I have been through this process and there are not many to choose from. MOTU Midi Express XT is the one to get and it was re released in 2011 by the way so your assertion that it has not been changed since 2003 is incorrect. They have improved it and added an extra SMPTE time code feature.  Anyway even it has not been changed since 2003 if it works, it works.
 
Its on special right now for $349 at GC up to July 17th I believe. Having more output ports is never a problem either. Works with Win 10 as well.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I've been using the Motu MIDI Express XT for 3 or 4 years. I like it and haven't had any problems.

Rob I was going to get the Motu XT as well but ended up picking up a Steinberg Midex 8 which also works great.  Steinberg have written Win 7 drivers for it even after it went out of production.  That works well on Win7.  They have some slick front panel features not found on others.  I am wondering if once I go to Win 10 the Midex will still work.  Do most Win 7 drivers run on Win 10?
 
Timing is everything and it is important to get that midi interface running well in terms of midi latency and also how accurate the start of midi notes are in relation to audio and the metronome.
 
It is when you play live and how well those performances are captured and played back that is also important for me.  (with and without the click)  I am a drummer turned added keyboard synth player so I have a strong sense of this timing and it how it feels.  I use Studio One and I think it is great in this area.  There was a thread over on the Presonus forum about someone getting midi and audio timing out by 30 mS from each other.  The audio always being late in regard to the start of the midi note.  That prompted me to test and adjust my system.
 
Another good thing to do is get a PCI based USB card and run the midi interface on that instead.  It has no interference with any other USB devices then.  Running nicely on its own.  I found anyway.  My audio is on a PCI card too so there is nothing on my USB buses anyway.  The various pairs of USB outputs on the back of a desktop computer are often on separate USB buses too.  Try to get the interface running on its own USB buss.
 
I am getting sub second mS timing down to 0.2 mS and in many cases 0.1 mS. Sometimes it varies by a mS or so and this may be due to midi jitter but on my system the midi note start is always early to the audio by the same time (approx 0.2 mS) and does not seem to jitter around.
 
These figures are also for one synth playing one part too.  Once you start sending multiple midi channels down a single port these note start times can and will get altered and delayed more.  Use up your 8 ports with one synth only one each port and one midi channel of data only.  I have got 6 hardware synths and 2 computers as virtual instruments on all 8 ports.  That is a lot.  Hearing 8 parts playing back before you even turn on any virtual instruments is a very big sound.  And it is all happening on the midi side of your program barely taking any resources away from your audio system in your DAW.  Working this way with synths allows you to compose create and edit the music so easily.  Tempos can be adjusted in a flash.
 
It is good to do some tests and see how the midi side of your setup is running and how accurate it is.  It is also good to test the latency of your synths one by one.  eg Compare the start of the midi note to when the audio first appears.  It is nice to be able to adjust midi tracks timing wise in your DAW and get them to play early by the synth latency times putting the audio more where it should be.  Studio One lets you offset the midi timing and audio timing in your system.  Sonar would have it for sure.  So if your midi note start times are say 3 mS early compared to the audio, you should be able to adjust that by adding 3 mS to midi timing and then it ends up within tiny fraction of a mS compared to audio.  That is what Motu mean I think for the spec of sub mS timing accuracy as they report in their advertising.  The Midex can do it and so can Emagic Unitor 8 too.  I think Unitor 8 drivers stopped working a few Microsoft OS versions ago now though.
 
I have a Unitor 8 running on another Win XP 32 bit machine on the serial port and it is fast too.  Under Logic it works great.  Midex  (LTB - Linear Time Base) and Unitor  (AMT - Active Midi Transmission)  have the ability with Cubase and Logic to be able to improve midi timing by a factor again.  Those programs send the midi notes early to their interfaces and then the midi note start times are adjusted and let out to be all be super tight on all 8 ports.  As far as I know Express XT does not have that ability but the timing over 8 ports should be excellent anyway.  My Midex does not operate that way with Studio One either so it is operating the same way Express XT would.  And it is excellent.
 
The Express XT is an obvious choice for me too if I have to go to Win 10.  I have heard they are very reliable and having an internal power supply is a nice plus too.
 
 
 

Thanks all for your input. I appreciate it.
 

Jeff Evans
Rob I was going to get the Motu XT as well but ended up picking up a Steinberg Midex 8 which also works great.  Steinberg have written Win 7 drivers for it even after it went out of production.  That works well on Win7.  They have some slick front panel features not found on others.  I am wondering if once I go to Win 10 the Midex will still work.  Do most Win 7 drivers run on Win 10?

 
Jeff, there are ways to make win7 drivers work with win10. Once you go for win10, checkout what the guys did over in the Cakewalk Hardware forum to get the Roland devices to work on win10 - that should apply to other brands. It's rather straightforward if you follow their procedure. You basically need to turn off some checks (driver signing) before installing win7 drivers, but after installation it all seems to work as on win7 (it did in my case with "legacy" win7 drivers).
 

Jeff Evans
Timing is everything and it is important to get that midi interface running well in terms of midi latency and also how accurate the start of midi notes are in relation to audio and the metronome.
 
[...]
 
Another good thing to do is get a PCI based USB card and run the midi interface on that instead.  It has no interference with any other USB devices then.  Running nicely on its own.  I found anyway.  My audio is on a PCI card too so there is nothing on my USB buses anyway.  The various pairs of USB outputs on the back of a desktop computer are often on separate USB buses too.  Try to get the interface running on its own USB buss.
 
I am getting sub second mS timing down to 0.2 mS and in many cases 0.1 mS. Sometimes it varies by a mS or so and this may be due to midi jitter but on my system the midi note start is always early to the audio by the same time (approx 0.2 mS) and does not seem to jitter around.

[...]
 
It is good to do some tests and see how the midi side of your setup is running and how accurate it is.  It is also good to test the latency of your synths one by one.  eg Compare the start of the midi note to when the audio first appears.  It is nice to be able to adjust midi tracks timing wise in your DAW and get them to play early by the synth latency times putting the audio more where it should be.  Studio One lets you offset the midi timing and audio timing in your system.  Sonar would have it for sure.  So if your midi note start times are say 3 mS early compared to the audio, you should be able to adjust that by adding 3 mS to midi timing and then it ends up within tiny fraction of a mS compared to audio.  That is what Motu mean I think for the spec of sub mS timing accuracy as they report in their advertising. 
 
[...]
 
The Express XT is an obvious choice for me too if I have to go to Win 10.  I have heard they are very reliable and having an internal power supply is a nice plus too.

That is great advice. After having worked with the same setup for like 4 years now, I intend to make some serious improvements with the focus on quality and stability.  Hence, I'm researching and come August testing some new devices.  Currently I'm still undecided whether to go RME or MOTU AVB for audio (but MOTU seems to lead the race at the moment) as I want lowest possible latency at maximum stability, while having enough I/O to record a rock band setup ...
 
MIDI wasn't even much in the picture so far (until I realized that when going the AVB route I would be lacking MIDI I/O) and I have to admit I never thought about measuring MIDI latency.  Being a bass player turned into drummer who plays/programs synth backings I usually just play the parts until they feel right - and if the notes look funny on the piano roll I do not care if it sounded right (yet with some external synths I noticed notes not aligning visually where I would have heard/played them) - so thanks for the tip: I'll take some time to measure latencies of those synth and modules that I use ... once I have the new MIDI interface, which will very likely be the Express XT i.e. I rather spend a little extra than again compromise somewhere ...
 
 

 I am using the Motu Micro lite with 5X5 midi ports with Windows 10 Pro. The only down fall is that it must use USB 2.0 not USB 3.0
 
See the  ~~~>  MOTU Micro Lite

I have an ancient MOTU MIDI Express XT (parallel port) interface that now can only be used as a standalone router since parallel ports disappeared from computers many years ago.  My thought was to replace it with a (slightly) newer USB version...but then a new player recently showed up.
 
Has anyone had any experience with iConnectivity's mio10?  I'm interested to know how it fares with driver stability and MIDI jitter and latency.
 

 

When i replaced my Audio interface last year, I accidentally bought the Scarlett 2i2 instead of the 2i4.  The difference being MIDI...
I bought one of these and have been very happy with it:  http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UMOneMk2
 

I'll take it that no one else has taken interest in new multiport MIDI interfaces...based on the lack of response to my earlier post...
 
(...on the iConnectivity mio10)

Jeff Evans
I have been through this process and there are not many to choose from. MOTU Midi Express XT is the one to get and it was re released in 2011 by the way so your assertion that it has not been changed since 2003 is incorrect. They have improved it and added an extra SMPTE time code feature.  Anyway even it has not been changed since 2003 if it works, it works.

 
I've now got one of the MIDI Express XT units and I'm in the process of doing some tests ... see below :-(
  

Jeff Evans
 
Timing is everything and it is important to get that midi interface running well in terms of midi latency and also how accurate the start of midi notes are in relation to audio and the metronome.
 
[...]
 
I am getting sub second mS timing down to 0.2 mS and in many cases 0.1 mS. Sometimes it varies by a mS or so and this may be due to midi jitter but on my system the midi note start is always early to the audio by the same time (approx 0.2 mS) and does not seem to jitter around.
 
[...]
 
It is good to do some tests and see how the midi side of your setup is running and how accurate it is.  It is also good to test the latency of your synths one by one.  eg Compare the start of the midi note to when the audio first appears.  It is nice to be able to adjust midi tracks timing wise in your DAW and get them to play early by the synth latency times putting the audio more where it should be. 
 
[...]
 
The Express XT is an obvious choice for me too if I have to go to Win 10.  I have heard they are very reliable and having an internal power supply is a nice plus too.
 

 
Inspired by this I embarked on a test of a brand new MIDI Express XT unit. I simply added a single MIDI note in Sonar, send it out thru one MIDI port and back in by another MIDI port (i.e. short connection with a cable, no processing done externally) and record it.
 
The offset (between the note played back and the note recorded) is disappointingly big - too big for my liking - at a tempo of 240 BPM I get an offset of 22 to 37 ticks (!!!), which translates to 5.7 ms to 9.6 ms MIDI signal roundtrip.
 
Even worse, the offset varies in this range when doing a loop recording of this single MIDI note (nothing else going on in the project). So the MIDI note jitters around by above numbers ... and the time variance is very much in the range of subtle timing adjustments often required when tightening up a groove.
 
Turning the MIDI routing / filtering off gets it down a bit, but not a lot (but greatly reduces functionality of one of the most expensive MIDI only interfaces around). (could not be reproduced at later testes)
 
One the contrary, the 20EUR MIDIMATE passes the test at 7 - 12 ticks (~3 ms MIDI roundtrip) and much less jitter.
 
So, the question now is whether there is something to improve the MOTU MIDI performance or if I should send it straight back to the vendor.
 
 
@Jeff: I assume your reported 0.1ms MIDI timing is measured on the Steinberg unit, isn't it?
 
EDIT: minor update of numbers after a more systematic test ... 
 

Still no repsonse from MOTU or vendor ...
 
Does anyone with a MOTU MIDI interface (especially the Express XT) feel like repeating/confirming my measurements for MIDI Latency and jitter? It takes only about 5 minutes to set up and would indicate whether this is by design or if there could be something wrong with my unit.
 
Likewise anyone with a mio10 (which is one of the few remaining competitors for multi MIDI port devices) could try this as I would suspect this unit to suffer from something similar as they offer even more routing/filtering options which may potentially induce latency ...