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Palestine, Jerusalem
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Review on πŸ’» StarTech.com Low Profile PCIe RS232 Serial Card with UART 16550 - 2 Port Native PCI Express Serial Card - PEX2S553LP by Jeremy Romero

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Definitely a step forward from USB to serial.

I needed one of these to see if I could communicate via PCIe with my SC-88VL (via a computer port) and any other MIDI device I have (and for my Seek). get tight MIDI without spending over $1000 on a MADI adapter). It is set to PC-2 (38400) because it is a widely supported baud rate. It might be possible to upgrade to 31250 bps, but I've already made an effort to make a cable for the connector, especially since they're rare. Hairless MIDI + loopMIDI works instead of Roland's 32-bit serial MIDI driver (although I wish it was a software driver like loopMIDI) but don't do anything too crazy or it will crash for some reason (MIDI Tick = insta - crash) . I'm happy to report that MidiTest + Loopback Jig noticed at least some improvement (jitter in particular). I measured an average of 0.25 ms jitter with my FTDI-based USB adapter. With this I get less than 0.10 ms jitter. When I first set it up I managed to get -1.#J ms jitter which I know sounds crazy but basically meant I had no detectable jitter I guess. Couldn't get it back but that may have been a coincidence. I know serial MIDI (native USB MIDI devices are a bit better too) will never be 100% perfect, but it's a good starting point for anyone trying to create and master MIDI sequences. You might have a better Linux experience as you can get a 1000Hz timer if you're brave enough to recompile the kernel (and possibly less jitter). And how does the end sound from the module? Definitely better as the notes are closer together than USB to MIDI. Oh, and the generic COM port driver runs on it, but the receive FIFO buffer is stuck at maximum for some reason. The drivers that come with it work better anyway (if you have an optical drive to use the disc with, but the specific drivers are probably available online as well).

Pros
  • Great for outdoor activities
Cons
  • Not sure