Midi & headphones for live room (40ft distance)

[CwC Studio]

Hi folks

We're expanding the studio from a single room to an additional room. The room will mostly house a v-drum kit (and maybe a couple of mics for percussion etc later on). I'm looking for a solution to run midi from the v-drum kit and audio for headphones. The distance is about 40 feet (10-15 meters). 

For headphones, I don't need a traditional headphone system to control the mix as we will be using a laptop with screen share to drive logic (works well). Does anyone have suggestions on a setup that will make it easy to get midi back to the Mac over that distance and send stereo audio for headphones?

One option I guess is to get a small headphone amp but not sure about midi. I'm not opposed to a new interface (it's on the cards anyway) so maybe something with madi or Dante that can serve the purpose? (the most important part is the midi and headphones - extra mics are a bonus but not necessary).

Any suggestions are most welcome

[Jordi Torres]

Hi CwC,

Give those requirements, I would probably go with an over-Ethernet solution. I have experience with Merging gear, and any of their interfaces would solve your particular problem (Anubis is one of the coolest products ever, in my humble opinion). But their stuff is quite expensive.

I’ve heard of MIDI over MADI, but don’t recall any particular solution I could recommend.

if you want to solve your audio and MIDI problem separately, there are boxes that that allow you to do MIDI-over-IP (there’s a brand I recall, Kiss Box), but usually expensive.

If you have a laptop you could use around with a simple USB-MIDI interface, you could also deal with the MIDI that way and send it over Ethernet via Audio MIDI Setup’s Network MIDI device (which uses the same RTP-MIDI protocol used by the gear I mention above).

J.

[yarns]

are the rooms next to each other, can you move the interface between the two rooms?

i'd punch a hole in the wall and just midi direct to your mac.

I soldered 3 midi leads together for my electric kit, which is about 5m total, and that works great. I think ~5m is the extent of the midi specs though.

I actually made a sled for my kit and I just slide it out of the room when i'm not using it 🤪

[CwC Studio]

Thanks to those suggestions. Love the sled idea haha. i’d be dragging a sled up a flight of stairs though 😬

I’ll take a look at the suggestions above and see what I can cobble together.

Many thanks!

[CwC Studio]

Just in case anyone needs to do similar; I ended up keeping it simple.

Ran a 20 meter active usb cable for the midi. Works great. Ran the same length audio pair to a simple headphone amp (presonus H4).

Laptop running screen share to the Mac in the control room. All works seamlessly, was cheap to do and was setup in an hour.

[Jordi Torres]

10 hours ago, CwC Studio said:

Ran a 20 meter active usb cable for the midi. Works great.

I'm glad to hear you found a good and affordable solution in using an active USB cable, that's good to know and good to keep in mind 👍

Cheers,

J.