MIDI devices don’t show up with nice names for display - they have various cruft tacked onto them to make them unique, but the exact nature of the cruft differs by platform.
For example, my Keystep 32 comes in named:
| Platform | I/O | Name |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | in | Arturia Keystep 32 1 |
| Windows | out | Arturia Keystep 32 2 |
| Linux (ALSA) | in | Arturia Keystep 32: Arturia Keystep 32 MIDI 1 24:0 |
| Linux (ALSA) | out | Arturia Keystep 32: Arturia Keystep 32 MIDI 1 24:0 |
| Mac | in | <please let me know> |
| Mac | out | <please let me know> |
On Windows a space and a port number are appended. On nix, you get a repeat of the device name and a bunch of stuff (at least with the ALSA driver), but it doesn’t differ between in and out. Thankfully there’s a ‘:’ delimiter which hopefully never appears in a real device name.
I haven’t tried Jack yet to see if things are different.
How do the names show up on a Mac? You can use Stoermelder MIDI Plug to show the names because it lets you choose both ins and outs, or use Rack Core MIDI-CV and CV-MIDI.
I don’t have a Mac to try it out, but Il need to write platform-specific demangling code to get a nice name to display. Can someone share a sample of how MIDI devices names show up in the menus of the device picker on a Mac?
I’d appreciate it.
To make it worse, as I was trying this out, swapping midi devices in and out, and it’s easy to confuse the Core modules. I’m currently looking at this:
Stoermelder MIDI Plug does a better job of keeping track.