Multi Client Virtual Ports?

Bome Products
1

Now that windows somewhat supports multiclient drivers it would be cool if the Virtual Ports could be Multi-Client as well.

There are some other developers leading the pack on this concept.

https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/proxymidi.html

It would be nice to see those appear in Bome Midi Translator Pro.

2

Hi, With Bome Network and Unlimited named virtual ports you can do this.

It is similar to Proxy MIDI is that you can create multiple copies of a port. Each client looks at one of the copies, however you can route endpoints using the Bome Network MIDI Router. Essentially Bome MIDI Translator does it this way, however uses unamed ports (ie BMT 1, BMT2 etc) and then use the Bome MIDI Translator MIDI router for each application to talk to it’s own copy of the port.

For instance, I have a FaderFox EC4 and I created 2 named ports
EC4-V1 and EC4-V1

With the Bome Network MIDI routing tool I route

IN : FaderFox EC4 → OUT : EC4-V1
IN : FaderFox ECR → OUT: EC4-V2

There are more advanced routing options available but this should give you the idea.
This is similar to what you describe. Microsoft does not currently have native MIDI multi-client support that I know of.

I’m not sure if this is how ProxyMIDI is doing it.

@FlorianBome - FYI

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care

Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
3

Hi, some clarifications:

Windows has always supported multi-client drivers, in theory. But Microsoft’s own MIDI drivers (most notably the USB MIDI class driver) are not multi-client for MIDI INPUT, so afaik, in order to create a multi-client Windows MIDI driver, you have to create everything from scratch.

So what you probably mean is the new MIDI capabilities for Universal Windows (UWP) apps. As far as I understand, if only UWP apps are using MIDI, they can share a MIDI input port. It seems Microsoft has implemented a MIDI server which allows MIDI port sharing for UWP apps only. But it blocks the MIDI ports for ‘normal’/native Windows applications (and vice versa).

Using Unlimited Named Ports (as suggested by Steve) will allow you to do the same, but allows much more flexibility, and it works perfectly with native applications and UWP apps.

This seems to be a very old announcement: the web page has been unchanged since 2012, including the ‘coming soon’.

4

Thanks for the solid reply. The clarification of UWP in relation to Tobias’s proxymidi project. (also brilliant use of webarchive! :smiley: )

I see how it all works together now. I’ll have to add this to my Midi Translator toolkit. Still I’m a little hesitant to add all these things between my midi chains. Whats the cost in performance/stability for another program in the toolchain?

5

Hi, if you are running RTP-MIDI, on PC or Mac, you can replace with Bome Network and it will likely be a performance boost. Unlimited Named Virtual Ports is an add-on extension of that which would not degrade performance, however if you add a bunch of new virtual ports in might get a little overwhelming to see so many MIDI ports on your computer. Bome Network Pro runs on Mac, PC, BomeBox and soon iOS devices.

It sits in the menu tray unless you open it up to configure the network, add MIDI ports or route MIDI ports.

@FlorianBome do you have anything to add?

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care

Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
6

Not really! All of our software is optimized for the lowest possible latency, but I understand hesitation to add another component to the MIDI path. You might use the virtual ports within MIDI Translator Pro in a similar way – you can configure up to 9 of them – they’re just not named).