Sending MIDI from Virtual Box to app in OS X host

[Gingham]

Hi all,
I'm running a version of Windows 8 in VirtualBox on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion host. I want to send MIDI info out of a program within VB to a receiving program running in the host OS X environment. Just wondering if anyone has sent MIDI in this way and how did it go?
Many Thanks,
Gingham

[michaln]

Unless you have some kind of network MIDI router, I doubt it's possible. How exactly do you imagine it would work? What are the interfaces involved? What applications?

[Gingham]

Hi and thanks for the reply,
I'm trying to take MIDI out of a sequencer program called E-Scape and send it into Pure Data. E-Scape is a switch accessible environment for people of limited mobility. It uses Coosoft's Virtual Midi Synth for a bank of sounds within the program and I'm trying to develop alternative sounds for the program. I usually have to use LoopBe with it if I want to send the MIDI into another softsynth (eg Reason). The reason I'm running it out of VB is a bit long winded suffice to say that it's a project that I'm developing and not all the components behave well cross-platfrom. Do you think it would be a tricky thing to use a MIDI router? I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle because already the project has a number of programs talking to each other and it would probably be a bit ridiculous to also include virtualization...the potential for crashing would be more likely I suspect. The basic flow is MIDI out E-Scape --> MIDI in Pure Data and the latter is controlled by an interface created in SuperCollider which sends info to Pure Data via Open Sound Control! Add in to that the fact that I'm using LoopBe and A MIDI Mapper to route the MIDI and it's quite a few paths for just one machine!
I'd be grateful for any input you have,
Thanks again,
Gingham

[michaln]

I'm unfortunately not familiar with the software you're using, although I have some familiarity with MIDI in general.

Anyway, the short answer is that there is no special support for MIDI data routing in VirtualBox. But if you could do it with a separate standalone PC using a network, you can probably do it with a VM as well.

One thing to note is that a VM is not terribly good at real-time processing, so if you need super low latencies, a VM isn't the best solution. But perhaps you don't.

[Gingham]

Many thanks,
That's what I suspected and I would be depending on low latencies so it's not for me I think. Thanks very much for taking the time,
Kind Regards,
Gingham