Problems using multiple MIDI devices

[Highlander]

Hello, I've read various topics on this subject but haven't found an answer to my problem. I use Lemur on the iPad and I have a MIDI hardware controller. How can I use both? I have seen that Watchout recognizes only the first MIDI port in Windows, there's a way to send all the messages on the same port or I need to buy an interface to wire everything on a single port to use it inside Watchout?

[Martin Pfeifer]

Use a MIDI interface for the production/display PC. Use a MIDI interface for the iPad. If your hardware controller has only USB, use a MIDI USB Host. Connet the two MIDI Outputs to a MIDI Merger. Connect the Merger wich MIDI IN of the MIDI interface for the WO Computer. See attached images.

Martin

 

Martin

[Highlander]

I was afraid that external hardware was needed... Wouldn't be easier to allow users to choose which Windows MIDI ports to use so all this could be achieved without adding external hardware? I don't understand why MIDI is implemented this way

[jfk]

A USB device without MID IN, MIDI OUT and MIDI Thru connections

is not a real MIDI device.

So yes, external hardware would be needed to turn those

USB devices masqueardaing as MIDI devices over USB,

into real MIDI devices with standard MIDI connections.

 

Makes more sense to purchase real / true MIDI devices and avoid all that nonsense.

 

Supporting multiple USB connections as MIDI interfaces

is beyond the built-in Windows support for MIDI,

and is unnecessary when using true MIDI devices. 

Yes, the low cost USB device manufacturers provide drivers to allow

Windows applications to support multiple USB devices masquerading as MIDI,

but those are proprietary solutions and not available through generic Windows methods.

 

There is more than enough MIDI address space available through the single MIDI connection

to address any imaginable need.

Adding proprietary software interface to support pseudo devices just seems unnecessary to me.

[Highlander]

I don't know if other users agree with me, but I think that since 1983 MIDI devices have evolved and now interfaces not written in the MIDI standard are common such as MIDI over USB, MIDI over ethernet, Bluetooth etc... And I think that the real nonsense is to blindly adhere to a thirty years old standard constraining people to add unnecessary hardware to their rig adding unneeded complexity. In 2015 the exception is a MIDI implementation like the one found inside Watchout, not the other way around. Because the vast majority of software that uses MIDI allows the user to fully enjoy the power of new interfaces and this is the first software recently released supporting MIDI and not allowing to choose which MIDI ports to use and I hope that the developers will improve it because it's a really basic MIDI option that the user needs.

[jfk]

I don't know if other users agree with me, but I think that since 1983 MIDI devices have evolved and now interfaces not written in the MIDI standard are common such as MIDI over USB, MIDI over ethernet, Bluetooth etc... And I think that the real nonsense is to blindly adhere to a thirty years old standard constraining people to add unnecessary hardware to their rig adding unneeded complexity. In 2015 the exception is a MIDI implementation like the one found inside Watchout, not the other way around. Because the vast majority of software that uses MIDI allows the user to fully enjoy the power of new interfaces and this is the first software recently released supporting MIDI and not allowing to choose which MIDI ports to use and I hope that the developers will improve it because it's a really basic MIDI option that the user needs.

 

I would suggest you make that argument with Microsoft. Dataton works within the confines of Windows built-in support.

[Highlander]

Then I hope that with the new MIDI API in Win 10 things will get better... In the meantime I've read in this forum of people using TouchOSC with its bridge with Watchout, but I don't get how is setup. In windows 8.1 I get MIDI into Watchout only from the first MIDI port input sorted in alphabetical order, then what I need to do to get MIDI input from TouchOSC? Remove all the other MIDI devices so that TouchOSC Bridge becomes the first and only device? 

[Mike Fahl]

WATCHOUT currenty supports a single MIDI bus. That MIDI bus may have up to 16 MIDI devices or "channels" (the maximum addressing capacity of the MIDI standard). The problem is that most USB-connected MIDI equipment creates its own "bus", rather than being added as a MIDI channel to a single MIDI bus. Hence, in order to handle this situation properly, WATCHOUT would need to be enhanced to handle multiple MIDI buses, each with multiple MIDI channels per bus.

 

I understand that this doesn't solve the problem you're having, but hopefully at least explains what's going on, and possibly provide a work-around (e.g., by using a single MIDI-to-USB inteface with multiple MIDI devices connected through that same interface, as suggested above).

 

I don't know if there's any software solution out there, which combines multiple MIDI buses onto a single bus, each using its own channel. But I wouldn't be surprised. 

 

Mike

[Highlander]

I understand what is happening, but the big problem is that if I'm using multiple devices I need to uninstall or disable them all to use only one hardware input from USB, if what I need to do is coming from hardware... but I'd like to know how other people in this forum has achieved to use TouchOSC with its bridge which is a virtual port, I hope with a software trick, because I'm afraid that even in this case the only solution was to have only this port on the entire system...