I feel I’m missing something simple here. In the past I’ve used MT Pro on its own, and BomeBox + Bome Network on their own. Now I need to write a Translator project so that the logic can run headlessly on the BomeBox.
But, MT Pro can’t ‘see’ all the hardware ports that Bome Network can, so I’m not sure how to build the Translator logic so that it targets the right ports.
Is there something simple I’m missing to get MT Pro to see all of the BomeBox’s ports, like its internal DIN, all the connected hardware devices etc? Again they are visible in the Bome Network app, just need them in MT Pro.
Feel free to go ‘you didn’t press xyz button, genius’ 
Hi,
On your computer running Bome MIDI Translator Pro, you can turn on Remote Direct MIDI ports as shown in this tutorial.
I would also recommend that you use aliases as your port names will be different on BomeBox than the computer.
You can learn more about aliases from this tutorial.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Thanks Steve. I’ve watched the videos and have been using the box and network for many years. After a lot of spinning, I did get it running. There were multiple variables that were throwing me off, so sharing for anyone that could benefit:
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MT Pro doesn’t have realtime port awareness (which is common on Win without active polling)…except a full refresh can’t be forced - even with the Stop/Go reset button, File → Restart Project, etc. If any devices have been connected / renamed / etc, anywhere, you might have to completely close, wait, and reopen MT Pro to get it to show the actual topology. (Bome Network of course does fine with this as it’s not tied to OS-level device enumeration - the Remote Direct MIDI page updates with any changes literally instantly). On most apps, a ‘close/reopen ports’ button updates the list - which is what the tooltip for the Stop/Go button says it does ( ‘…reset MIDI devices and stop the engine’), but apparently it is more of an ‘all notes off’ sort of thing and not a full reset/reload. Again, only a full close and reopen of the application itself shows the actual available ports for me.
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There’s a [BomeBox name] port that shows up in MIDI Translator that corresponds to the name of your BomeBox. AFAICT this doesn’t correspond to any of the actual ports on the BomeBox hardware itself. No idea what it is - any bytes I sent to it don’t seem to actually appear anywhere. If you attempt to delete it, MT Pro asks if you want to delete this ‘alias’ - but it’s not in italics, and MT Pro says that all aliases are in italics
So not sure which ports it’s an alias for. Whatever is going on with this port really threw me - I thought it was an actual endpoint (e.g. placeholder for the USB Host port) but it appears it’s something else altogether…? -
Apparently the ‘Log’ page in the BomeBox web config doesn’t show MIDI messages (!) - only internal housekeeping of some kind. I (wrongly) assumed it worked the same as Bome Network’s log, or the MIDI Translator log. (Unfortunately I can’t find any documentation available on this log so didn’t realize this). Every once in a while I did get a single-line summary that bytes of some kind were sent (e.g. ‘180 bytes sent’)…but no idea what they were, and the echo wasn’t related to the MIDI messages I was sending. It’s apparently not for msg debug.
Those were the issues…I’ve got it up and running now, just sharing the (probably too lengthy lol) info for anyone else that might be stuck in port debug land.
You shouldn’t have to reset MIDI ports but Microsoft has been developing new MIDI capability and for a while I was also having a problem with this. It seemed to get fixed in the last update. The ports may or may not open, depending on the status of the parent preset. If a preset isn’t using a port, it may show closed. Pending usually means it can’t find the port.
This is a general network port and if you use the MIDI router on the BomeBox you can direct and or all ports to and from this single port. Doing so with multiple ports, however would mean they are sharing the same port. In contrast, Remote Direct MIDI, ties directly to the port with no routing needed. I usually use the Master port either when there is only one connection needed or I want to merge MIDI from multiple devices into a single port.
You have to refresh the browser to see updates to the log on BomeBox. Also, I think it limits what is shown. I usually use the ‘Log’ rule in the rules, to ensure what I want is seen in the BomeBox log. Unlike Bome MIDI Translator Pro you don’t have any checkboxes to show what you want to log.
I’ll check into updating the documentation on this.
Thanks for sharing!
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Interesting - since it’s not in Bome Network, after a bunch of trial and error I found it corresponds to ports on my BomeBox named ‘josh3967’ and ‘Network 1 - josh3967’ 
That’s clearly my Win device name…a subtle feature request to have the port names match up if at all possible 
Yeah, performed plenty of refreshes - no real data, even with ‘verbose’ checked. The best debug I’ve found so far on-box is to monitor via a hardwire device attached to the box itself.
Thanks Steve!
This is the primary reason we use aliases, as the operating system usually has the responsibility of naming the ports.
For remote direct midi ports, we use the BomeBox name followed by a colon and then the BomeBox reported device name.
You can learn more about aliases from this tutorial.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Just to emphasize what Steve said: MT Pro does automatically detect any plugged in or unplugged MIDI devices, and virtual ports appearing/disappearing.
Steve is probably right that you’ve experienced the known issues with the new Windows MIDI Services drivers in Windows 11. Microsoft is actively working on monthly updates with fixes.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the first request for this! But I fully agree that it’s very useful. Technically, it’s not trivial, especially with auto-update… Anyway, I’ve added this to our feature request list. No guarantees if or when we will work on this, though.
This should indeed reflect any MIDI traffic on the respective MIDI ports. MIDI Translator Pro and Bome Network also report these statistics in verbose log mode. It’s the number of MIDI bytes on the given MIDI port since the last statistics report.
Thanks!
Thanks Florian! Yeah the use case is that there is no MIDI debug output downstream of MT Pro - so if you move a Translator project to the box, and it’s not working as it was on the PC, determining the cause can sometimes be tricky. I fully appreciate the technical complexity it would take to add it on the box - thanks for the feature request 
I usually use the BomeBox MIDI router and configure it to monitor either the input or output stream, sending it back to my computer so that I can see if it is getting through. But I agree, it is a bit tricky.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz