Gearhead/Digital Music Corporation MX-8 {!components/__archivelogo} One of the first and best-known MIDI patchbays, certainly in the US, owing its success, at least in my opinion, to the fact that it makes no attempt to be clever. It's primarily a 6-input, 8-output passive patchbay (which means no interference or screw-ups), but there are two virtual "processors" which provide simple MIDI processing (channelising, delays, filtering, keyboard splits and so on); in addition, the processors can be configured to provide 2-into-1 merging. The great benefit of this unit is its stupidity; with the MIDI processors offline there is no firmware to get things wrong, although I never had any problems with it even using the processors. A couple of minor drawbacks: firstly, it is rather opaque to programme, and it takes considerable clarity of thought to quickly comprehend displays like {code:none} IN 21M2A131 1>A OUT 12345678 2>B {code} Secondly, the unit transmits All Notes Off to all outputs when it receives a program change to select configuration (which must be sent to a processor); it is therefore not always possible to keep a virtual connection running while changing configuration. This kind of device is all but obsolete these days, due to the emergence of computer-based multiport interfaces, but given the general flakiness of the latter, the MX-8 does have a certain appeal. 2005-10-10 19:12:36.0 2005-10-10 19:12:22.0 Mon Oct 10 19:12:36 UTC 2005