Bome Mouse Keyboard

How to Configure Bome’s MIDI Keyboard with ACID

Sometimes you just don’t have a hardware MIDI keyboard handy (like when traveling) but you need to compose something with ACID that needs MIDI keyboard input. There is a great little software keyboard that you can use from Bome that will get you by in a pinch. Here’s how to set it up.

Software Needed for this tutorial:
Virtual MIDI Router
Bome’s Mouse Keyboard

Virtual MIDI Router

The Virtual MIDI Router from Sony acts like a virtual MIDI cable. It allows you to route MIDI inputs and outputs as if you had real hardware MIDI ports with a MIDI cable between them. ACID will think these ports are real MIDI interfaces and allow you to assign the Bome Mouse Keyboard to an input just like it was a real hardware MIDI keyboard with a MIDI cable attached. The instructions for installing the Virtual MIDI Router are on this page.

Bome’s Mouse Keyboard

Start by installing the Bome Mouse Keyboard using its install utility then follow these instructions below to configure it for use with ACID:

Start the Bome Mouse Keyboard
Select Midi In and change it to be none. You don’t want the Mouse Keyboard to use Midi In because you are just using it as an output device. (and you want ACID to use the virtual MIDI input)
Select Midi Out and change it to be 1: Sonic Foundry MIDI Router. This will route the output of the Bome Mouse Keyboard to the input of the Virtual MIDI Router.
Start Sony ACID and Select Options > Preferences
Select the MIDI tab and at the bottom section labeled Make these devices available for MIDI input, place a check next to 1: Sonic Foundry MIDI Router. This tells ACID to accept MIDI data from the port 1 of the virtual MIDI router which is where the Bome Mouse keyboard will be sending it. Press Apply to accept these changes
Select the General tab. Find the property Close audio and MIDI ports when ACID is not the active application and uncheck it. Then press OK to dismiss the properties window.

That’s it! Now insert a Soft Synth and play the keys on the Bome Mouse Keyboard. The critical step is changing ACID’s default behavior to close the audio and MIDI ports when it looses focus. Closing the audio and MIDI ports is great if you want to use another application such as Sound Forge to edit some audio and then return to ACID, but in the case of the Bome MIDI keyboard, you actually want ACID to hold onto the audio and MIDI ports while you switch to Bome so that ACID will continue to play.

Happy Composing,