M8U XL offers maximum MIDI connectivity with 8 independent MIDI inputs and 8 independent MIDI outputs, providing 128 MIDI channels - all via a single USB 2.0 (or USB 1.1) connection to your PC or Mac. The 1U sized replacement for M8U provides 1 MIDI input and 1 MIDI output on the front for easy access, next to status LEDs for all MIDI I/O ports. All the the other MIDI I/O connectors are on the backside of the unit. Like with all current MIDI interfaces from ESI, M8U XL shows the real meaning of Plug-n-Play as the installation could not be more simple: under Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X, no driver installation is required.You simply plug-in the unit and the device with all MIDI I/O port will be detected automatically and can be used imediatly. The unit is fully class compliant, making it compatible with various other operating systems like various Linux distributions.