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Midi Port Assignment
I did a quick search but nothing turned up... So how do you assign ID’s to external Midi Devices In AB or AUM? e.g., say two drum machines both on Midi channel 10?
Comments
They should appear in the app routing matrix with names, presumably supplied when they connect with the device MIDI support. So you can use the app routing to send a particular MIDI stream to or from a particular device. If they have the same name, they'll be "Instance A" and "Instance B", though which is which will be guesswork. The MIDI channel is not important for the routing in AB or AUM, though the apps and devices may have specific requirements.
What are you seeing when you try this? Could you post a screenshot?
I have external hardware with Midi ports only, they do not have USB connection, so nothing shows up in the apps. I think I need to get a Midi hub like the iConnectivity’s mio series, that way I can route the Midi anyway I want - I don’t think there is way to do it inside the iPad... but please correct me if I’m wrong.
Can you set up the devices to use different channel numbers from each other?
How is the data from the different devices getting into your iOS device? MIDI events like note and cc messages don’t contain device IDs so you would need to be using an interface that presents multiple ports to the OS with each device being associated with its own port.
Yes, I could use different channels if I want to, but In this particular scenario, It doesn’t quite work. And yes, it would be more appropriate to use Midi Ports rather than device ID’s to describe my issue... Anyway, this is what I am trying to do;
Obviously, this will also interfere with MC-909 on channel 10 (assuming the Midi notes overlap), so it would nice if I can send the Gadget’s sequence to say channel 10, port 2 or whatever to keep it away from the MC-909. Anyway, I hope that you get an idea of what I am trying to do. Maybe I am overlooking something...
You haven’t said how you are connecting. Some MIDI interfaces provide a port to the OS for each cable that comes into the interface. Do you already have an interface?
Presuming you only have one hardware MIDI output port, you've got it correct—channel 10's note information will clash. Short of adding another hardware output port, I'd look into changing the RX-5's MIDI channel to something like 16 and then muting part/track 16 on the MC-909.
From CCK to Akai EIE, which only has 1 in and 1 out.
Yes, I am reaching the same conclusion, gotta add another Midi port.
You need a MIDI interface with multiple 5-pin inputs if you need to keep the devices straight. How is it that you are getting the MIDI data from multiple 5-pin devices into your interface? Are they chained and using some sort of thru/merge?
The Unitor 8 connects to the EIE, as well as the other devices. Unfortunately, the Unitor is not recognized by the iOS, otherwise, it will be trivial to route the Midi ports.
Unfortunately, the Unitor isn’t class compliant. You need a class compliant interface that has multiple 5-pin connections. Or you could output the devices with a Yamaha 5-pin to Bluetooth converter. How many devices do you need to be seen as distinct?
There are also cheap USB to 5-pin cables. Those plus a midi hub might be cheaper than getting a multi port interface.
Like I said, it would be nice to do the above, but tbh, I seldom need more than 16 channels at any given time, so separating the devices by Midi channels work just fine. Still, I wonder why there isn’t an app that could do the routing inside iOS, after all, each Midi channel can handle 16 ports...
That was my thought as well.
From what I understand about MIDI, think you have this backwards: each MIDI port can handle 16 MIDI channels.
I don't understand what you are asking. If midi notes are coming through a single MIDI port, there is no way other than channel ID to distinguish them. Device ID isn't sent with the midi notes. The way that multi-port interfaces do things is that each cable that comes into the interface is presented to the OS as another port.
With that Unitor that you have, if you have Device A plugged into one MIDI input 1 and Device B plugged MIDI Input 2, you desktop machine isn't distinguishing them by device ID, they distinguish them by the port. Device A is on port 1 and Device B on Port 2. If instead, you used a MIDI merger to combine Device A and Device B's MIDI into one stream, something downstream would have no way of knowing what was sent by what unless you used midi channels to disambiguate them.
Device ID on a single MIDI stream usually only comes into play with sysex messages because sysex has device ID stuff in the header.
Yes, thanks for the correction, I got it backwards. Now it makes perfect sense why no app can do the job when I have just 1 output port.
@espiegel123
Yes, my mistake regarding the ports, also I am not using the Unitor optimally, since it’s not connected to a Mac/PC, it just acts as a 8x8 merger. I simply plugged in the cables haphazardly, now I need to spend sometime to re-connect them in an organized fashion, and make some patches for it.
Thanks for all your answers, they made things much more clear for me.
FYI, this is the default setting for the Unitor 8: