Really super basic dumb midi question

[Confuzzled]

Hey all,

I’m running reaper as my DAW. I’ve never had luck with midi but I’m trying… I find that sometimes things connect, sometimes they don’t. Is there a rule of thumb for a basic order of turning on midi gear so it is recognized by the DAW and any other midi devices hooked up?

[manymanyhaha]

Are you running Windows?

Are you running any other software at the same time that is trying access midi?

What all are you trying to connect via midi and how is it connected (USB cable, midi interface etc)

Windows only allows one software to access a thing at any particular time. In other words, you can't run Reaper and some other software trying to access the same midi pathway at the same time, at least not without other software that merges things. It's complicated. Windows and midi are a PITA.

But yeah, if you give some details, I might can help pinpoint the problem.

[crochambeau]

Windows only allows one software to access a thing at any particular time. In other words, you can't run Reaper and some other software trying to access the same midi pathway at the same time, at least not without other software that merges things.

Yeah, MIDI is a very rudimentary machine language that does not rely on handshakes, etc. in order to operate*. MIDI is the computer equivalent of shouting commands down a hallway, you hear your name (MIDI channel, and/or sysex address) and follow the instruction. So in as far as a piece of equipment is concerned, it either hears MIDI or it doesn't.

The order of turning things on/plugging them in on a USB leg might pull priority in the computer system, resulting in the observed behaviour that the order of set-up operations may seem to be important (it's not). You've probably got to nail down a permissions setting, which is something I'll be of no use with as I'm a dinosaur who still uses hardware exclusively for MIDI stuff.

*I realize handshakes do occur with data dumps and some sysex stuff, but program changes, standard ccs, and note information is pretty blind, at least in my understanding.

[manymanyhaha]

I'm dealing with this problem all the time.

Example:

Gig Performer (live VST host) and Reaper (recorder) on the same Windows computer, both trying to access LoopBe1 (a virtual midi cable).

If they both have LoopBe1 enabled in their respective Midi Devices setup, anything passing along LoopBe1 will not be accessible by either software, just won't work, does not matter the startup process.

But take LoopBe1 out of either of them, let's say Reaper, then LoopBe1 will work now in Gig Performer.

The workaround is to use a midi router like the one in Bome Midi Translator Pro, assign LoopBe1 to Gig Performer and a different virtual midi cable to Reaper, and funnel all midi data with the router through them both.

This is a Windows problem by the way, Mac will allow one virtual midi cable or midi driver for all software.

My point was just that if Confuzzled had opened another software that was trying to access the same midi driver or virtual midi cable that Reaper is, that would cause midi to stop working.

If not, then Confuzzled has another problem.

[crochambeau]

Makes sense. I should probably dig into the DAW side of things and see what sort of damage I can discover. I would guess my Linux machine also runs in a one process only manner as well.

The hardware stuff really is like rolling marbles down a hill, dead simple once channels have been defined - as long as series string connections are minimized.

[Confuzzled]

Apologies, I should have given a rig breakdown.

Running an imac - Catalina 10.15.7
I have the following connected through an atolla usb hub:
KORG Sq-1
Alesis ios dock 2 (I trigger thumbjam, animoog and whatever else is midi compatible on an old ipad that I believe stopped updating at os 10?)
craftsynth 2.0
KORG NTS-1
M-Audio keyboard controller

The craftsynth has an app and vst plugin, the korg stuff doesn't and korg recommends using the apple midi interface which never seems to work.

I find that sometimes I can run the SQ-1 sequencer (I control the tempo with synckontrol app) and it doesn't always trigger the sounds from the ios dock, then after fidgeting with it or maybe it takes time to lock up, I'm not sure it starts to work.
With the craftsynth, I find that I can get the midi notes to record in reaper but getting the craftsynth to trigger the sounds never seems to work.

So that is what led to my question. Do I need to start up the devices in a certain order? It's incredibly frustrating that something that is a 16 channel language is such a frustrating sticking point. Nevermind that I would like to eventually add my Kawai R-50e and Boss DR 550-MK2 into the mix.

[manymanyhaha]

Ahhh, mac. Like J Snow, I know nothing. Except that I now have an anecdote for all those mac-gloaters

[friendship]

Do you have each instrument set to its own channel? Is each instrument on its own input on your USB hub, or do you have some of them daisy chained?

edit: forgot to say, maybe they've improved in recent years, but USB hubs used to cause all kinds of dropouts and unreliable behavior. Might be worth trying each instrument individually to see if they work without it.

[Confuzzled]

I don't use everything at once so I've had everything on omni because I'm not proficient enough with midi to have multiple sources triggered. What I am finding is that I can record the midi noted into reaper but cannot get any of the vsts to play it back. whether it be the craftsynth plugin or my juno plugin. I usually play everything live into the system because I don't have the confidence that once I get it working it's going to work the next time I power on my gear, that's why I was curious as to whether there was a startup order that may be the reason why things don't always lock up?

[friendship]

Oh that's even more curious. Maybe something is going on in your Reaper Audio-MIDI settings? I'm not a MIDI power user; coincidentally I'm figuring out a hardware network of my own, but I'll let you know if I learn anything new!