USB hub and MIDI interfaces on BomeBox?

Do I understand the decriptions right – I can plug a MIDI interface or an USB hub with a couple of MIDI interfaces into the BomeBox?

If yes, do you know if miditech midiface 4x4 are compatible? The devices are bus-powered with 4 independent I/Os, no patching.

And would the BomeBox support SysEx dumps to/from effect devices for setup and backup?

(Can’t check myself, my BomeBox isn’t here yet and I am designing my new computerless setup.)

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The description shows the device as “class compliant” so it should work OK with your BomeBox.
You may or may not require a powered USB hub depending on the current draw of the Midiface. BomeBox provides up to 1 amp so I think you won’t need a powered hub.

As far as SysEX, BomeBox can pass SysEX from and to attached devices by using the BomeBox router, or if you have Bome MT Pro project loaded, setting the routing in that project file (which overrides the BomeBox routing when the project file is running).

BomeBox itself does not have the capability to store or retrieve patches independently. It does not include a “patch librarian” function. You have to rely on the attached devices (or remote applications) to handle that.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

I use SysEx only for manual dumps and connect a computer for that. It must just go through the BomeBox which is the case, as you said.

My USB hubs are all powered, so I can take what fits best. There will be no problem with 2 bus-powered MIDI interfaces.

The crux in my setup is, that I have only one MIDI I/O on the master controller. It is a Gordius Footcontroller and should control all MIDI routing via a single line. It cannot do it alone, therefore the BomeBox.

Please have a look at the diagram below, it shows the MIDI setup for a larger system.


The BomeBox should …
… route both instruments selectively to the two synths on the left side …
… make the MIDI settings for the audio effects on the right side …
… while playing, control parameters on synths and effects …
… occasionally it should be possible to connect a computer to the Gordius controller and send SysEx dumps to and from synths and effect boxes.

Is this a situation the BomeBox loves to handle, or am I going to violate the system?

Hi, thanks for the nice diagram!

Since the Gordius controller only has 1 output port, you will probably need to add an MT Pro project file to map MIDI channels to different ports since you will have a total of 8 devices (ports) that you will be sending MIDI. Alternately if each of your devices has it’s own MIDI channel, then you can send to all 8 devices and let the devices themselves sort out whether the MIDI message is for them. Of course if you send SysEX from Gordius, it would probably need to go to all ports and again the device would have to sort out whether the message was for it.

Does this make sense?

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Oh, channel sorting is already done. The setup isn’t new, components are just rearranged on paper to check the possibilities with the BomeBox. I’ve updated the above chart with channel numbers.

I am sure that I will need MT Pro. In our recent discusssion we talked about duplicating and mapping channel 9 input to channels 11/12 output. You see the reason for that in the upper left part of the diagram: Incoming Sylphyo wind controller with CC numbers from it’s motion sensor plays to synths sensitive to other CC numbers. Next step is the MIDI guitar, which is more complicated.

The Gordius controller is omnipotent but as a programmable output device it does not convert incoming MIDI. Currently I cannot use MIDI interfaces after the controller and run my setup with two MIDI merge boxes and everything serial. This is no fun as you can imagine and has a lot of issues.

I’m glad for your confirmation that the setup is a task for the BomeBox and will probably soon believe that life without Bome is possible but pointless :slight_smile:

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Peter,

I am also thinking about expanding the bomebox with a USB midi interface, may I ask if you did get the midiface 4x4 to work?

And was it possible to address the in- and outputs seperately in the translator project?

thanks in advance,
Frank

Frank,

as far as I remember, the midiface 4x4 worked fine and I was able to address the in/out ports in Bome MT and box. A note about MIDI clock: Unlike many other interfaces, the midiface 2x2 and 4x4 do not automatically send the clock to all outputs. You have to send the clock to each port where you need it. This has advantages and disadvantages, for me it is mostly good.

But I don’t use this setup anymore. After I gave away the Lexicon device, there was only one device with DIN MIDI left. When I realised that the BomeBox can switch USB very well, I took the interfaces out. The BomeBox is itself an interface. Finally I managed to integrate the Gordius controller also into the USB circuit. Now I only have two active USB hubs on the BomeBox.

If you also have mainly USB devices and don’t need to feed devices via DIN, you could consider the pure USB setup. It is also faster than interfaces.

Here is my current setup:

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Awesome. Great illustration of the power of the tiny BomBox . I notice not computer in this setup. Great job!

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Yes, as it is, the setup can be played without a computer. The Gordius foot controller can control everything that receives MIDI and a custom Launchpad patch makes the connections in a kind of matrix via the BomeBox. This is done quite transparently with the MT file in the BomeBox. The Launchpad toggle buttons have CC numbers 1-64 …

… and activate/deactivate MT presets with the same numbers, which respectively take care of the port connections (preset default ports) and the CC mapping between sources and destinations:

However, the setup is mostly used with the computer. Preset handling of Eventide effects is controlled by the Mac via Max. Also parameters for fine-tuning and DAW automation when the DAW has the effects in an audio send/return loop. The two small synthesizers are handled similarly. And of course I need the computer to play software instruments with keyboards, wind controller or MIDI guitar.

It took me a while to get used to having all the controllers and effects ‘behind’ the BomeBox. I have changed positions a few times. Now I don’t feel the extra layer at all, the latency is the same as before, rather better, because everything is USB and the computer connection is the Ethernet cable. I am happy with it, the setup works very well and reliably.

One problem I could not solve, but simply work around: Launchpad, Roli Seaboard, Gordius (foot controller) and TriplePlay FC-1 (MIDI guitar) have editors that don’t or don’t always want to connect to their partners through the BomeBox. I don’t bother with that any more. I have the one hub of the BomeBox and a similar hub on the Mac stuck next to each other on the work table. Whenever I need an editor, I simply plug the USB cable from the Bome hub into the Mac hub, configure the device, and plug it back again. This works very well, only rarely do I have to restart the Bome network once for the connection to get found again:

Hubs_1

Very cool.

Yes most editors require more than just MIDI via USB. They usually have their own HID usb integration which requires direct connection.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

Hi Peter,

I see that we are solving the same thing - routing the controllers to the synth - but each completely differently. Your way is using one dedicated controller, it’s very nice and it lights up nicely. I used a small Raspberry Pi computer and directly control the BomeBox through the web interface of the OSC server. A little more here

Peter,

thanks a lot for sharing your experience with the miditech interface (I will give it a try), and also your setup, OMG.

I gotta say I was considering my own setup quite sophisticated, but suddenly it feels rather basic, haha!

What you say about usb vs midi is very interesting, too, I didn’t look at this this way yet. A while ago I was thinking about connection my synth with an usb cable in place of DIN. But I hesitated to do so because I was afraid that the connection would be less robust in a live situation.
Practically speaking, my fear was that I have to unplug and re-plug the usb cable because the devices would not recognize each other, there is a handshake involved after all. That’s just a gut feeling though, not based on real testing. What are your experiences in this regard?

Hi, for the most part, I think USB is cleaner. Where I have sometimes run into problems, however is if the USB interface is not ‘class compliant’ which would be a show stopper for that device. A workaround would be to get a MIDI DIN to USB interface cable (a good quality one).

The other possible downside of USB is that some times USB may demand too much power, but that is usually easy to resolve with a USB hub.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care


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

I didn’t know either, I was worried about the speed. Then Steve told me here in the forum that USB is faster. I haven’t measured it, but despite the routing in the BomeBox, USB doesn’t feel slower than a directly connected fast interface like Unitor, amt8 or the simple and fast miditech 2x2 and 4x4. BomeBox->Computer goes via the Ethernet cable.

There is some instability with Bome Network when I plug and unplug USB cables randomly, what I do while programming in Max for my devices. But only on the computers side, the BomeBox itself ist stable. I had only one failure after trying to load an MT file. Once in about a hundred actions, that’s pretty good. No live experience yet, but I think if the USB cables are in good hubs and mechanically well secured, there will be no problem.

Agree, no problem here. The two active hubs on my BomeBox are even connected with an 8-metre active Lindy extension and that works. Both hubs are powered by their provided power supplies.

Thanks for the feedback, both of you, that’s quite interesting. For my current setup it’s a little too late, it would mean to tear everything apart and I also have to include some din-only devices like the octatrack, but I will consider it for future projects.

The miditech interface I asked you about is meant to simplify the setup. I did something which now feels stupid if I think about it: I needed more (DIN, in my case) in- and outputs on a bomebox. So I connected a second bomebox and added a midi hub to the din-out and a midi merger to the din-in of this second box.

Somehow it didn’t cross my mind that I just can connect a midi interface to the usb of the bomebox, giving me exactly what I need and much cheaper. :man_facepalming:

The MIDIhub is a nice device. I have one too and is is great for both expanding DIN needs and USB. You know you can route USB to USB in the MIDIHub using Bome MIDI Translator Pro or Bome Network Pro don’t you. The MIDIHub also has it’s own intelligence allowing complex routing and conversion using a GUI interface and a concept of ‘pipes’. Of course you have to program it using a computer but after that the settings allow it to continue what you did while disconnected from the computer.

Steve

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Is this to be understood that the MIDIhub can do routing and/or conversions that are difficult or impossible for BomeBox/MT? Otherwise, it would make no sense to have a second programmable device while the BomeBox can do the tasks alone.

There are a few things that MIDIHub does better. Once of them is to generate MIDI clock with higher degree of accuracy. Also, not everyone that has purchased a BomeBox has also purchased Bome MIDI Translator Pro, and you need this license in order to run your own projects on your BomeBox. In a nutshell, they can both have a place in your MIDI configuration.

Very interesting. I already looked at the MIDIHub, but like Peter saw it more as an alternative to the BomeBox. Good to know that it also works nicely alongside the BomeBox.

I can say for myself that BomeBox is a ‘worker’ and MIDIHub is more of an ‘artist’. A great thing about the MIDIHub is the button that switches between presets. These can also be switched using Midi.