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

[dgstr]

Not sure I understand this. I googled every place I could find and asked the stupid google AI about 80 times now in all variations. I think I tried every possible thing:

1. I created a track 25 with no output + no instrument. Midi input of this is Master Keyboard A. A note receiver goes before the HW instrument Synth Keyboard A on track 17. The note receiver receives notes from track 25 (which has midi input from synth A because in the note receiver there is no master keyboard visible in the dropdown menu, otherwise I would try that too). This works BUT track 25 has to be monitored always because otherwise no notes go through. Problem: When playing synth keyboard X on track 8 with my master keyboard A, I still hear whatever comes from track 17 because track 25 is still armed.

It would help if one could somehow fuse the two arm buttons of track 25 and track 17 together so that pressing one will activate the other.

I think I didn't get this part properly, some people seem to succeed.

2. I would assign a dedicated midi channel for each instrument, BUT I have a Analog Rytm which sends on all midi channels. (don't want to use overbridge because of latency and I want the separate outputs to go to various gear through my radar etc.)

3. Tried to exclude certain midi inputs for track 17 by inserting a note filter before the HW instrument. Since there is no choice of input source, I tried to put a note receiver in the note fx, but this is not visible in the dropdown. And can't choose to exclude sources in Note receiver, which would also solve everything.

4. A Channel Filter could exclude other channels (i only have 4 synth keyboards, so that would be workable) BUT I also have the Rytm, which sends on all channels.

5. Of course one could set the midi keyboard as midi input for track 17 and would hear something when playing the master keyboard and the synth keyboard, but then it wouldn't record from the synth.

My whole point is that I want to be able to play the Rytm (or another Synth) when another track is activated, without ever hearing 2 synths when pressing 1 key.

I don't get that routing logic in Bitwig. Maybe it's logical, but it's certainly not intuitive. In FL Studio the master keyboards are somehow treated separately from the instruments. You set the instrument as midi input port, but that doesn't exclude midi keyboards. Maybe it would make sense, but who would not want to use their master keyboards, or who would want to play Synth A with Synths X, Y or Z (I mean in Bitwig with the "all ins" crap)?

I already wrote to Bitwig that I would like another dropdown pop up as soon as you choose one input, and they said they would implement it. As some of you already suggested this apparently, I guess it won't happen so soon.

thanks for any advice... sry if something is unclear