I’m elated to see the new updates to BomeBox, BMPT, and Bome-Network! Looking forward to the enhanced functionality, productivity and fun using these products.
I’ve upgraded my BomeBox firmware to 1.5. I’ve upgraded Bome-Network to 1.4 (I already have a Bome Network Pro license). I’ve upgraded BMTP to 1.9. And finally, I’ve purchased an Unlimited Named MIDI Ports license.
I am trying to open and use four (4) Bome-Network MIDI ports on my Windows Surface Pro to access four (4) ports on my BomeBox. I’m not certain of the process to do this, but here’s what I’ve done:
Using the BomeNet Utility:
I created four (4) Virtual MIDI Ports
I created four (4) routes using the four (4) Virtual MIDI ports. I was able to see the ports on my BomeBox from the BomeNet Utility.
However, from the BomeBox, I am not able to see the Virtual Ports I created on the Surface Pro. Perhaps I doing something wrong. Any assistance would be appreciated.
You will not need to set up any Unlimited Virtual Ports if you have physical devices connected on your BomeBox. Simply attach your devices to your BomeBox. Then go to the Bome Network Tool. If you click on your BomeBox name, you will see the attached devices as shown below. Simply switch them on and they should show up on your computer as local ports prepended by the BomeBox Name.
In the example below. I have a MIDI Fighter Twister and Artuia BeatStep connected and enabled for MIDI remote access. I also have a BomeBox DIN but since nothing is connected to it, I have that port enabled. My other two devices that I had previously connected are not now connected so they show as pending.
Here is how they appear on my PC within MT Pro. Since I did not open BomeBox DIN for remote connections it does not show.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Awesome!!! I’ve got my Surface Pro functioning using multiple MIDI streams to/from my BomeBox.
I’m more than elated! I’m in MIDI heaven! Thank goodness you can’t see me right now, because I’m doing my embarrassing happy dance!!! Now I can remove the MIDI channel mappings from my custom programs and BMTP projects AND fully utilize the multi-timbral capabilities of my tone generators.
I’m still trying to understand the ‘Unlimited Named MIDI Ports’ license. I purchased it thinking it was required for what I was doing. I’m certain I’ll use the license once you explain it’s purpose!
Right now I pretty much use unlimited MIDI ports to allow complex routing and sharing of MIDI ports on Windows without using MT Pro. Windows only allows one app to use a given MIDI port at a time.
I use my FaderFox EC4 in this fashion
Create to Virtual Ports EC4-1 and EC4-2
Routing
IN: FaderFox EC4 - > OUT: EC4-1 Virtual Out
IN: FaderFox EC4 - > OUT: EC4-2 Virtual Out
Now I can have two separate apps each monitoring the same controller by using their Virtual Ports and Bome MIDI Translator is not needed (unless I need to do some translations).
There are really many other use cases.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Thanks Steve. I think this answers the question/Topic I just posted on the forum over at Gig Performer, but maybe you can double-check?
Gig Performer allows for multiple instances. On Windows (and I believe on Mac as well,) only the ‘Master’ instance receives MIDI from Bome Network. The work-around is to add LoopbackBE or IAC bus ports into the ‘Master’ GP instance and use them to port the MIDI to the other instances.
My question was:
If I’ve got Bome Network creating multiple named MIDI ports on my Mac, will I still need to do IAC loopback within the GP master instance? Or can GP pick up the separate BN virtual ports in ‘non-master’ instances?
If I’ve ALSO got Bome Midi Translator running on the Mac, does it impact anything? (I.E. does it automatically grab all incoming MIDI ports, keeping them from being used by GP directly? I assume it cannot send outputs directly to multiple instances of GP?)
(Sorry if this is turning into a BMT question)
Finally, can BMT be used ‘inline’ between incoming BomeNet streams and a specific program? In my case, only Logic Pro requires the more advanced capabilities of BMT… can I restrict BMT to handling those duties, or will it always loom large over other, more direct pathways I attempt to set up? (Specifically: Sending BomeNet performance streams from Keyboards/eDrums directly to GP instances, and accessing those streams via GP’s own alias-managing “Rig Manager” service)
If you do your Bome Network Routing unlimited virtual ports correctly, you should be able to without ICA loopback ports on GP master instance. You can also pick up a separate BN virtual port as I indicated in my initial response.
Unlike Windows, I believe Mac allows sharing of input MIDI ports. GP should see any MIDI ports installed on your system virtual, real, or even remote MIDI ports (if they are turned on).
You can assign different streams to different applications using the MIDI Remote ports feature of Bome Network.
You can route only one stream to BMT if you would like for handling Logic Pro and just uncheck MIDI inputs and outputs on any streams you do not want MT Pro to handle.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
I know GP standard practice is to Loop Back within GP Master, even on Mac/IAC… (Whereas Core Audio handles this for Audio, it does not do the same for MIDI) but I’ll need to find out from GP/Experimentation whether this is just to create a standard-issue Virtual Midi Loopback port (which BNP can do just as well…) or whether GP’s master instance must always act as gatekeeper, as it does on Windows 10.
Nice! That was my first thought… to pass everything through Gig Performer first, as it is the component with ‘real time’ requirements. In my case, however, I started to worry about the sheer amount of MIDI routing clutter/complexity/passthrough GP would end up showing, which I would need to correctly maintain across six (or so?) instances while adding and maintaining patches. I think I will experiment with allowing BMT to act on all incoming signals except the actual ‘live’ MIDI note / Performance CC streams… which can be split by BomeNet upon receipt and fed separately to GP instances, and separately to the recorder through BMT.
