Question on Bome Network Pro

I just purchased and registered the Network pro license into the demo version. I was trying to do some basic midi routing from USB inputs on a Roli Seaboard 49 to a midi router which is connected by USB also (12 separate USB DAW inputs). The seaboard doesn’t have an internal routing matrix so I can’t route it directly to the Midi router without a DAW, so I thought I understood Bome Network Pro could grab the midi input from the Roli USB inputs and route it to the midi router input I have setup to receive it. I am also not able to do similar routing on a Komplete Kontrol S61. Is there something basic im missing here, or does the Network pro not have this functionality?

Hi and welcome to the Bome community!

Yes, this tripped me up at first. Basically when you create a virtual port it is is just a pair of ‘endpoints’ that go to nowhere so you have to create routing between the endpoints. Include in this post is a summary of my findings. Usually you want to use a virtual port as a ‘pipe’ and route the input of that port to the output of the same port. Much more complex routings are available, which should be explained in the posting link I provided.

If there is a specific routing you want to try, show me a screen shots of the ports you have created and how that relates to what you want in the way of routing and I can assist further.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Thanks for the reply, I do not have unlimited virtual midi ports purchased, only Bome Network pro. I was not thinking I would need them for this routing, as the actual physical ports are represented in Bome Network Pro (BNP).

I am on one computer, trying to route a physical connection within BNP, to a physical connection, two tests that are not working:

  1. Komplete Kontrol S61 (KKS61), within Bome I have mapped all available inputs to my midi router, see screenshots, there is no output to the midi router detected, until I dont use BNP and just route within the KK software. This was just to test to make sure midi would pass to the router.

  2. The primary reason I have BNP is to route the Roli Seaboard 49 physical USB midi input connection to the midi router MRCC so it can control external devices. I have routed the one factory provided input to all available options to try to trigger both the internal plugin Komplete Kontrol and to send it to the midi router. No midi data appears to connect through Bome to the chosen outputs, viewed through a midi monitor on an external device. I can only get midi data through when bypassing Bome and going through the KKS61 routing software, just as a test to confirm data can be sent.

It appears BNP doesn’t have the ability to grab internal virtual inputs from devices/software and route it on the same computer?

Screenshots of the routing attached.





As a sidenote, I have successfully routed those USB inputs by using a different midi program called midi pipe, Bome MIDI Network has a better interface, so I am still interested to learn how to get the functionality. I’ll be surprised if BNP doesn’t allow same computer routing.

Lets take one step at a time. On the first screenshot, try these changes

image

First route I assume you want to sent From your DAW to MRCC , so Make the first route ‘OUT: Komplete Kontrol DAW’ - 1" to ‘OUT: MRCC (3)’

Second route, I’m not sure you want to route your MIDI in a loopback fashion from your S61 back to itself. Depending on the interal workings of your S61, it may create a MIDI loop. For now I would disable that rount

3rd Route looks good

4th route This is saying take output of KK61 and make it look like it is an input from MRCC. I don’t think that will work. Disable it. Input to Input generally only works when routing virtual devices.
5th route. Should be ‘OUT: Komplete Kontrol Virtual’ to "OUT: MRCC (3).

I think the issue resides in the understanding of IN and OUT.

For instance from a Bome Network Standpoint there may be a difference between the definition of IN and OUT compared to a virtual port

For instance The first route is physical to physical so we take input from one physical and send to output of another physical
From a DAW standpoint since it is virtual, we the output of the DAW (not the input) and send it to the output HW port

I have to admit, this often trips me up so sometimes it is a bit of trial and error to get it right. What I usually do is get each route figured out one at a time before I move on to the next one.

This is the way it usually works (but not always). As I say, sometimes it takes a bit of experimentation

HW OUT → BN IN
HW IN → BN OUT

Virtual IN → BN IN
Virtual OUT ->BN OUT

So I would start with just ‘IN: KKS61’ → OUT:MRCC(3) and see if that works and then go from there one at a time disabling all other routes as you test each one by unchecking the other boxes.
This is HW to HW routing

Then I look at OUT: KK DAW1 → OUT:MRCC(3)
This is virtual to HW routing

Then come back to me, if needed and we can look some more.

Oh, and you will need to enable ‘Advanced MIDI Routing’ to be able to route IN to IN or OUT to OUT.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Thank you for the explanation, but the routings I supplied were only to show that all possibilities were enabled without success, these were the ones as given by the basic routing matrix.

So I did find the issue trying all of the options in the Advanced mode, Bome Network is not naming the MRCC Inputs correctly, it displays them as a different number, this is different than my other routing software as well. KK, Ableton, Maschine and Midipipe all see them correctly, so I think it is an error in Bome, maybe this can be corrected somehow? See screenshot, I figured out the naming they should be, PC3 should = MRCC 3, PC4=MRCC 4 ect. its what the manual calls them. Bome has different numbers

On a positive note, with your explanation I have gotten some things working, I can now route the KKS61 USB to a physical din on the same device outside of the KK software, which is new functionality, previously required USB to be unplugged to use DIN. I can also duplicate the same USB to again route the KK USB to the MRCC 3 input with success inside and outside KK software. I can now route the Roli Seaboard successfully to MRCC also, the naming thing seems to mostly be the culprit, I hope there is a way Bome Network can see the name correctly. Any Ideas?

For the most part the names assigned to attached MIDI devices are a function of.

  1. The name of the device that the USB port reports to the operating system
  2. The name the operating system wants to assign it. In most cases, if the name is already assigned, the operating system may assign a different name than original reported by the USB device.
  3. In some cases, different USB drivers that are loaded can also effect a name change.

So in summary, there is not much that Bome can do about changing the assigned name negotiated between the USB device and the operating system.
I suggest you write down or remember the naming assignment that is used for future reference.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Some more information: if multiple MIDI ports on a computer have the same name, it would be impossible to use them in the Bome Network Pro MIDI Router (or in MIDI Translator Pro). Our software identifies MIDI ports by name.

So, when encountering duplicate ports, our software adds an index in parenthesis to the name to establish a canonical name for each port. We have developed an algorithm that tries to always re-establish the same ordering so that after reboot/restart/unplug cycles, our software uses the same indexes for each given (same named) port. Another use case for this is using multiple same units (e.g. 3 Launchpads).

Now to me, it seems that the 12 MRCC ports all report the same name via USB. I say ‘seems’ because MacOS, unfortunately, provides approx. 5 different ways to get the name of a MIDI port, and they often return very different names. Some MIDI devices will just return ‘MIDI’ in one of the names, so it is somehow an art to pick (or assemble) a meaningful name. So maybe this scheme fails for the MRCC, and the ‘correct’ names PC1…PC12 are available somewhere, but our software chooses the wrong name as display name? I do notice, however, that in the screenshots, Komplete Kontrol only lists all MRCC ports all with the same name.

We’re talking about this with the manufacturer of the MRCC now. It seems that the MRCC ports are USB ‘virtual cables’, and the order is changed in our software. We’ll see what we can do and report here.

OK, thank you for the reply. That’s what I suspected. I also reported that to the MRCC manufacturer on their firmware forum and requested port names. Unfortunately, your software is the only one that seems to shift the numbering of the port names. Komplete kontrol machine and midi pipe all Seem to pick up the same port name in the correct numeric order even though it’s not displayed, although I’m still testing. Those Komplete kontrol ports are displayed in order one through 12 numerically.

Using a software like your Bome Network is unlocking some additional routing capability for usb devices that don’t have internal routing matrixes, like the roli Seaboard, launchpad, m8 etc. So I’m very interested in getting it working.

it’s a shame! we’ll fix this.

Hello, Is there any plan to address this?

Hi Ekkomouse, I had a long discussion with the manufacturer of the MRCC and I think I found a sensible fix which will make it into the next release. Sorry I forgot to report back here. I’ll contact you for possible testing of a beta version.

Hi, this should be fixed in Bome MIDI Translator 1.9.1 and Bome Network 1.6.0.

Ok thanks, the betas have seemed to clear it up and it’s been working for a while, I will update to this release