BUFFR can take MIDI straight from the operating system, so a controller you never routed to an armed track still ends up in the two-hour history. That path runs beside the normal DAW MIDI input rather than replacing it, and it does not care which track has focus. Arming is a DAW habit. The system path ignores it.
Most lost takes die in a gap like that. You are auditioning a patch, the transport is stopped, the wrong track is selected, and the best phrase of the session goes nowhere. The plugin does not need the transport rolling or a record button lit to hold onto what your hands did.
What it keeps is the full picture, not a simplified version. Notes, velocity, continuous controllers, pitch bend, pressure, SysEx, MPE, note expression, and UMP all survive the trip, and plugging in a controller mid-session frames its pitch range automatically. Once the notes are in, repairing the timing is a separate job, and the Human and Precision timing modes decide how much of your original feel stays intact.
The system device path is the safety net. It reads the controller at the operating-system level, outside the host's routing, which is exactly why it survives an unarmed track. Timing comes from the OS rather than the audio callback, so it is slightly looser.
Running both at once is normal and expected. BUFFR compares the two streams and removes exact matches that land within 50 milliseconds of each other, so notes that never went near an armed track show up once rather than twice.
Windows takes the controller through WinMM device input with no virtual port of its own. The snag is exclusivity. Plenty of vendor drivers are single-client, so if your DAW has already grabbed the keyboard, BUFFR gets nothing. Close whatever is holding the device and retry, or move to a multi-client driver from the manufacturer, or bridge it with loopMIDI.
Linux needs a real setup pass. In settings, you open the MIDI source and run the routing setup once, which loads a Virtual MIDI kernel driver. You leave the physical controller selected inside BUFFR, point the DAW at Virtual Raw MIDI instead, and start the route. A small per-user supervisor then restores the ALSA connection after you log in, wake from sleep, or replug the controller. It maintains kernel routing only, never relaying messages in userspace and never touching audio, and one systemctl command disables it if you change your mind.
Silence gets handled sensibly too. Capture pauses after a beat with no new MIDI, which stops a long noodling session from turning into one enormous mostly-empty region when you drag it out. In the sound-triggered capture mode, MIDI carries on recording even when the audio sits below the threshold, so quiet playing on a soft patch does not fall through the cracks.
Marking a moment while you play is worth the small habit. Pressing B drops a marker, and you can assign a MIDI CC to a spare pad or button so the mark lands without your hands leaving the keys. Those markers are lane- and channel-aware, and they become snap targets later, which is the difference between finding the good bar in ten seconds and scrubbing through two hours of your own noodling.
Most lost takes die in a gap like that. You are auditioning a patch, the transport is stopped, the wrong track is selected, and the best phrase of the session goes nowhere. The plugin does not need the transport rolling or a record button lit to hold onto what your hands did.
What it keeps is the full picture, not a simplified version. Notes, velocity, continuous controllers, pitch bend, pressure, SysEx, MPE, note expression, and UMP all survive the trip, and plugging in a controller mid-session frames its pitch range automatically. Once the notes are in, repairing the timing is a separate job, and the Human and Precision timing modes decide how much of your original feel stays intact.
Two MIDI paths run at once, and they overlap
The DAW path is the accurate one. It arrives through the host, carries sample-accurate timing, and lines up with your project the way any recorded MIDI clip does. Use it when the track is armed, and you know you are recording.The system device path is the safety net. It reads the controller at the operating-system level, outside the host's routing, which is exactly why it survives an unarmed track. Timing comes from the OS rather than the audio callback, so it is slightly looser.
Running both at once is normal and expected. BUFFR compares the two streams and removes exact matches that land within 50 milliseconds of each other, so notes that never went near an armed track show up once rather than twice.
Windows and Linux ask more of you than macOS does
macOS is the easy one. BUFFR reads CoreMIDI input directly, or you can send a DAW or app into a virtual port named BUFFR Global In, and nothing has to run in the background.Windows takes the controller through WinMM device input with no virtual port of its own. The snag is exclusivity. Plenty of vendor drivers are single-client, so if your DAW has already grabbed the keyboard, BUFFR gets nothing. Close whatever is holding the device and retry, or move to a multi-client driver from the manufacturer, or bridge it with loopMIDI.
Linux needs a real setup pass. In settings, you open the MIDI source and run the routing setup once, which loads a Virtual MIDI kernel driver. You leave the physical controller selected inside BUFFR, point the DAW at Virtual Raw MIDI instead, and start the route. A small per-user supervisor then restores the ALSA connection after you log in, wake from sleep, or replug the controller. It maintains kernel routing only, never relaying messages in userspace and never touching audio, and one systemctl command disables it if you change your mind.
Duplicate notes point at a route, not a bug
The 50 millisecond rule only catches exact matches. If the same phrase still appears twice, something is altering one copy on the way in, usually a delayed route, a channel remap, or a filter sitting between the controller and the host. The fix is to pick a single path rather than hunting for a setting.Silence gets handled sensibly too. Capture pauses after a beat with no new MIDI, which stops a long noodling session from turning into one enormous mostly-empty region when you drag it out. In the sound-triggered capture mode, MIDI carries on recording even when the audio sits below the threshold, so quiet playing on a soft patch does not fall through the cracks.
Marking a moment while you play is worth the small habit. Pressing B drops a marker, and you can assign a MIDI CC to a spare pad or button so the mark lands without your hands leaving the keys. Those markers are lane- and channel-aware, and they become snap targets later, which is the difference between finding the good bar in ten seconds and scrubbing through two hours of your own noodling.
