increase the number of virtual midi ports

Hello again!

Between outboard midi gear, USB controllers and routing in windows, I use more than 5 devices that I'd like to intercept and translate or route. Not sure how common that is, but I'm wondering why the limit of 5 I/O? I'm currently using a combination of MT Pro and a couple other loopback products that all get routed into MT. It sure would be nice if I could spawn up 15 I/O and only work with MT ports!

Thanks in advance.

Hi Synthmusic,

indeed, we limited the ports to 5 to see if users need more. And possibly, if a "Pro+" edition or so makes sense with more than 5 ports. Or a "feature pack" that unlocks more ports. I guess the latter would be welcome in your case?

Thanks,
Florian

florian wrote:Hi Synthmusic,

indeed, we limited the ports to 5 to see if users need more. And possibly, if a "Pro+" edition or so makes sense with more than 5 ports. Or a "feature pack" that unlocks more ports. I guess the latter would be welcome in your case?

Thanks,
Florian

Got it, that would do the trick. Makes good business sense. It would have to be the right price-point, because there are other port options out there that are workable, so it would be paying purely for convenience (well, an argument could be made for performance or other). I sent you a separate email in the "contact us" form with another request if you care to discuss further in that forum.

As always, thank you.

+10 for this.

I'm having to use MidiYoke alongside MT Pro and it makes me appreciate how solid Bome's really is. I wouldn't be totally confident running MidiYoke in a potentially unstable, system stress environment like a live performance in a warehouse. In my experience the amount of different factors you have to rely on to work for the set not to go fubar is directly proportionate to the likelihood of everything melting. I would say double up on the ports. Why? For no other reason than you can and, following that, a lack of virtual ports is pretty unlikely to become an issue again for some time.

hy,
long year bome user here. in my preset i use all 5 ports for traktor, one for each deck, and one for global messages. i decided to program in this way as it makes it quite easy to set up multiple controls for one deck, and then just duplicate everything three times for the other decks. no midi note changing required, they all send on the same channel and the same notes, and traktor differentiates solely based on the selected input port. nice and easy to set up and very fast to modify later.

that was cool so far. now i am starting to incorporate ableton live into my setup, and need an additional 6th port - as ableton can't use any of the existing 5 because they are all in use by traktor.

this arbitrary limitation of "5" (why not "10" to begin with?) is quite frustrating and makes no sense, except from a business point of view of course. i am, however, not willing to pay for these kinds of "enhancements" as i would feel getting cheated, sorry.

Hi tecxx,

wow, now that's an inventive way to use multiple ports, just excellent!

Regarding the business reasoning, I thank you for your opinion.

From Bome's perspective, pricing for MT is hard to get right. There are many users who only use 1% of its features, or users who do not edit the presets at all on their own. On the other end of the scale, there are also the users who literally save thousands of dollars by using MT. I was looking for ways to be able to charge the latter a bit more without harming the other users. The number of virtual ports seemed like a natural division, as I did not see a reason for a "normal" user to use more than 5 virtual ports. So the 5 ports aren't really arbitrary. But, well, your use of them shows me that I was wrong. Darn it

I understand your reasoning to feel cheated if you had to pay more for a simple setting in the program (more ports). On the other hand, development of the virtual MIDI ports (on Windows) was very expensive and time consuming and so the 5 ports are actually, sort of, free for you

Anyway, I guess 5 is too low to cover "normal power users". 10 seems OK.
Thanks,
Florian

thanks for giving some insight on this. the drivers and bome itself work well enough to not be frustrated about them.

based on the fact that i just spent one one and a half (!) hour clicking around inside the dumb traktor interface to change the deck B mapping to share it's port with deck A, i might consider paying a little for the 10 port upgrade. i am not interested in doing that remapping for C and D, my brain is already bleeding


see, you got me there.
so if i can get my hands on a "more ports" version, please pm me.
cheers

I wouldn't mind paying extra for additional ports. I hope there will be an option soon.

Also - any way to fix naming conventions of the ports under Windows? I understand the issues, but if there was at least an option to make the default names shorter, I could at least see the port numbers in applications that don't have wide enough areas to see them.

Hi, all this is already implemented and currently in beta test for the next version:
- option to use shorter names ("BMT 1", "BMT 2", etc.)
- number in front of port name in other programs (like "2- Bome's Midi Translator 1")
- more than 5 ports

Thanks,
Florian

florian wrote:Hi, all this is already implemented and currently in beta test for the next version:
- option to use shorter names ("BMT 1", "BMT 2", etc.)
- number in front of port name in other programs (like "2- Bome's Midi Translator 1")
- more than 5 ports

Thanks,
Florian

Excellent - any expected release date? Would be glad to help with beta testing.

Another bump for more ports.

I have project with Pro Tools 7 that only works with Bome ports. Something funny about Pro Tools and MIDI-Yoke, loopMIDI or Maple ports. These ports rock. They are the only one's don't make Pro Tools MIDI feedback on open and close.

BTW, I've noticed BT also hangs on close, briefly, when multi-client ports are installed.

I need 10 ports.

Hi,

thanks for the info. We're currently doing internal beta testing. It's set to 9 ports right now.
I have never had a hang when shutting down. Does it happen every time? Is that on Windows or on OS X?

Thanks,
Florian

I'm on Win XP.

When Midi-Yoke is installed I get a close time that is about 4 seconds. And I had the odd freeze.

When I only use the 5 Bome ports and one loopMIDI installed (because I need 6 for my HUI projects) I get nearly instant closing.

I'm pointing to the ports also because the Midi-Yoke ports can cause Pro Tools 7 to hang or freeze. Uninstall them and Pro Tools closes nearly instantly too.

Good news about the 9 ports!