Hey Guys.

I asked this on the reaper forum, but didn't really get a definitive answer. So I thought I would ask the brains trust here.

I'm using Reaper on a surface pro for live performance using a Focusrite 18i20
that is programmed to change my voicelive and midi guitar pedals within each reaper session.

I have a laptop that basically has the same setup as a backup for if something goes wrong with the surface pro.

I use the surface pro to rehearse, and make slight changes to each session as we are rehearsing.

Then what I normally do is copy all the sessions to a HD and update the sessions on the laptop.

But what I am experiencing with this is if I try to open once of these updated sessions on the laptop, I have to constantly go in to the routing of the midi track and re-select the focusrite 18i20 in the Midi Hardware out of the track.

Why does it do that when both reaper setups are identical on the surface pro and on the laptop?? Why doesn't reaper load the saved and assigned midi hardware output that exists on the surface pro??

I'm guessing there is a way around this, but I have not found the solution.

Some suggestions have been to use Bome Midi Translator, but have been given no advice on how to make this work.

Someone also said the reason why is that Windows randomly assigns a device name. The thing is the 18i20 has the same device name on each instance of Reaper.

I don't want to be having to go in and reselect the 18i20 as the midi output hardware device on the laptop every time I update a session on the surface pro.

I have hundreds of Reaper sessions. Doing it individually every time would do my head in

Any help would be appreciated guys.

Cheers

 

Do you always use the 18i20 as default soundcard on your laptop?

 

Is your Surface Pro ARM based? Even if the laptop and touch device are identical architectures the chipsets can be so different as to confuse the software driver. Especially with things that try do duck under WSAPI or anything that tries for lower latency by bypassing Windows top stack.

DeviceID on the USB bus could be different, or the USB bus structure and addressing could be different on the Surface Pro then they are on the laptop. Reaper defaulting to the 18i20 USB Audio interface doesn't mean it recognizing that it's the same audio interface; it's just the chosen default. That doesn't guarantee it will remap MIDI automatically if the driver addresses or enumeration isn't identical on two very dissimilar devices.

I doubt that Reaper is doing anything "wrong." I would suspect the driver first and how windows enumerates devices second.

 

Thanks for your replies Clone, Olymoon and Jmoutton.

Olymoon: Only the focusrite

Clone: I had v5.97 on Laptop and v6.36 on Surface Pro.

Jmoutton: Device name is the same on both laptop and Surface Pro.

So I noticed v5.97 did not show the ID number of the device in Midi properties in Reaper, but v6.36 did.

So I updated both machines to the latest version.

ID number on laptop was different to surface pro.

Made it the same. BANG!!! Works perfectly.

I guess the thing that threw me off was that v5.97 didn't show ID numbers. Once I made sure the Device Name and ID Numbers were the same on each machine, it worked.

That was a similar reply I had in the Reaper forum, but Clone reminded me of the different versions. I didn't think about that as I didn't think it was that long a go that I updated. Seems I was WRONG!! lol

Thanks again for your help guys. Have a great Xmas

 

Having the same Default Project Template on both, with Focusrite set as MIDI Hardware output on some tracks, will resolve the problem. As a quick solution use/copy the same Default Project Template that works to the other Reaper that doesn't work properly. Try to keep the versions of Reaper the same on both for just in case, too. Having nicely set up Default Project Template for Reaper is a great time saver as it includes many different parameters, you have probably noticed - like metronome, track parameters, recording etc.

Once again: make a Default Project Template which opens with Reaper set up the way you like it, then copy it to the other Reaper. Simple.

Cheers!

 

Glad you solved it and let everyone else know how to replicate your solution.

Cheers.