iConnectivity mioXL

First impressions of the mioXM and mioXL MIDI interfaces

The units manufactured in China are solidly made of steel, the paint or powder coating is scratch resistant. There is a ground connection on the back of both models, and a Kensington lock connection on mioXM is also good.

There is a new configuration tool for MIO X-Series: AURACLE for X-Series. This tool is available for Microsoft 10 (64-bit) and MacOS 10.11 and higher (also Catalina).

After installation under Windows 10, the first thing to do is perform a user-friendly firmware update. However, you really must watch the video first or read the instruction manual or you will Panic!!! Now that almost the first half hour has passed without any noticeable results, the AURACLE configuration software starts.

In the MIDI Routing menu item be prepare to understand an all New Spockian LogiK so you can really get the Medronho out of It! Or..., you can assign the ports to their destinations. For this you will find your ports (source) on the left side and the destination (destination) on the right side, the names can be freely assigned.

mioXL / mioXM: MIDI filters and remapping

There is not much to explain here, you can set MIDI filters for input and output, such as suppression of MIDI clock signals. Targeted filtering e.g. B. from MIDI Control Change (CC) 74 is not possible, but only all CCs on the desired channel.

With MIDI remapping, you can configure it only to a limited extent (DAMNNNN U). I do not understand why you can not redirect a particular CC parameter here. In my opinion, this feature was available in the iConfig software in the predecessor MIO10, so it is hoped that this will be further developed. Because remapping is especially useful if you adjust the potentiometers or encoders of a main keyboard to the filter frequency of multiple synthesizers. This only leaves another software solution or an additional device as a solution.....

USB host reservation

The USB host ports are not numbered on the device, but you can permanently assign and rename them in the software. According to the manufacturer, USB hubs can be used – but whether and how well this works... welll... 3,7/5 sometimes! In any case, you should first check the manufacturer's website or the iConnectivity Forum, as there are some incompatible USB hubs. Important: USB hubs do not increase the usable number of ports. Don't be greedy! Buy another one! Not cheap? Tivesses estudado páh! ;)

RTP MIDI

RTP/Network-MIDI: Real-time protocol - here on the network Ethernet stack with MIDI and where i've been in already 3 weeks figuring out the BEST setup! You can address a computer or other RTP MIDI-enabled devices as the end point, including several mioXM or mioXL. Then the mioXL has 24 DIN ports and 20 USB hosts that can be distributed over 22 RTP connections. Been There. Done That.

And this is where the RTP MIDI topic begins, or rather a little drama: especially when i want to 'design' a complex Midi DANTE System in Covil... . Nothing is easier than plugging your network cable into the MIDI interface and wondering why nothing works really stable in the Auracle software under RTP! HELP!

iconnectivity mioxl

First create the basic requirements: connect the PC directly to a simple 4-port switch (no router) including interface, assign a dinamic IP and assign a fixed IP to the mioXL via USB in Auracle. WLAN should be switched off for testing. Want to know more? G0 to YouTube and 'learn' with the precise, no doubts, mathematical explanation tutorial youtube kafkian iConnectivity videos! I don't want to judge whether and how important this information is to someone, but it should be taken into account that many musicians earn their money making music and failures in booked recording studios and live performances must be resolved as quickly as possible. Or immense costs follow here, e.g. B. through claims for damages and loss of reputation.

The 2-year "old" MIO interfaces are discontinued, as is the Iconfig software used there. It is to be hoped that the mioXM and mioXL do not face the same fate, in my opinion it is important to have stable software and hardware for at least a few years.

Well.... You can customize the names - useful if you want to use many RTP sessions. Not soooo Bad!

All in all, iConnectivity is in the upper middle range in terms of the product portfolio, market position and price in the above-mentioned service/support features.

Finally, the technical information on mioXM and mioXL:

Base specification of both devices
USB MIDI hosts connectors, class compliant
USB connection (USB DAW)
USB MIDI interface
MIDI router
MIDI matrix
MIDI filter
MIDI Patchbay
MIDI merger
RTP MIDI support

Epáh.... Vale a pena Tóni!!!

I was looking for a device that would route all my MIDI connections in the studio and I almost bought a vintage 19" rack device (EDIROL UM-880) when I found out about this product. (ofc no warranty for the vintage gear and price was 80% of this unit)
I have already used all the connections (USB, DAW, MIDI) and everything works as expected. The setup is straightforward although you need to use a computer. However you can save routing presets and then use it without a computer which is one of the advantages over other similar products that only work with computer connected. The build quality is perfect, design looks really good and feels like using high-end device. The software is well made, fast, easy to use. For someone the price might be too high, but you really get what you pay for. You can also get one of the smaller versions if you have smaller setup. Overall this product is great and I am perfectly happy with it. I would recommend it to anyone who uses a lot of MIDI devices as this is going to make your life so much easier.

The device itself seems great, but there are several other caveats.

The control software (Auracle) does not scale to a device with this many ports at all, for complicated configurations beware of carpal tunnel syndrome from all the clicking. Also beware that while the previous generation SysEx control commands were thoroughly documented, this new X-series uses a completely different protocol which is NOT documented and queries about this have been met with deadly silence. So you'll be stuck with Auracle, and you can forget about scripting and automation. Also, overall documentation is almost non-existent (videos? come on...)

I use it at the moment in Win7/x64 and it works.
So far I have tried to connect unit via USB as well LAN - both connections worked. I was able to configure what I wanted (several synths via DIN ports, midi controller, DAW in PC) so I like it.

Auracle software is a bit unstable on Win7. It crashes quite frequently however mostly gives enough time to setup the unit. Maybe it is because of Win7 which is stated as unsupported platform but it is hard to say.
Hopefully there will be some updates to the software in the future. If it crashes a check in windows task manager is recommended to kill failed application or it just consumes resources.

Documentation seems to be missing. There are some tutorial videos which cover relatively a lot but I recommend to get mio10 manual with a block diagram which helped me to see the flow of filtering/routing/remapping & their precedence.

I am not sure about the price jump comparing to mio10.