Software monitor of MIDI i/o?

[Jidis]

Hi,

Does anyone know if there's any relatively easy way of watching SysEx activity between the computer and a connected device?

I've got a sampler hooked to the computer via standard 1x1 built-in MIDI and am running an editor on the host. I'd like to open MIDI-Ox or something in the background and view the transmissions across the i/o ports.

I've checked into MIDIYoke, but it seems to mainly allow extra patching between software apps (not externals). I just want to grab the in/out streams, split them to MIDI-Ox, and send them on their way.

I set up a MIDI patchbay as a splitter and a laptop to watch the stream, but I could only watch the "sent" messages, plus it was a PITA mess of junk. I can bring a multi-port interface home if that would work.

There's got to be a software workaround???

Thanks!

George

[dj3nk]

As you already said ... Midi ox ?? I think you have forgotten to set the right inputs and outputs. also be aware to to have any filter turned on.

midi ox will do the job

gretz

[Jidis]

Hey :)

Yeah, I've been using MIDI-Ox for that stuff. That's what I watched the data on when I setup that patchbay thing.

The problem is, that when the bi-directional hookup is happening between the sampler & computer (while the editor app is running), MIDI-Ox no longer has available ports to use (or vice-versa). If the sampler was a plug or application, I'd be set with MIDIYoke. I need a way to pass the data to and from a virtual (& split-able) port, and then connect the virtual ports to my real ones.

Take Care,

George   

[seppoman]

you could use a combination of MidiOx and MidiYoke:

MidiOx provides a midi router where you can also send the midi from input to one or several outputs and vice versa by drawing lines between them. You could use the physical midi in port as midiox In and route that to a midiyoke port that's forwarding the data to your application. Now you can monitor the incoming data.

Now comes the tricky part: start another instance of MidiOx, then use another midiyoke port to output the app data to an Ox input that is in turn forwarded to the physical output. That way you should be able to see both directions. Note that this post is not based on any real experience, I've never used Yoke myself and never tried to monitor more than one connection in Ox :D

S

[Jidis]

Seppoman,

Much thanks! Funny, I was just headed back in here to report that it looks like an Ox/Yoke combo might do it. I got it (MIDI-Ox) displaying messages sent to and returned from the sampler (which was using Yoke ports), and had them linked to the real ports in MIDI-Ox's device boxes.

The only trouble was that the editor app for the sampler wasn't getting SysEx back via Ox/Yoke. It went out to the sampler OK.

I must admit Ox's routing panel has always confused me. There's a bunch of extra stuff in it that I don't get. I'll play around and try your "dual-Ox" suggestion when I get to the studio machine.

Take Care

[cimo]

hi geroge

afair you have an osx machine sitting there right? i think that midimonitor and the native eac driver are a much easier way to do that.

simone

[Jidis]

Simone,

No, there's Macs all over the place here, but they're mostly older (G4 and below). I even stuck to OS9 for quite a while after X came out. Been meaning to set up an OSX86 partition for a while just to look at it, as one whole half of my family runs Macs. (...hope nobody's offended by the mention of OSX86 ;)).

PS- Get that Sahira close-up back! This one's great too, but that other one was awesome. What is she on in this new one, a roof?

And for anyone interested in the SysEx eavesdropping concept:

I got a solid config last night on an XP machine running Ox/Yoke along with an Alesis SR-16 and an SR-16 editor utility demo. Everything seemed to function properly in both directions. Only thing I'd like to knock out now is some redundant display data in the Ox monitors. For instance, a big chunk (79 bytes?) of SysEx containing all the drumset parameters was sent to the Alesis. I kept the Input & Output monitors both open (one covers the top half of the screen, the other the bottom). I get two identical 79 byte chunks in each of the windows, but AFAIK, nothing involved is set on a "thru" mode or anything, so I can't figure why both monitors are showing the same exact stuff with just outgoing messages. I'm figuring most of it comes down to the fact that an extra in/out pair is now being used for the virtual ports, so I'm seeing a list of the activity going both ways on all ports. I need to look into filtering stuff out of the monitor windows, without changing the patching in that MIDI-Ox "device" panel.

BTW, I think the device setup was something like: Yoke set for two virtual ports. MIDI-Ox port mapping was- Hardware Out included Yoke input 1 (and MIDI-Ox Events or something). Yoke Out 2 included the Hardware Input and the Ox Events. Then my editor app was set to send MIDI to Yoke port1 and receive from Yoke2. I tried to clear the Ox map box of anything other than those few things.

Still need to check it on my desired 98SE SCSI sampler rig, but nothing seemed to get corrupted or anything between the drum machine and XP. I think I've been running that previous MIDI-Ox (v.6.5x?).

That system looks to be a big help for anyone who may be considering making a MIOS app to edit a module via SysEx, or who just wants to study a module's SysEx data structure. The SysEx docs for much stuff I've found have been sort of brief and not as well organized as the owner's manuals. Looking at the block of drumset data I used, I could see exactly where each parameter sat in the sequence by changing one on the machine and re-sending the whole block. It also makes the mixed streams of full/nibblized bytes a lot easier to sort through, and with an existing software editor, you can watch the whole conversation between the host/module during handshaking crap. You can also easily send your own copied and edited test data from the SysEx scratchpad while you examine the monitors.

Check it out if you haven't (and figure out how to clean my monitor displays up for me ;D)

George