could anyone give me an intro tutorial and advise on one to buy.
i have never owned one but intuitively think one might really help my mutli key set up right now.  how do they work? and which one should i get?
thanks
There are 6 comments, leave a comment.
do you mean midi merge?

you only need one of this if you can't daisy chain your midi. usually you can by plugging in like this

device 1 midi out->device 2 midi thru-->device2 midi out-->device 3 midi thru -> device 3 midi in (this is the last device in the chain).
correction to the example:

(3 device example where device 3 is the sound module and the other two are controllers.


device 1 midi out->device 2 midi thru-->device2 midi out-->device 3 midi in (this is the last device in the chain).
a very popular midi patchbay in the 90s was the yamaha mjc-8.  the rear panel had 8 midi in ports, and 8 midi out/thru ports.  you'd connect each of your controllers to a different input, and feed your different sound modules from each output.  on the front panel, there was an lcd screen with two rows of numbers.  the output numbers were fixed, but you could cursor over to any of them, and change the corresponding input port just by changing the number.  v=basically, you could assign any midi input to any midi output.  you could also store each routing scheme as a different preset, for easy recall later.  very elegant design.  don't know if yamaha is still making this, but i'd bet you could find one used for cheap.

-ben blau
ben this sounds like what i am looking for.  right now whenever i want to layer a sound i have to physically undo one midi cable from one keyboard and hook it into another and undo another and plug in another.
to try one simple layer can be a half hour project.  it seems there must be a device to make this easier by now.  the patchbay you are dexcribing maybe that is it. the midi merge thing jazwee is talking about... i dont know,  i cant tell.
the midi patchbay would definitely do exactly what you're describing.

-ben blau
i use a digital music mx8 midi patch bay, it's got 8-in 8-out also. they don't make them anymore but you can pick one up cheap on ebay.
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