MIDI Network challenge

Question

Level 1

60 points

MIDI Network challenge

I am syncing together two MacBook Pros using an Ethernet link - to be precise an Ethernet to Thunderbolt bridge to Thunderbolt since one of the laptops doens't have Ethernet. I have set this up using the Network setup in Audio MIDI Setup's MIDI Studio. One machine, running Ableton Live, acts as the master and the other, running Resolume Avenue 4 video application, is the Slave. When I play my tracks in Ableton they trigger different video clips in Resolume. So far so good.

The challenge is that creating this MIDI network seems to have thrown out the rest of my MIDI connections on the Ableton machine. I want to use a small MIDI keyboard to play samples live and I also want to send MIDI patch changes to fx units and lastly work with a Keith McMillen SoftStep 2 to trigger scene changes on Ableton. But this MIDI network running Resolume seems to have ditched these other MIDI connections.

Have I done this the best way? How can I keep direct MIDI control of aspects of my Ableton setup and still trigger clips in Resolume on a second machine? I am using MIDI note changes in Ableton to do the latter.

Thank you

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), 32GB RAM, G-RAiD Studio 6TB etc.

Posted on Jul 24, 2016 3:35 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 29, 2016 3:03 PM in response to insch

This may be related to a change in Core Midi introduced with iOS 10, and I believe also included with newer versions of OSx. I was using rpt (wireless) midi from a non-Apple device to control a lighting app on iOS. When I upgraded to iOS 10, the app can no longer make a wirels]ess connection to the midi device (instead it locks up). I tried other apps on my iPad that also used to work and they all behave the same way (lock up when I try to connect). I am able to make the connection with a cable if I turn off the wireless setting in the midi configurations.

To investigate further, I tried to establish a wireless midi connection from my mac to the iPad using an ad-hoc network, and it worked, but it was unreliable (the connection dropped frequently).

In researching on the internet I found that a few midi app developers have reported the problem to Apple a few months ago, but so far I have not seen any mention of the issue or a fix from Apple. Tobias Erichsen has also reported the problem, but I have not heard if there is any progress made on a fix. One app developer altered there app to work around core midi, in order to keep their customers happy, but other app developers are reluctant to do the same because they want to use IOS framework services where possible and I think they are all hoping Apple will fix this bug.

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