add more than 4 virtual midi devices

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Posts: 2
Joined: 3 Gen 2021 - 08:18
add more than 4 virtual midi devices

I'm actually working on a project, using the midi synth as a virtual midi input device on an audio editing program, and altough I've compiled the best banks I've found to my own soundfont, I just discovered good sound banks in my pc from the stone age I've never realized I have until a couple of minutes ago, and accomodated to used them separately on their own channel for the sake of commodity, as for now I have not much time to compile my own soundfont to fit my needs, I managed to use a good feature on your midi synth, but I'm limited to just 4 devices, so I can't use my soundfonts (the more suitable of ourse, at least I may have 20, but I'm not gonna use them all at the same time), so I'm reaching to you to ask if there may be the possibility to add support for more than 4 virtual midi devices, maybe an option to add more at will as needed.

Posts: 1972
Joined: 25 Mar 2012 - 01:19
Re: add more than 4 virtual midi devices

From what you wrote I suppose you use different devices to have different SF2 configurations.
Do you really need more than 4 different soundfont configuration at the same time?
I mean, couldn't you switch from one configuration to another by using SF config import/export feature?

Anyway, increasing the number of devices is not so easy...

VMS creates a Fast IPC Queue (within shared memory) and a separate rendering engine (synth) for each device.
To achieve a smooth rendering, each queue and engine should be assigned (and executed) to a different CPU core.

The 4-devices limit is a good compromise between performance and quality:
- most of the users have a single virtual device config on a 2-cores CPU (1 queue + 1 engine)
- advanced users have a 2 virtual devices config on a 4-cores CPU (2 queues + 2 engines)
- going up to 4 virtual devices causes queues and engines to be "interlocked", so an high-level CPU (core-i7 or higher) is needed

Additionaly, other tasks are present on the PC, like the MIDI client (player), Windows OS and its background activities, ...

This is why I still think the 4-devices limit is reasonable 😉.

Posts: 2
Joined: 3 Gen 2021 - 08:18
Re: add more than 4 virtual midi devices

Sorry for replying until now, but I'm hard working on my project.

Yes, you're right, I do use the 4 different sf2 configurations at the same time, and I do actually need to be able to use more, all at the same time; and no, I haven't faced any kind of problems, slowdowns or stuttering. As I stated before, I may just compile a soundfont or two with the banks I prefer from the soundfonts I use and all the stuff I need, but is too time consuming, so I considered asking you to add more devices; sadly it's too much work to you too, and I dont want to be annoying, so if still knowing I leave the workload to my soundcard, and I don't actually face any issues when using all the 4 midi devices at the same time and could use more without any problem, you do still believe adding more devices is not worth the effort, I will be completely okay with it and won't ever ask again 😊