FR: Selecting multiple MIDI inputs per track

[KTlin]

Hi

There's a big issue/limitation (in some other DAWs as well, not only in Bitwig) that I was hoping the Bitwig team will solve it at some point but unfortunately it's still present.

I'm talking about the lack of option to select multiple (but not all!) midi inputs for the instrument tracks. For example, let's say I have 4 midi keyboards/controllers (A, B, C and D) and I want to play the instrument loaded on Track 1 only with the A and B keyboards and the instrument loaded on Track 2 only with the C and D keyboards. There's no way to easily accomplish this because for each track I'm limited to choose either all midi inputs or just one. I cannot select a couple of them from the entire list available.

This would be an extremely useful feature to have and I really don't understand why they didn't implement it.

Any suggestions for a workaround?

[pdxindy]

Yeah, that would be a useful improvement.

In the meantime, you can use two tracks. One with Controller A, the other with Controller B and then use a Note Receiver on one of the tracks to combine them.

[KTlin]

In the meantime, you can use two tracks. One with Controller A, the other with Controller B and then use a Note Receiver on one of the tracks to combine them.

Yes, that's the workaround I normally use but I really hate having extra tracks in my projects just for the purpose of routing the midi inputs. I was hoping that maybe there's a better/simpler workaround for this.

Cheers!

[PhilipVasta]

Nextmidi recently came out with a free tool called Merger Port, and I think it might solve what you're talking about.

https://divisimate.com/free

[KTlin]

Nextmidi recently came out with a free tool called Merger Port, and I think it might solve what you're talking about.

https://divisimate.com/free

Awesome! Thank you!

[PhilipVasta]

Sure thing!

[Kirkwood West]

There is probably more than one day to do this but this is what i do...

Make a Midi Bus.
Add a bunch of tracks and set up your inputs...
Make a channel called "Midi In - Group Name" something like that...
put a note receiver on there, group it.
set the note receiver to receive the midi in from
duplicate the note receiver chain and repeat for every channel you want in that group.

Then on channels where you want to use that midi data... select the channel and drill down to the device.

Fold it all up in a folder... it doesn't really bother me to have a utility bus for things like this.

I hope that makes sense... this is difficult to explain over text or even a screenshot. TLDR look into midi in, note receiver and note fx layers.(edit: and of course i forget to read the replies. that say the same thing )

Bomes is also another good one for midi merge.

[ThomasHelzle]

I really don't understand why they didn't implement it.

Because they do not like Midi.
It took them ages to even put in selectable Midi channels and while the generative side is relatively good in the meantime, the editing and overall Midi handling isn't really up to snuff.
Until recently you couldn't export Midi files with intact CCs and the workflow is super clumsy (one Midi file per project instead of right-clicking on a clip and just exporting it as Midi).
I read that the latest version can do CCs now but no longer update my version so don't know if it really works.
So yeah, your request would be VERY useful for many real world usecases but I guess it will take another 10 years to see it implemented if at all.

You can work around it with a custom controller script in addition to the other suggestions.

Cheers,

Tom