So this is how it played out for me. Needed to so something special with ‘just’ one device - click a pad, send a keystroke. Got BMT installed, set up, and working, Eezy Peezy.
Then there’s ‘ohhh well now I could do X with this other device’, followed by ‘oh and this third device could really be great if it just did Y’. More virtual ports, more devices directly into BMT.
And then … Ableton … started grabbing devices it should not have. Big problem for me. If I launched Ableton before Cantabile (as I did at one performance) … disaster. But … if I sent the device through BMT … problem solved!
So this is the way it goes … I now know the meaning of ‘All Roads Lead to Rome’ … uh … Bome"
(Downsides of this? Performance? Running out of Virtual ports … If I really do send everything through Bome - Akai MPD-218, Novation Launchpad Mini MK2 (2 midi ports - Session and User), Faderfox EC4, Akai MidiMix, Sylphyo Link Receiver, RME external ports) plus all the inter-app connections I need - I’ll exhaust the 9 BMT virtual ports - not sure what to do then.)
Yes, most DAWs will grab any attached ports when they discover them on startup. Most DAW’s allow you to ‘uncheck’ the port you don’t want to use to prevent this on future startup. Ableton is the exception. If it find a controller that is supported by an Ableton Live MIDI Remote script, it grabs the port and you have to manually deselect the device and use a virtual port instead. The thing with Windows is that only one MIDI port can be opened on Windows at a give time and this is done on a first come, first serve basis. So closing the port, then opening up in the desired application usually fixes it.
I generally do not put something through Bome MIDI Translator unless I want to ‘translate’ something. The MIDI engine is extremely fast and efficient so there is not much downside except for the things you mentioned.
If you run out of virtual ports, Bome has a product called ‘Unlimited Named MIDI Ports’ that allows you to create as many virtual ports as you would like. Although it runs under Bome Network, you don’t need to use the network functions to use the virtual port capability. In this case you can download the free version of Bome Network, and then purchase a license for "Unlimited Named MIDI Ports". You can do lots of routing of these ports as well which helps with the port sharing issue on Windows. For example I have a Faderfox EC4 and I can create multiple virtual ports to and from it to route MIDI signals (with no translation).
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
… and nobody on the Ableton forum or Ableton tech support (several weeks of back and forth) would tell me that … OK now, I can deal with this … thought there was something messed up with my Ableton configuration … THANK YOU for that!
To confirm: Unlimited Named MIDI Ports is an entirely separate system from BMT that routes MIDI ports but does not perform any translation? Like running LoopMIDI alongside BMT (I have not tried that configuration - I’m just thinking out loud).
If that’s the case, it would be a good escape valve for the too-many virtual ports syndrome.
Well that’s my next BMT candidate - my EC4 is direct to Cantabile currently, but there’s one or two things I’d like it to do in Ableton as well …
