multiple midi outputs question

[Not Serial]

a while back i bought a fw1804 for instructional live recording situations. since then i have discovered the unit has midi also (who'da thought huh?)

 

months and months went by and last night i finally had time to look at the midi end of things. it has FOUR separate midi outs! these are indeed separate, and can be accessed separately in audiomidi setup in osx (i.e. i click one of the outputs on the icon, the corresponding midi activety light blinks on the interface).

 

it has 2 midi ins also, but i'm not there yet.

 

the four separate outs would be killer because i have several multi-synth modules that have been a pain to "unroute" offending channels used by other modules in the same chain. did i lose you yet? all modules respond to say channel four unless i "unroute" channel four from the modules that i dont want to use channel four.

 

this is all good, but i cant see how to make this work in performer. the midi outputs only show me "tascam output port" 1-16.

 

i did RTFM but the tascam manual glosses over midi very fast. this seems somewhat specific to the interface i think.

 

it seems to work in audiomidi setup.

 

i dont see how it works in performer.

 

i havent changed my midi setup since 1996 (1 in, 1 out) so i am at a loss.

[Kendrix]

Perhaps there is some midi SW driver type stuff that came with the interface that you need to load.

FWIW- I have a printer port based midi flyer midi Interface and then got a midi port on my 1010lt audio card. After loading the supporting interface SW Cubase sees all the midi out ports available. FlyerA , FlyerB and 1010lt.

Perhaps its as simple as re-booting your system.

[Not Serial]

i feel like a moron.

 

i went into audiomidi setup, saw the ports on the tascam, and putted around for a while.

 

it turns out all i had to do is create a new device and patch it to the tascam for each of the four ports. then the four ports are available in performer. so simple it only took me an hour

 

NEW QUESTION:

 

there is a fifth midi port that has always shown up, tascam control port. this shows up in performer and audiomidi setup. any idea what the heck this is for?

[Kendrix]

As for hhe control port. Some manuacturers provide a port intended to be dedicated to continuous contoller data, program changes, MTC or other control info. In particular, continuous controller parameters and MTC can consume a fair bit of the available midi bandwidth.- Keeping this stuff on a seperate port reduces any timing impact to notes going to mdi devices. via the otehr ports.

 

Im not sure its any different than just another midi port with a special name.