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Not all USB cables are created equally


Elfrasho
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Thought I'd share this in case it may avoid someone else spending hours fault finding like I did today.

 

I have  two keyboards connected via USB midi to my pc running through reaper. I've had them wired in for months but haven't really used them via midi, but yesterday I had. Wee recording sesh. No matter what settings i used, every so often midi would 'hang'. Leaving notes ringing out and the only fix was to completely shut the pc down.

 

Anyways... After trying pretty much everything else including pricing up other daws haha I changed the usb cables and it seems to have sorted it! I was using a usb cable I got free with something probably 15 years ago. Switched it to the one I got with my helix, and no more hangs!

 

Moral of the story... If something funky is happening, don't forget the cable

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I remember setting up my first audio interface many years ago. I ended up ringing the Helpdesk because it didn’t work. We tried loads of before I casually mentioned the USB extension cable I was using. I could almost hear the support guy’s eyes rolling ….. moved the box nearer to pc , no extension cable - worked fine.

Lesson learned.

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Usually, it's not the 'quality' of the USB cable, as it's not passing analogue signal, it's a digital signal. It's much more likely to be the length of the cable, as lots to do with MIDI is down to timing (not in a musical sense), and if you have a longer cable, it takes more time for data to travel down the cable, leading to hangs and drop-outs etc.

 

Si

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  • 3 weeks later...

If you are getting a note "Hang"....  it's also a good idea to check that it's not just a case of (midi) note on/off messages playing up. Which can be a few different reasons. Sustain/hold Pedals, Velocity at '0' etc...

Google searching will bring up a few fixes/solutions for note on/off problems.

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 months later...
On 01/02/2022 at 09:50, Sibob said:

Usually, it's not the 'quality' of the USB cable, as it's not passing analogue signal, it's a digital signal. It's much more likely to be the length of the cable, as lots to do with MIDI is down to timing (not in a musical sense), and if you have a longer cable, it takes more time for data to travel down the cable, leading to hangs and drop-outs etc.

 

 

Well sort of. It's not directly the time taken for signal transmission.

Primarily the problem with longer cable length is capacitance. The longer the length for a given cable the greater the capacitance. This effectively produces a low pass filter and eventually the USB driver can't drive the cable effectively. In digital comms talk this is related to the "eye pattern".

There is a minimum standard for a given USB spec' but in reality a good cable can be used well in excess of it.

"Good" in this sense primarily means low capacitance per unit length. A useful approach is eg to use cables rated for USB 3.x even if your running USB 2.x

Interference is also a possibility so a better screened cable is an advantage. Some of the cheap thin "giveaway" cables are poor in this regard.

A well screened cable is likely to be thicker than one with poor screening and this also points to lower capacitance (as screen is further away from the conductor cores) so it's all good.

Termination / Impedance matching and reflections are also technically relevant but that isn't really within user control. And you need to be using really quite long cables for them to be an issue.

Just don't fall for the "Megabucks" gold plated connector hype 🙄

 

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IIRC the maximum cable length for USB was originally quoted as 5m.

 

I've also successfully used a USB extender system which employed Cat5e cable and allowed me to control a computer several rooms away via the standard network cabling system. I don't know how good this system would be with timing critical USB data though.

Edited by BigRedX
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A couple of years ago, I had a similar issue. Had an issue where my Roli wasn’t connecting. Realised I was using a skinny cable that came free with something, so swapped it for the cable that came with the Roli & the issue was gone. I recently bought a 10ft cable off the Amazon & it works without issue, as does any decent thick USB cable. 

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