Finally diving in on a music studio upgrade, as it’s time to acknowledge that my 12 y.o. generic Windows 7 studio PC is really in need of replacement… Pic shows the outer and inner shipping box, the product box, and the mini-PC that’s the new heart of the studio. That’s a quarter on the mini-PC for scale – I knew it was small but had to have it hand to realize how small. New audio interface (Yamaha AG06 Mk2) and a couple of other necessaries now on order. Fingers crossed that the also decade-old USB-2-MIDI interface will work OK with this very modern hardware.
7 Likes
Happy new PC day.
If it’s only a decade old, you should be fine.
The standard for “Class-compliant” USB MIDI was developed in 1999 and most manufacturers adopted it within a few years of that.
So USB MIDI devices from around 20 years ago onwards should work without needing a proprietary driver.
I have a device (an old Yamaha Clavinova) from around that time period (2001 I think) which has a proprietary MIDI over USB implementation which does need a special driver, and which no longer works with modern OSs. But every other device I have from around 2003 onwards works perfectly.
I think the biggest concern would be audio interfaces because these often do have proprietary implementations which require special drivers, and vendors are notorious for abandoning support for older OSs.
If you have a MIDI interface on an AI (providing 5-pin MIDI in/out for traditional MIDI connections) which is no longer supported, then this may not work even if it’s only 10 years old but, in this case, getting a replacement wouldn’t be hard.
Cheers,
Keith
The audio interface will be brand new, USB based, and from the reviews I’ve read Yamaha’s software is solid. I’m not concerned there.