Multi-Port VIs - inverted node>port naming in PT?

[jeremyroberts]

Until VE Pro, I never needed to use a "multi-port" VI -- all VIs in my rig were "single port" -- maximum 16 midi channels per instance. And If I needed multiple instances of a VI, ProTools would number each instance, such as:

ivory 1
ivory 2
omnisphere 1
omnisphere 2

and when assigning midi, the instance, and the "node" would be in the midi assign pupup, such as:

Stylus RMX 1 > Channel 1
Stylus RMX 1 > Channel 2

or

Stylus RMX 2 > Channel 1
Stylus RMX 2 > Channel 2

etc...

HOWEVER....

Now that VEPro has arrived, we have a true "multi-port" VI, in that each "instance" (node) of VEPro can have 8 "ports" -- each port with 16 midi channels and up to 128 audio channels sent to PT, per port (even though to conserve resources, it's best to cap audio channels to 16, or whatever is actually used).

THE PROBLEM:

If there is only 1 instance of VEPro instanciated, there is no problem.
If there are 2 or more instances of VEPro, ProTools displays the "node" or "instance" number, and the "port" in REVERSE.

VEPro 1 1 > node 1, port 1
VEPro 1 2 > node 2, port 1
VEPro 2 1 > node 1, port 2
VEPro 2 2 > node 2, port 2
VEPro 3 1 > node 1, port 3
VEPro 3 2 > node 2, port 3

Yikes! This is so counter intuitive to normal signal flow!!

This makes for VERY confusing midi assignments.

Instead of:

NODE > PORT > Channel

in VEpro it is:

PORT > NODE > Channel

Counter-intuitive!

I posted on this over at the VSL forum (and a VSL employee wrote an incredibly nasty rant back to me in private, but that's besides the point).

http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/p/25752/170664.aspx

I made a quick video showing how the port numbers are "inverted" from the nodes, when assigning midi...

http://www.screencast.com/t/ZDJhZGFlM

A VSL engineer said this is an RTAS issue. Before I submit this as a bug to Avid, DOES ANYONE KNOW of any other "multi-port" VIs that are available in PT? Do these multi-port VIs behave the same way? Let's rule-out the possibility that this is unique to VEPro before we send this to Avid engineering.

Thanks for reading this far.

J

[Jon_Atkinson]

Originally Posted by jeremyroberts

Before I submit this as a bug to Avid, DOES ANYONE KNOW of any other "multi-port" VIs that are available in PT? Do these multi-port VIs behave the same way? Let's rule-out the possibility that this is unique to VEPro before we send this to Avid engineering.

Hi Jeremy,
As I mentioned on the VSL site, Bidule does seem to deal with this differently.
I'm not sure if Bidule constitutes a 'multi port VI' and I appreciate that this maybe a bonus of the ReWire protocol, but the naming process when you connect with an instrument in Bidule is pretty straightforward.

Name the instrument. (Kontakt Strings for instance)
Connect with Kontakt Strings and set the MIDI channel.

Now if there was a naming process for each step of the VEPro setup which could be stored in a metaframe, then I'd be far less likely to get myself in such a huge tangle...!!