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11-10-2015, 05:44 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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Request for more MIDI ports available in Reaper
The title says is all ... It seems there is a limit of 64 midi ports (each in an out), that reaper may detect in midi devices. Please correct me, if I am wrong, but I cannot get more than 64 to show up.
Why do I think it is necessary? There are many virtual midi port applications, such as Midi-over-lan, IPmidi and Tobias Erichsons freeware, which allow a maximum of 64 ports. But there are also people (like me) using two or more of those programs at the same time, getting more than 64 ports. And there are also hardware devices, such as USB midi ports and and interfaces, which need to be available at the same time.
I know most people with the need for so many ports use Vienna ensemble pro, where those virtual ports are provided via plugins! But there are also people, who prefer using virtual midi and hardware audio, which is not possible with VEpro at the same time.
I was about to start using Reaper as my DAW (instead of Cubase), because I really like the high level customizability and the scripting possibilities and it seems to be perfect for managing huge composer templates over multiple PCs, but it will be a lot of work and I could only do it with at least 256 ports available (or unlimited, if that is possible). I apologize in advance for making a feature request before even being a user! :-)
If there is any other way to make it happen, maybe a workaround, please let me know!
Kudos for such a great program and spirit of this company, anyway! I would really like to become part of it.
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12-09-2016, 04:47 AM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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Is there any news on this topic? I have seen people asking for the same in different threads. If there is going to be no progress on this, I would like to know, why this (seemingly) easy modification is not being considered. Will greater numbers of midi ports slow reaper down?
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04-30-2017, 08:15 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Any update or progress on this? The issue is worsened by the fact that 64 is not just the maximum number of MIDI ports enabled in Reaper, but rather the total number installed on the machine (whether enabled in Reaper or not). If there are more than 64 MIDI ports installed on the machine, Reaper will randomly pick 64 that it can "see". *Ugh*
There are many hardware devices today that install a whole bunch of MIDI ports with no way to disable them. It all adds up and I constantly have to unplug/uninstall devices just so I get the total count less than 64, so Reaper can reliably see the ports I actually want to use.
I realize not many people have this problem, but I'd appreciate any update/insight on whether or not Reaper will be able to handle more than 64 MIDI ports. This was increased from 32 to 64 at one point during an earlier update - is another increase difficult due to some limitation in the engine?
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05-01-2017, 01:32 AM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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As you can see from the lack of replies there seems to be no huge interest towards that topic. In other threads where I have pointed out the problem, my sanity has been questioned.
Hence, I moved on using Cubase and while I find Reaper very good in many aspects, this is not the only topic where I probably would have regretted choosing reaper. I like the concept, but there are just some spots left, which have not been updated with priority, as it seems. Mostly, Reapers weaknesses seem to still lie in midi and editing of midi data and as this is the most important field to me, I cannot move to reaper, although I like the whole concept and some customizability features other DAWs do not offer as extensively ...
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05-01-2017, 06:14 AM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
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Exactly what ARE these MIDI devices you are struggling with and why do you need ALL of them?
A clue to this sort of behaviour and how to deal with it came to me recently when I made the mistake of buying AutoTheory on sale and discovering when I uninstalled it that I was lft with no less than eight AT MIDI ins and eight AT MIDI outs that I could not remove.
After a lot of wrangling back and forth between the plugin seller and the plugin authors I eventually got a set of instructions that worked but if this is even part of your issue, there ARE already solutions.
Of course, if you have 73 MIDI hardware synths you are probably S.O.L.
__________________
Ici on parles Franglais
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05-01-2017, 08:15 AM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Exactly what ARE these MIDI devices you are struggling with and why do you need ALL of them?
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I don't need ALL of them at once, but Reaper will behave randomly if more than 64 are connected, whether being used in Reaper at the time or not. The biggest culprits are the devices by iConnectivity (iConnectMIDI, iConnectAudio, mio). They offer connections to all sorts of different kinds of MIDI devices and install a potential port for all of them, whether they are being used or not. I've got a few of those, with the need to use at least one distinct port in each of them. Hence the issue. It is not "incorrect behavior" on the part of the device, this is actually how they are supposed to work.
If anyone wants to replicate the issue, they can use LoopMIDI to create more than 64 virtual ports and see how Reaper reacts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Of course, if you have 73 MIDI hardware synths you are probably S.O.L
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Yup, that's about where I am. I DO have a workaround using MIDI over Ethernet to aggregate some of my devices, but I'd rather avoid it due to other bandwidth and timing jitter issues.
Anyway - if it is not a big deal for Reaper to support it would be great! I'm not singling Reaper out here - a lot the "professional" options are still stuck on 32 devices! There was a time when Windows only supported 16 or 32 I think (possibly Windows XP), so perhaps that was the origin of the limit. But there is no more need for it.
Last edited by Grimulkan; 05-02-2017 at 10:35 AM.
Reason: Added emphasis
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05-01-2017, 10:44 AM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
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Wow! Your electric bill must be HUGE!
FWIW I use an Akai ME80P programmable patchbay for my modest (and dwindling) MIDI needs, which is handy for patching in literally hundreds of different setups, but of course only on the 16 "standard" MIDI channels. You would need to track down a LOT of them to deal with it that way, but it would work.
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Ici on parles Franglais
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05-01-2017, 12:28 PM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Wow! Your electric bill must be HUGE!
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Haha, but seriously MIDI isn't going to be the worst offender here. Rather, the stuff that is actually using the MIDI (in this case a bunch of hardware synths) will consume way more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
FWIW I use an Akai ME80P programmable patchbay for my modest (and dwindling) MIDI needs, which is handy for patching in literally hundreds of different setups, but of course only on the 16 "standard" MIDI channels. You would need to track down a LOT of them to deal with it that way, but it would work.
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Usable, but I think restricted to DIN MIDI only. Newer devices tend to use USB. I basically do the same thing with some iConnect boxes, i.e., aggregate USB MIDI into a single Ethernet port. But it is not ideal. Also, one can't aggregate too many devices into a DIN port because of the limited bandwidth.
On adding 64+ port support to Reaper, for example, looking at the Reaper API doc:
Code:
C: bool SetMediaTrackInfo_Value(MediaTrack* tr, const char* parmname, double newvalue)
...
Set track numerical-value attributes.
...
I_MIDIHWOUT : int * : track midi hardware output index (<0 for disabled, low 5 bits are which channels (0=all, 1-16), next 5 bits are output device index (0-31))
This must be outdated because I can clearly use 6 bits for the device index (hence 64 devices) - unless I'm doing something wrong? Anyway, I think Reaper moved from 5 bits to 6 at some point, maybe another bit can be added to make it 7? For the purposes of this API function at least, even if the int is signed 16-bit (the minimum, it is probably more), there are still 5 more bits left to index more devices.
Last edited by Grimulkan; 05-01-2017 at 12:34 PM.
Reason: Added link
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05-01-2017, 12:47 PM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
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Come to think of it, one of my old multitimbral Synths could use 64 channels spread over four MIDI ports...
__________________
Ici on parles Franglais
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05-01-2017, 12:54 PM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Come to think of it, one of my old multitimbral Synths could use 64 channels spread over four MIDI ports...
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This is how it tends to add up (not counting the iConnect boxes). Hook up a Virus TI over USB and BAM! you have 2-3 MIDI ports. Hook up a Roland A800 Pro keyboard - 3 more. QuNexus controller? Another 3. Etc. The original device manufacturers mean well and want us to have different ways to address the synth/device, but unfortunately Reaper can't cope.
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05-02-2017, 04:15 AM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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There is also people who want to use virtual midi channels with their (huge) orchestral templates. Of course I know you can use VEpro for this, but if you don't want to use network audio in favour of hardware audio transmission between master and slave PCs, you can't generate enough Midi Ports in reaper. The purpose of this is of course not to use all those midi channels within one seesion, just to set them all up and disable them, so that you can enable and start using them with just a few actions. Having to reroute the Midi Ports and check where to connect them is to distracting to be quick. So, you would quicklay run out of Ports even with 64 Ports with a big template. And you won't even reach that 64, as there are other hardware Ports needed as well ...
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05-02-2017, 10:35 AM
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#12
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Of course, if you have 73 MIDI hardware synths you are probably S.O.L.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc
Wow! Your electric bill must be HUGE!
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Just realized you were asking if I had 73 DEVICES! I don't - but as we discussed, you don't need 73 devices to generate 73 MIDI ports.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FriFlo
As you can see from the lack of replies there seems to be no huge interest towards that topic. In other threads where I have pointed out the problem, my sanity has been questioned. Hence, I moved on using Cubase and while I find Reaper very good in many aspects, this is not the only topic where I probably would have regretted choosing reaper. I like the concept, but there are just some spots left, which have not been updated with priority, as it seems. Mostly, Reapers weaknesses seem to still lie in midi and editing of midi data and as this is the most important field to me, I cannot move to reaper, although I like the whole concept and some customizability features other DAWs do not offer as extensively ...
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Totally missed this post. Reaper's MIDI has a come a long way from where it was, so I suppose I'm still cautiously optimistic. I just write my own code using Reaper's API for anything Reaper doesn't directly support. But every now and then I come up against a solid brick wall like this 6-bit device index thing.
Here is an attempted summary for the feature request, in decreasing order of preference & amount of change:- Reaper supports more than 64 MIDI I/O devices at once
- Reaper can "see" and list more than 64 MIDI devices in the MIDI connections dialog, but can only enable up to 64 at a time
- Reaper only lists 64 devices in the MIDI connection dialog (the way it currently works), but you can externally specify which MIDI devices are excluded from the displayed list. Egs., in a separate INI or text file. This way, at least, we can prune the list processed by Reaper and mange the randomness aspect of which ports under 64 Reaper decides it wants to see.
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05-03-2017, 05:04 AM
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#13
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,826
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Big +1 on this, i am starting to get close to 64 with a few synths and a bunch of Ipads and controllers, some of my controllers have had 6 lol
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Stop posting huge images, smaller images or thumbnail, it's not rocket science!
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05-19-2017, 03:01 AM
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#14
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Croatia
Posts: 24,790
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OK I got an answer from Justin regarding this.
http://askjf.com/index.php?q=3779s
So it looks like it's an internal limitation in Reaper. Not sure if they can increase the bitmask to support more devices...
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05-19-2017, 10:24 AM
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#15
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Thanks for asking EvilDragon. A shame about it possibly being an engine limitation though.
In the 3 scenarios in my post above, only the first is explicit support for 64+ devices. Still being able to implement either of the other options will help manage the problem and remove some of the random behavior.
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04-10-2018, 02:17 PM
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#16
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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Good to know! I would still like to bump this request. Only recently I thought about replacing VEpro with Reaper on the sample playback PCs. Reaper would be so great for that purpose. But the 64 port limit is still a thing ...
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04-10-2018, 04:29 PM
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#17
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Glad someone still remembers! Would love to see some update or workaround too.
I've addressed the issue by adding a second computer running Reaper & networking the two... but a rather complicated workaround.
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03-16-2019, 06:17 PM
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#18
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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I have to bump this again ... I am looking into alternative vst hosting applications (like Vienna Ensemble Pro). I think, reaper would be just great for that purpose and it has all kinds of customization potential while being low cost. Yet, as long as you cannot access more than 64 (virtual) midi ports, it won’t work for big templates.
Is there any chance of this limit getting lifted anytime soon?
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03-16-2019, 08:51 PM
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#19
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 14
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Oh right, getting to be about that time of the year. +1, still.
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09-23-2019, 05:47 PM
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#20
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 117
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64? I see only 16 midi ports (I want to use 48 ports in VePro - what's wrong?
By using a Plogue Bidule, it's possible to address up to 128 midi ports from Reaper. But, is there a way without 3rd-party plugins?
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09-23-2019, 11:26 PM
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#21
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Croatia
Posts: 24,790
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OP is talking about hardware MIDI ports, not MIDI channels/busses available to plugins.
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09-23-2019, 11:47 PM
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#22
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vadium
64? I see only 16 midi ports (I want to use 48 ports ...)
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In fact the term "MIDI ports" is unknown regarding Reaper.
There is
- Midi Channels (16, defined by the Midi protocol itself)
- Midi buses (also 16, defined by Reaper, bumping up the number of Midi bus/channel combinations to 256)
- Midi devices (AFAIK, unlimited, actually defined by the OS)
But Midi ports "?????"
-Michael
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09-23-2019, 11:48 PM
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#23
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Croatia
Posts: 24,790
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell
- Midi devices (AFAIK, unlimited, actually defined by the OS)
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MIDI device = MIDI port. And it's not unlimited, 64 is max due to how Reaper stores this data ( https://askjf.com/index.php?q=3779s)
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09-23-2019, 11:53 PM
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#24
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilDragon
MIDI device ... not unlimited, 64 is max
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AH ! Thanks for clarification !
-Michael
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09-24-2019, 03:26 PM
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#25
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 117
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell
- Midi buses (also 16, defined by Reaper, bumping up the number of Midi bus/channel combinations to 256)
-Michael
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Ok, is it possible to use more than 16 buses? or it's a hard limitation?
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09-24-2019, 04:06 PM
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#26
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 2,643
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilDragon
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ED I see you all over the place but not in the PG Music Biab/Biab Plugin forums, you would make a great beta tester !
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09-25-2019, 07:08 AM
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#27
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vadium
Ok, is it possible to use more than 16 buses? or it's a hard limitation?
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16 Buses is hard limit. But 256 Midi channels in sum seems like enough in close to all cases.
-Michael
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09-25-2019, 07:23 AM
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#28
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Croatia
Posts: 24,790
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MusoBob
ED I see you all over the place but not in the PG Music Biab/Biab Plugin forums, you would make a great beta tester !
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I have beta tests coming out of my nose, I don't need any more.
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10-16-2019, 04:32 PM
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#29
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 117
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell
16 Buses is hard limit. But 256 Midi channels in sum seems like enough in close to all cases.
-Michael
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Not to all. Since MIDI MPE mode has announced and realized in, for example, EW Play engine, one articulation of HS violins requests for the whole 1 MIDI bus (16 channels). For 42 articulations it needs 42 MIDI buses (yes. violins not use all 16 channels at once, only 3-4, but for correct work in MPE mode whole MIDI bus should be dedicated. And such cases will meet more and more ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBDkeU8cQNw&t=50s). Especially after the new release of Reaticulate with MIDI bus routing ability https://vi-control.net/community/thr...1/post-4445582
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Last edited by Vadium; 10-16-2019 at 04:45 PM.
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10-16-2019, 10:43 PM
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#30
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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You are right that MPE can use up to 1+15 Midi channels for a single instrument.
But the MPE spec allows for limiting the count of channels to 1+1, 1+2, 1+3, ....
Nonetheless due to upcoming MPE, it might be viable if the count of available Midi Buses could be increased. This does not seem like an undoable task.
So you might want to post a new decently captured Feature request with an appropriate explanation. Something like "Increase the count of available Midi buses from 16 to e.g. 64".
-Michael
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10-17-2019, 09:34 AM
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#31
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 117
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ok, thank you for suggesting!
__________________
macOS 10.13.6, personal/small business use license
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12-07-2019, 03:28 PM
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#32
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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New version with many great additions. I especially like the new midi editing look and functionality. Unfortunately, I just found out the midi port limit is still 64 ... bummer ...
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12-08-2019, 04:39 AM
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#33
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FriFlo
New version with many great additions. I especially like the new midi editing look and functionality. Unfortunately, I just found out the midi port limit is still 64 ... bummer ...
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Do you (still) mean "Midi devices" when writing "Midi ports" (see above -> https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.ph...9&postcount=23) ?
-Michael
Last edited by mschnell; 12-08-2019 at 01:55 PM.
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12-08-2019, 06:21 AM
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#34
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 29
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Yepp, would also love to see at least 96 Ports availlable :-/
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12-13-2019, 10:57 AM
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#35
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell
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I mean ports. A midi port can support 16 midi channels. This is how midi is still working. Today, this one port may be a physical device plugged into a midi interface via din midi or directly via USB or a virtual port created by e.g. macOS IAC or loopback midi.
All of these ports combined cannot go past 64 which is to low. I could live with this limitation if it was about physical devices only. But I use an external program to route my midi to the daw. And I plan using virtual midi (midi over lan) ports instead of Vienna ensemble pro to send the midi to VSTis on another computer. All of this will be part of a big template using thousands of tracks. All of the unused tracks will be hidden and the software instruments deactivated. But every track needs an individual port/channel ~iD. I cannot use a DAW that limits the allowed number of ports in any way. Cubase doesn’t do that, so I can keep using it. But I would like to switch to Reaper the moment they allow unlimited midi ports. This is why I keep looking for this topic, bumping it every now and then ...
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12-13-2019, 12:27 PM
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#36
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FriFlo
I mean ports..
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This term does not exist in Reaper. Hence it has no meaning in that environment. If you use it, you need to define your own propriety meaning for that. (Somebody also might call something like that a "Midi Stream" which might make sense if decently defined. )
In Reaper defined Midi Terms are Channel, Bus, and Device. There are 16 Channels as well in each Bus as in each Device. There are 16 Buses available for routing There are up to 64 Devices that can be connected to OS entities.
-Michael
Last edited by mschnell; 12-13-2019 at 12:37 PM.
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12-13-2019, 12:44 PM
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#37
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FriFlo
All of these ports combined cannot go past 64 which is to low. I could live with this limitation if it was about physical devices only.
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64 Midi devices in fact might be too few for certain application, and this indeed is a limitation of Reaper's.
Reaper - or any software - does not know what a "physical" device is. In fact the OS provides these devices to allow for software to attach to. It makes no difference if the OS was asked to create these devices by the configuration of a propriety device driver, by the detection of some Midi hardware by some activity on an USB device, or by some software (such as Loopmidi, ModiOX, ... . Reaper only knows an access ID and the name, which both are provided to Reaper by the OS. Don't be fooled by the name Reaper shows for a Midi device. Reaper has no means to interpret that character-string but only displays it.
-Michael
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12-14-2019, 05:04 AM
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#38
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Zürich
Posts: 1,008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschnell
This term does not exist in Reaper. Hence it has no meaning in that environment. If you use it, you need to define your own propriety meaning for that.
In Reaper defined Midi Terms are Channel, Bus, and Device. There are 16 Channels as well in each ...
-Michael
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It is a shame to read posts like like that. If reaper is providing midi features, then it should obey the structure, terminology and semantics of midi. Because the rest of the world outside reaper has agreed to that approach, Which is well defined. Because midi is standardised on that....
And that hierarchy is (device -) port - channel
the proprietary misinterpretation is in reaper.....
Which leads to many unnecessary limitations, which, by the intentional proprietary implementation, should be regarded as „bug“
Last edited by Mink99; 12-14-2019 at 05:09 AM.
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12-14-2019, 05:40 AM
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#39
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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It might be that "Midi Port" does have an "official" definition somewhere, and the Reaper notation of "device" leads to misunderstanding. But in fact up till now I seem to remember always to have found the multiple midi streams between some software and the OS to be called "device" (which name also used for individual software <-> OS interfaces other than Midi).
-Michael
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12-14-2019, 02:29 PM
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#40
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Zürich
Posts: 1,008
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Embarassing
This“ somewhere „ you mention is the midi standardisation group. See eg www.midi.org etc. On what island do you live ? Btw it was the port definition that you did not know.....
Last edited by Mink99; 12-14-2019 at 02:38 PM.
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