I have just been experimenting with simplifying some tour spec setups.
I’m having an issue with using the USB port of the BomeBox to extend communication to a remote laptop at the Axe FX processing rack.
I can send and receive MIDI over the connection (USB to RJM and BomeNetwork on control PC).
If I open the MMGT RJM software for editing the pedals whilst connected to the USB of the Bome, connection is successful, however cannot transfer/read data from the RJM back to the editor.
If I connect the RJM to the Bome 5pin DINs read and write from the editor works however painstakingly slow as to be expected on 5Pin MIDI.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this or can explain why this would be the case? Was hoping to utilise the USB ports in this way to remotely edit without the drastic slowdown of 5Pin or taking the laptop over to the pedals.
Normally all MIDI connections on a BomeBox are stable although as you notice MIDI DIN is much slower.
I suspect one of three things.
Your MIDI routing is incorrect on your BomeBox when connecting your RJM to the BomeBox, It is important that you set up routes both ways.
The software or your pedal cannot handle the speed of MIDI messages when connected through USB. Do you have an issue when connecting the RJM pedal board directly via USB to your computer?
Your ethernet or WiFi connection is congested resulting in dropping of some MIDI messages. If you are using WiFi, switch to ethernet to see if things get better.
It is also possible that there is other MIDI traffic being routed between the connections that is interfering with the SysEx messages being sent back and forth. Maybe you can show me your BomeBox routing. If you are running things through a Bome MIDI Translator Pro project file, you should probably turn that off in case that is the culprit.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
It was quite an isolated test. 2 device route in/out to each other.
No issues what so ever when connected to the laptop with direct USB. Full speed connectivity.
Was a fresh stripped back MikroTik Router providing POE, and Hard Ethernet to each device (Laptop and BomeBox)
This is the head scratching part since everything was as stripped back as it could be, hence the question. I haven’t had a chance to test this with another device, say the Axe FX ii, to see if it was isolated to the RJM. I won’t be able to for a couple of weeks, heading back on the road today…
,
I am still currently unable to do further testing, however I received the following response from Tom @ McClaren Labs on the MMK server on an RPi.
At the time of my original post I was testing all 3 devices with the RJM GT10; DOREMIDI RTP, ‘MMK on RPi’ and BomeBox in the same situation.
Response in regards to MMK below in quotations “ “
“With respect to the latest question, I suspect it has something to do with “System Exclusive” messages. Our implementation of SysEx over 200 bytes is not complete. It has to do with the way the Linux “SEQ” interface chops up long sysex sequences.
On Linux, there are two MIDI interfaces: RAW byte streams, and SEQ for software sequencers. Our software uses the SEQ interface which is good for speed and latency.
Hope this helps! If not solve a problem, perhaps give you some insights.”
Does this sound like something that might also be occurring in the BomeBox since we are looking at Linux implementation at the end of day? Or once able to run further testing at my end with all 3 devices on a different end device like my Axe FX II?
I don’t think so. BomeBox has it’s own network interface protocol. We have not experienced any ‘chopping up’ of long SysEX message as described by MMK. With that said, I will pass this on to our developer to see if he has any further insight.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Steve is correct. The BomeBox firmware is developed and tested to support Sys-Ex messages of any size. The only thing we’ve observed is that there are devices which are not capable of receiving/processing incoming MIDI at the full USB bandwidth.
Such USB-MIDI devices should make use of USB flow control, which the BomeBox honors. We know that there are some devices which don’t. I don’t know this RJM device, and often, it’s hard to find out why a device drops MIDI data in one configuration, but doesn’t in another.
So, we’re looking into a possible feature to be added to the BomeBox firmware to arbitrarily restrict bandwidth of MIDI streams to work around USB-MIDI devices which don’t fully implement USB flow control.