Draw a line. It plays.

Live, while you play

Routes take effect the moment you draw them. Re-plug a cable mid-jam, add a second synth, take one away: notes keep flowing and nothing has to restart.

Cables are gray when idle and light up yellow while MIDI passes, so you can see at a glance what's talking to what.

Each route has its own settings

Click a cable to choose which channels go in, which messages pass (notes, pedal, CC, clock, program changes), a note range, transpose, velocity and the channel it leaves on.

So one keyboard can play two synths with different ranges, or send only its mod wheel somewhere else.

Ports that say where they go

Some gear names its ports in ways that don't tell you much. On a Launch Control XL 3, "MIDI In" is the controller itself and "To DIN Out" is the socket on its back. MIDI Noodle adds a short hint in grey after the name, in the sidebar, in the add menus and on the cards, for the ports it knows about.

The Add Input and Add Output menus also show how each device connects, with an icon for USB, network, Bluetooth or another app, or an iPhone, iPad or Mac when that's what's on the other end. If you'd rather not see the hints, switch off Show port hints in Settings › Devices.

Gear comes and goes. Routes stay.

Unplug a synth and its card stays on the canvas, greyed out, with its routes waiting. Plug it back in and they go live again, with no setup to redo.

Always on, out of the way

MIDI Noodle lives in the menu bar and can start at login, so your routes are there as soon as the Mac is. Panic, Bypass and scene switching are one click away in the menu bar, without opening the window.