PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic MIDI patching [Resolved]

Does anybody remember the Digital Music MX-8 MIDI patchbay? When you can find one in the wild the display is usually burned out. It had 50 setup locations and it was great. I wonder if there is something that took the place of it? I have been surfing for an hour and not finding anything as flexible as that box was. Anybody have any ideas?

I used to have a MOTU Midi Express XT back when I still had a MIDI rig, it was very flexible with routing/patching. IIRC routing was done in software but could be assigned to presets that could be switched from the front panel (or footswitch). Might do the trick?

The display looks like it might be fairly easy to replace on the MX-8. It's probably a fairly standard 16x2 LCD which are cheap as chips.

Okay. Last night I found an MX-8 on Reverb. The seller was on the west coast so the 3 hour time window meant he was still open (It's a music store.) I asked specifically about the display. He wrote back that when he got my email he went and powered it on to test it and the display was very legible. I also then started looking for replacement and they sell a backlight element that will light the display. I will order one of those too just in case our definition of "legible" is not the same. Having had these in my past life makes it a known quantity and I was glad to find one in the wild.

Yep, MOTU and their displays. Quite a few seem to fade over time. My 828MK3 display has been slowly fading over the years, give it a half hour or so to warm up and maybe a quick on and off and it'll still come back on bright as ever...a little touchy bit hey, still works great. My MIDI Express XT has never had a problem...still as bright as day one.

But yea, quite a few reports across the internet about MOTU displays. I still like their kits!

Jeff

Nice work!



Yeah, MOTU makes some great hardware overall. I currently have a Traveler Mk1 on my backup machine, and an 828mk3 Firewire where the Firewire port got fried, so I've got it patched into my RME with ADAT to use as an extra 8 converters. Screen looks great on both of them.

This tale took SUCH a turn!! The MX-8 from California is fine. I also ordered one from That State Up North. They got here the same day. The one from TSUN was wrapped in bubble wrap but only around the body of it, none of it in the direction from rack ears to rack ears. Well, apparently that box was set on end in the truck and something fell on it, causing impact of enough force that the front panel is now bowed out by 3/8" inch. The front buttons on this thing are held in place by the tension of that front panel being screwed tightly against the face, so 2 of those buttons fell out. (Those buttons push contacts so I can press them.)

When I powered it up, all I heard was buzzing from the power transformer. NO display at all, nothing responding. Immediately I took pictures of the damaged unit and the box that clearly showed it was damaged. I sent them to the seller, who reported it to Reverb, so I got my money back and he will get his from the USPS. They also told me that since it was damaged that I need not send it back. Once I heard all that, I took the thing apart. What I found was the nuts that hold the transformer were loose. I tightened those up. I also found the CMOS battery laying in the case. I replaced that with a new one. I hit the power again. This time the buzz was gone but still no display. Now, this guy had sent me photos of this thing powered up with a bright display. I moved the cable on the display and the display flashed. So again I powered down, pulled the power from the wall, and took that cable off, sprayed both the plug and the pins with tuner cleaner, spread the pins slightly with needle nosed pliers, and got it back together. I powered it up and everything is fine. I did a factory reset on both of them and the gibberish on the display panel reset to what it is supposed to look like, so I now have TWO of these. At some point I am going to try and figure out a way to apply gentle pressure on that front panel to get it nice and flat again, but my main thing is that it works.

I also did not know until now that there were 2 different form factors for these things. The later revision went to a wall wort transformer rather than a hard wired power cord, and they changed the button design from 1/2" square buttons to smaller ones.

The bottom one is the older rev.



This is how bad the front panel was bent from the impact. That should not have a gap!



And just a short PS. I bought a Yamaha TX81z sound module yesterday from a guy in Columbus. He is a FOH guy in that part of the state, and on Oct 6th he will be mixing Tommy Emmanuel.

Here's the latest in rackland for me. Now in search of a Kurzweil module that will complete the rack on the right. That will be an adventure because people tend to keep those or ask for a kidney when they sell them. I managed to swap an old M-Audio interface for 3 shallow rack shelves just big enough for their intended purpose.

The one on the left will get the boutique synths and drum machines and such that don't have rack ears and in fact can't be racked because of the form factor. The plugs are all on the back so if they were 19" rack mounted the wires would all be coming out of the top.

Today's addition was a 12 channel Alesis mixer, which allowed me to not use my live rig mixer that took up too much rack space anyway.



I have the stuff in the right rack to where the sound sources are above and below but adjacent to the mixer, and the MIDI router and compressor are at the bottom. I don't know why I did it that way other than it seemed logical. The Kurzweil will go on top and finish off the right rack. I am still working on how to affix the small boutique synths on those slanted shelves in the left rack. I have to engineer some kind of slanted bases so I can see them. Ah, geometry. You and your angles are such a fickle beast! Any suggestions? Wood wedges seem to be the most logical.

I think I'd go with washers/spacers as opposed to wood wedges, if I follow your plan here.
Maybe with a lock washer as additional security.

Harv, these things don't screw to the rack itself. They are only 8-10 inches wide and meant to lay flat on a desk. These slanted desktop racks are tilted back maybe 8-10 degrees, so those things would slide right off unless they are tilted back to front. I mounted one of them tonight. I cut wooden wedges that actually look like door wedges but at a steeper angle, and screwed them into the shelf. I still need to do some velcro to hold the synth to the wedge but the alignment is right. I'll do the Korg tomorrow. Since these won't leave the house I can get away with low tech engineering.

Photo tomorrow.

Hi there,

I have 2 MX-8 MIDI Patch Bays. One has a very dim LCD so can barely read it. I did order and receive a new Backlight for the LCD, but, before taking it apart and risk ruining it, I was wondering if anyone out there has done this and how hard was it to replace?

There are no service manuals or instructions for the unit other than the owner's manual. I am hoping to get advice or find out where instructions to replace that backlight can be found....

There is one picture that has the top lid off and shows the front of the display, but it is hidden by a silver cover, so I don't know how tricky it might be to get at to do this work.

I really wish they still made these! They are rock solid and I have had mine since 1987!

Thanks for anything anyone can offer!

Regards,
Vince M

Welcome to the forums.

This is possibly a good question for the Help! Tech S.O.S. forum pages.

I am a retired Copier Tech who worked for Xerox, Cannon and Sharp. I have replaced many LCD displays over the years and all I can tell you is this. Every model is different as well as it's disassembly. They usually have a flat ribbon molex cable that connects the display to the pcb. You do have to be careful with this cable as it can be damaged. You might want to give Sweetwater Music a call to their techs and see if they would be willing to replace it for you since you have the part. Them guys are factory authorized to fix a lot of equipment. Also a local electronics repair shop might be inclined as well.
Good Luck