Bome Box / Bome Network Pro / BMT "Assume" function

Would it be possible to add a function to Bome Network Pro that would allow a PC running BMT and BNP to "Assume" the position of a connected Bome box?

To put it another way, would it be possible to add a feature that would allow the local session of Bome Midi Translator on my Mac to be reflected on a Bome box of my selection?

To tired this evening to go into further detail.  Let me know if this makes any sense!

Hi,

I’m not quite clear what you mean.  You sessions on your Mac should remember the previously connected session and automatically reconnect to them. Session names on your Mac will be reflected by the names of the connected BomeBoxes.

For instance if you have 2 BomeBoxes, one named BomeBox1 and the other named BomeBox2, then that will also be the names of the virtual devices on your Mac.

If you are asking about connecting to these sessions with MIDI translator. Then, the device names in MT Pro, would also know them by these session names ( unless you created and are using aliases to these names instead).

Now if you want the MT Pro project name that is running on your Mac to be visible on your BomeBox, the only way I would know to do that is to set up some sort or query mechanism between your BomeBox project file and Mac project file.  Each project file running on your Mac, should respond differently to the query so you would know which is running. The query string could be a custom SysEx message or any message of your choosing (as long as it is unique and does not interfere with normal operations) . The translators on both the project file running on your BomeBox and Mac would be used to take whatever action is necessary based on how the project file on your Mac response.

After your Mac responds, you could then have MT Pro open up a different project file that matches to the project you want to load.

For example say on your BomeBox, you are running a project called “Song A” and on your Mac, you are runing a project called “Song B”.  You have given assignment of Song A to 0 and Song B to 1.

Your Song A file on BomeBox queries which project is running on your Mac and it relpies with a 1. Upon that reply you open up Song B on your BomeBox using a translator in Song A running on your BomeBox.

 

 

I hope this makes sense.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

 

Thanks Steve, insightful as usual.

To better suggest what I mean, imagine my system:

Chris_BomeBox is connected to my USB foot controller and the DIN output of my Midi Keyboard Controller, and is located at my space on stage

My MacBook is running  BNP, and is on the same LAN as the boxes.  The mac is located FOH.

Both are running BMT projects.

Currently, if I want to reprogram Chris_BomeBox, I can open up a new BMT project on my Mac, create some aliases, create some translators, save to my desktop, call up the BB Web Config through a browser, upload the file to Chris_Bomebox, assign the aliases, log back out, re-launch the active project on my Mac, reassign THOSE aliases, and test.  This works, but requires a fair number of steps.

What I’d like in addition to the above is the ability to “Assume” Chris_Bomebox’s place in the network… similar to a Remote Desktop Session on a desktop PC.  The benefit would be that any DIN or USB devices connected to Chris_Bomebox would be visible from the ‘remote’ BMT session on my Mac… and any devices connected to my Mac via USB would be invisible.  Live changes in routing made via the ‘Remote Session’ on my Mac would be reflected on Chris_BomeBox in real time.  Ideally, I could launch the Log window in the remote session and see the live inputs and outputs of the Box.

The pain point I’m trying to resolve is my frustration in keeping track of the aliases and alias assignments of five physical BMT instances (four boxes and a Mac.)  Also, the frustration of having to close the Mac’s BMT project and its routing functions to make a change the projects on any of the boxes… and then having to relaunch the Mac instance to test.  (I assume I could launch multiple BMT instances to account for this?)

Let me be clear:  I’m overjoyed at the abilities of this system.  I can work with it as-is.  I’m just airing the ‘ideal version’ of the system I had been imagining.

I can see that you’ve provided a very clever way to pull this off without any feature changes to the firmware, which is super impressive.  Rather, this is intended as a Bome Network Pro / BomeBox feature request.

Sure, I’ll pass this along to the development team as a feature request. In the meantime, my job as Bome Forum Moderator is to do what I can to help users to work with the current features.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

An intermediate comment: there is no improvement to your situation yet, but there will be. Some notes: 1) my work flow is to author my BomeBox projects in MT Pro to use the BomeBox alias names. On the computer, I just assign them the way I need them on the computer. That way, I don't need to reassign anything when uploading to the BomeBox. 2) Also if you need to assign aliases on the BomeBox, you should only need to do this once. Even if you upload a new version of your project file, the alias assignments should be remembered by the BomeBox. 3) You can keep MT Pro open while uploading the currently edited project file. 4) For testing a project file on the computer with devices attached to the BomeBox, there are 2 nice additions coming up in Bome Network: a) Flexible MIDI Router, along with an add-on to create named virtual MIDI ports b) Direct Network MIDI: access devices attached to the BomeBox directly from the computer via Bome Network. This will be a free firmware update. Stay tuned!