I am running a MADIface XT2 with multiple MADI devices (2x FerroFish A32 Pro). I want all of the inputs to show up in consecutive ASIO channels in my DAWs.

Because of the way SMUX is implemented in the MADIface, the ASIO inputs change depending on whether I am at 44.1khz/48k or 88.2khz/96k. That means I need to have custom channel maps for each sample rate, in each DAW. If I don't use custom channel maps, then the user is looking at "MADIface ASIO 70" instead of "Rhodes DI", and with this high of a channel count, it's simply impractical to do that without "friendly" ASIO names.

With some DAWs, such as my primary REAPER - I can create custom channel maps. But then the engineers need to remember to load them when the sample rate changes, and there isn't a clear indication in REAPER of what the current device sample rate is, nor is there a warning if the wrong channel map is loaded. In other DAWs, creating a custom channel map is either impractical or impossible.

That leaves me with the solution I built when I had two MADI devices. I created two different workspaces in TotalMix, one for each sample rate. For the 44.1khz/48k workspace, I used Loopback in Totalmix to put MADI Device #2 Inputs into 33-64. For the 88.2khz / 96k workspace, I didn't need to do any Loopback because the second MADI device inputs automatically come in 33-64.

Now, I just got a third MADI device to increase my channel count. I've been doing some head scratching and I'm realizing there doesn't appear to be a way for me to keep the consecutive inputs with all 3 MADI devices. As far as I can tell, the only way I can accomplish this would be to sacrifice the MADI Device #2's hardware outputs to use as Loopback channels for the 3rd MADI Device's inputs. I can't do that, I need all of the outputs.

So I'm at an impasse. The options I think I have are:
    1) forget about the "friendly" ASIO channel names and ask my staff and guest engineers to reference a piece of paper with a gigantic channel map, with two different potential channels depending on sample rate. This frankly is embarrassing to consider - the ease of use is integral to my business model
    2) develop separate channel maps for each sample rate. This will work for REAPER but will be difficult or impossible in some other DAWs.

If we zoom out for a second, doesn't this seem crazy? Users should be able to map MADI stream inputs to ASIO inputs. My prior audio system was the SSL MX4 card with two SSL AlphaLink AX MADI AD/DA converters. The software that ran on the MX4 PCI card was ugly, but highly functional. You could route any madi input stream to any asio stream, and/or madi output stream. That's what a proper matrix mixer should do. Loopback is an interesting workaround but we need to sacrifice hardware outputs in order to use it - it's a tool that's awkward to use for the goals I have here.

Here are two ideas I have for fixing this:
    1) create an option in the driver to keep the channel numbers CONSTANT. So when the user goes to 96k, we'll still have 1-64 be allocated to the first MADI device, but 33-64 will be dummy/no audio. This solution would be the easiest to implement, I believe.
    2) add functionality to TotalMix to allow non-linear routing of MADI stream inputs to ASIO inputs. This would be the more complete solution that would solve other potential workflow limitations as well.

Really hoping for a fix or some help here. I am committed to the RME/TotalMix ecosystem but I'm having a really hard time with these limitations.

Thanks,

Jason "Jocko" Randall