. It's quite common to find that any device that draws it's power from the USB socket tends to be flakey when connected, even to a hub that has it's own power supply.
But then we start to see specific problems arising, like the one I confirmed today. USB Audio devices DO NOT like Logitech webcams being connected to the PC at the same time. The moment you put a Logitech webcam on your system, your USB Audio devices start to perform erratically or not at all. I had this very problem to start with when installing my MPK. Windows simply doesn't see it. Remove the webcam and it's drivers and there it is !!
So remove your webcam, I hear you say, and of course, that's what I did. But that's no good when I wanted to do some filming of me using the MPK for various things. So now I will have to set up my camcorder over Firewire and hope that it doesn't knock out any other devices !
So, what's the solution ? Well, the powers that be could invent a new, sturdier, non-conflicting protocol, but that would render all our existing devices useless. They could invest heavily in getting USB as it is to work correctly, but that won't happen because it would cost too much. We could demand that peripheral manufacturers make better drivers, but they'll just turn around and say that "our drivers work great with their products, but we couldn't possibly guarantee they will work with everyone else's".
Of course, we as users could simply run two systems. Computer based musicians do this a lot anyway, but it's not always the most affordable practice.
So I guess, we'll still be rolling the dice and hoping that everything we want to work on our systems does, and without many issues. It's not right and it's not acceptable, but we are generally at their mercy.
I'd like to know what users of other platforms find. Do OSX or Linux users get the same problems ? Do things improve with Vista ? That's my next test as I have a laptop running Vista, so I will install the MPK and webcam and see what happens.
After my recent experiences, I'm not holding my breath ;o)
After having my MPK49 for about a week now, I am continuing to be impressed by the spec and functionality of this controller, as well as it's rugged build and ease of use.
One thing has become blatantly clear however, and that is the fragility, instability and overall incompatibility inherent within the USB protocol. This is not the fault of the MPK, I hasten to add. In my first week I have purchased a new USB hub and USB PCI card in a vain attempt to have all of my USB devices working in perfect harmony.
I've just counted the total amount of USB devices I have that I could potentially connect to my PC and that is 20. Now, I may not have all those devices connected at the same time, but the potential is there. Now, when USB was first introduced as the all singing all dancing replacement for the old legacy serial and parallel ports as well as many other legacy connections, it was touted as being able to connect up to 127 devices, in a daisy chain fashion, to one single USB port.
HA !
If only !
How many USB devices do you see with input and output ports ? Exactly. So, once we've filled up our complement of USB ports on the PC, we're left with no choice but to buy a hub. Now, I've lost count of the amount of instruction manuals for USB devices that state in large letters, "Ensure you connect this device directly to your PC's USB port, NOT a hub". Not entirely helpful.
Anyway, we all inevitably buy these hubs and most of the time, we don't experience too many problems. Of course, it doesn't help either when certain devices draw power from the hub as opposed to having their own power supply. It's quite common to find that any device that draws it's power from the USB socket tends to be flakey when connected, even to a hub that has it's own power supply.
But then we start to see specific problems arising, like the one I confirmed today. USB Audio devices DO NOT like Logitech webcams being connected to the PC at the same time. The moment you put a Logitech webcam on your system, your USB Audio devices start to perform erratically or not at all. I had this very problem to start with when installing my MPK. Windows simply doesn't see it. Remove the webcam and it's drivers and there it is !!
So remove your webcam, I hear you say, and of course, that's what I did. But that's no good when I wanted to do some filming of me using the MPK for various things. So now I will have to set up my camcorder over Firewire and hope that it doesn't knock out any other devices !
So, what's the solution ? Well, the powers that be could invent a new, sturdier, non-conflicting protocol, but that would render all our existing devices useless. They could invest heavily in getting USB as it is to work correctly, but that won't happen because it would cost too much. We could demand that peripheral manufacturers make better drivers, but they'll just turn around and say that "our drivers work great with their products, but we couldn't possibly guarantee they will work with everyone else's".
Of course, we as users could simply run two systems. Computer based musicians do this a lot anyway, but it's not always the most affordable practice.
So I guess, we'll still be rolling the dice and hoping that everything we want to work on our systems does, and without many issues. It's not right and it's not acceptable, but we are generally at their mercy.
I'd like to know what users of other platforms find. Do OSX or Linux users get the same problems ? Do things improve with Vista ? That's my next test as I have a laptop running Vista, so I will install the MPK and webcam and see what happens.
After my recent experiences, I'm not holding my breath ;o)
Labels: USB
posted by Failed Muso at
3:32 pm
2 Comments:
Always use powered hubs! The main thing to remember is that USB power is exhaustible. What wattage is your PSU? If you can manage it, try and sum up the total power draw from a typical days PC usage (i.e what power are the internal PCI cards and usb devices drawing). You might find your power supply is under pressure.
Some USB ports are deliberately setup to limit the power output. I was uable to use my Alesis Photon with my Dell laptop without powering it via a separate power supply because all the laptop would give was 5V/100mA over usb.
As regards conflicting USB devices, it could be anything. They might be sharing the same Interrupt address or IRQ, although this should show up as a fault in the Device Manager so you'd have probably seen this already.
Having a dedicated machine is the only way to go. That said my pci audio interface card has started acting up in my new machine. It used to happen on the old pc at times so maybe the card itself is in need of replacing.
If youre stuck with just a single machine, it might be no harm having a look at the Hardware Profiles in System Properties in the Control Panel. You can set up profiles which disable certain devices automatically at startup depending on which profile you choose. Handy for freeing up resources when you need them for music etc.
Hope this sheds some light :)
By
gammagoblin, at 5:53 pm
"Always use powered hubs!"
I never use anything but !! :o)
My PSU is a true 400W (525W I believe). I had that problem on my last PC, hence the better PSU.
It seems the Logitech Vs USB Audio thing is quite common, sadly.
This might be just what I need to spur me on and start saving for an uber laptop ;o)
By
Failed Muso, at 7:25 pm
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