Midi Translator Manual: Translators

Translators comprise the core functionality of Bomes MIDI Translator. In simple terms, translators listen for an 'incoming action' optionally do some processing on the incoming action (see the Rules section of the manual) output an 'outgoing action.' Translators are limited to a single incoming action and outgoing action, but you can easily create multiple translators with identical incoming or outgoing actions depending on your needs. Also, the routing flexibility of outgoing actions and rules allow for a lot to be accomplished with a single translator.

typical midi translator setup

There are three main settings in the 'Options' screen for individual translators.

• Name

This is the simple descriptive property of the translator. It does not have any value other than for reference in presets and activation rules. The Translator name is not a unique value, therefore multiple translators can have the same name. It is recommened that the Translator name be something simple that will make identifying multiple translators in large templates more easy.

• Active

This value determines whether the translator is actively being processed (listening for defined incoming action) or whether it is disabled (and therefore ignoring incoming actions). This parameter can also be changed from the main MIDI Translator interface.

• Stop processing with this translator

If this is enabled, successful completion of this translator's Outgoing Action will cause the rest of the translators in the current preset to be ignored. This is useful for multiple-part presets that have different processes depending on different defined actions.
A simple and useful use case for Stop Processing is to ignore the Note Off MIDI Message from your MIDI keyboard. For example, if you want to trigger a translator only when pressing the key, but not when releasing it, then create two translators:
1. In the first translator, specify the Note On MIDI message with 0 velocity (which is often used for Note Off), e.g. 90 45 00 with Stop Processing checked and no outgoing action. This translator will effectively "swallow" any Note Off (=key release) messages.
2. The second translator has as incoming MIDI message e.g. 90 45 qq. The outgoing action is the action that you want to do when pressing the key. Here, it does not matter if Stop Processing is checked or not.
With this trick, you get a translator (the 2nd one) which only reacts on key down.
Note: you can achieve the same with the Rules.

translator options screen