MRCC as a PC MIDI Interface

[PDofCC]

Hi - the MRCC looks great, and as a very happy NDLR owner, I have every confidence in the product.  Can you say a little bit more about how it would work as a MIDI Interface on a PC?  The current specs suggest there will be "12 USB virtual MIDI ins and outs, all routable from the front panel".  Does that mean 12 ins and 12 outs. or is the maximum port count 12, splittable across inputs and outputs?  Also how would these ports appear in a host DAW for example - do they hard map to specific inputs and outputs on the MRCC, or can you assign any of the MRCC's USB, 5 pin or jack midi connectors to a virtual in or out port?  

I use a lot of external synths and MIDI controllers with my DAW (via 5-pin, jack and USB connectors) and would want to be sure I could assign sufficient MIDI inputs and outputs freely and flexibly in my DAW tracks.  I use Presonus Studio One / Windows 10, and currently use an ancient but still serviceable MIDISport 8x8 interface for my 5-pin DIN and Jack devices, and PC USB ports for devices using USB-MIDI.  Having one device to flexibly rule them all would be very nice indeed!! 

Thanks for any info.

[Jesse Johannesen]

Hi - the MRCC looks great, and as a very happy NDLR owner, I have every confidence in the product.  Can you say a little bit more about how it would work as a MIDI Interface on a PC?  The current specs suggest there will be "12 USB virtual MIDI ins and outs, all routable from the front panel".  Does that mean 12 ins and 12 outs. or is the maximum port count 12, splittable across inputs and outputs?  Also how would these ports appear in a host DAW for example - do they hard map to specific inputs and outputs on the MRCC, or can you assign any of the MRCC's USB, 5 pin or jack midi connectors to a virtual in or out port?  

I use a lot of external synths and MIDI controllers with my DAW (via 5-pin, jack and USB connectors) and would want to be sure I could assign sufficient MIDI inputs and outputs freely and flexibly in my DAW tracks.  I use Presonus Studio One / Windows 10, and currently use an ancient but still serviceable MIDISport 8x8 interface for my 5-pin DIN and Jack devices, and PC USB ports for devices using USB-MIDI.  Having one device to flexibly rule them all would be very nice indeed!! 

Thanks for any info.

Hi PD,
I have a meeting with Steve tomorrow morning, and I will take the opportunity to ask him about this and get back to you. My guess is that there will be 12 ins and 12 outs, as it seems to me that they are not likely to be dynamically assigned in the code, it seems like it would just be easier to code in 12 of each. I'll let you know what I find out.
Jesse

[PDofCC]

Hi Jesse - any word from Steve on the USB in/out configuration of the MRCC when used as a PC MIDI Interface, as per the discussion above?  I'm keen to pre-order one if the interface specs will match my studio set-up!  

Thanks and all the best for 2021 to all at Conductive Labs.  Peter

[PDofCC]

Hi - I'd still be very interested in an answer to the question I posed some time ago, i.e. when using the MRCC as a MIDI Interface with a PC (Windows 10 in my case), exactly how many virtual INs and OUTs are there, and how do these relate to the physical INs and OUTs on the MRCC - are they fixed or user-assignable?  Thanks.

[Darryl]

We've just posted a draft of the User Manual and we would like to know if you can find the answer to your questions there. If not, we need to add that to the manual and would appreciate your input!
MRCC Draft User Manual

To answer your question, the 12 ports available on the PC MIDI Interface connection are 12 independent inputs and 12 independent outputs on the MRCC, and also appear as 12 independent inputs and 12 independent outputs on the PC. You can route from any inputs to any outputs.
   

We don't really have a good excuse to include this many USB MIDI virtual ports on the PC interface, it would be great to know if anyone has a use case for this. Our only use case is using independent USB MIDI virtual outputs from MRCC to standalone soft-synths which on a Windows PC can't share ports. We aren't DAW experts, but we've seen evidence that using MIDI channels in a DAW is prefered to using independant virtual ports. 

While we are on the topic, each of the MRCC host ports have 4 USB MIDI virtual inputs, and 1 USB MIDI virtual output. We did not see a use case for multiple virtual outputs, though we have discovered 1 device (besides other MIDI routers) with 2 USB MIDI virtual inputs, the Korg SQ-1.

[MrBlaschke]

If i understand you right then the Novation LaunchPad Pro MK III (and i guess the other LaunchPads also) have 1 physical USB cable and deliver 3 virtual MIDI In Ports.

[Jesse Johannesen]

If i understand you right then the Novation LaunchPad Pro MK III (and i guess the other LaunchPads also) have 1 physical USB cable and deliver 3 virtual MIDI In Ports.

It remains to be seen if the launch pad 3 will work or not, as we know some of the Launchpad series are not Class Compliant MIDI devices and require their own USB drivers to work. Hopefully we can find that out during the beta test. 

Also the other use case for the 4 virtual Ports on the Host USB MIDI Ports is the NDLR. It has 4 virtual USB Ports (virtual wires)!

[MrBlaschke]

Hi Jesse.
Good to know you are watching this
I don’t know if it is „strictly“ class compliant but as i use my LaunchPad Pro MK III on my iPad it has to be in some way compliant. No drivers needed and one can send SysEx to trigger the Session Mode and all that stuff using scripting tools and it works very well. So that is definitely needed

[Jesse Johannesen]

Hi Jesse.
Good to know you are watching this
I don’t know if it is „strictly“ class compliant but as i use my LaunchPad Pro MK III on my iPad it has to be in some way compliant. No drivers needed and one can send SysEx to trigger the Session Mode and all that stuff using scripting tools and it works very well. So that is definitely needed

That is definitely encouraging!

[PDofCC]

We've just posted a draft of the User Manual and we would like to know if you can find the answer to your questions there. If not, we need to add that to the manual and would appreciate your input!
MRCC Draft User Manual

To answer your question, the 12 ports available on the PC MIDI Interface connection are 12 independent inputs and 12 independent outputs on the MRCC, and also appear as 12 independent inputs and 12 independent outputs on the PC. You can route from any inputs to any outputs.


We don't really have a good excuse to include this many USB MIDI virtual ports on the PC interface, it would be great to know if anyone has a use case for this. Our only use case is using independent USB MIDI virtual outputs from MRCC to standalone soft-synths which on a Windows PC can't share ports. We aren't DAW experts, but we've seen evidence that using MIDI channels in a DAW is prefered to using independant virtual ports. 

While we are on the topic, each of the MRCC host ports have 4 USB MIDI virtual inputs, and 1 USB MIDI virtual output. We did not see a use case for multiple virtual outputs, though we have discovered 1 device (besides other MIDI routers) with 2 USB MIDI virtual inputs, the Korg SQ-1.

Hi Darryl, many thanks for this reply and the draft manual, they are very helpful.  This looks to be really flexible, which is great.  I have several input devices (keyboards, Roli Seaboard, sequencer, NDLR) some of which use 5-pin MIDI and some use USB-MIDI.  I envisage having these all plugged permanently into the MRCC physical inputs.  I then have several synths, using both 5-pin and USB MIDI, and a MIDI to CV converter for interfacing to Eurorack.  Again I envisage having these all plugged permanently into the MRCC physical outputs.  When I'm recording to or playing back from my DAW, with the MRCC connected to the PC via its PC USB host port, I believe I'm going to see 12 MRCC Ins and 12 MRCC outs in the DAW list of available MIDI ports, as shown in your reply above, and I would then assign on the MRCC which physical input and output is attached to which PC MRCC input and output.  And it looks like running VSTis alongside hardware synths in the DAW environment is just a matter of assigning the appropriate input for playing the VSTi.   I'd need to be consistent on all of the output assignments otherwise different DAW songs might start playing back tracks on different physical outputs but I don't see that as a problem, and it looks like I can save particular routings as Presets on the MRCC which will also help.  All in all it looks great, and I can't wait to get an MRCC!  Many thanks for your help.