Re: Where is the "Audio" "MIDI Music Playback" Tab in Win 7?

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Where can the Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices/Audio tab,
identifying the MIDI music playback device(s), be found in Windows 7?


My Win XP identifies Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth as its default
MIDI playback device.

The Windows 7 Control Panel/Sounds applet does not provide similar
information.

That information is available by right clicking on a MIDI file and
selecting "Properties." The current default playback device is shown,
and an option to change it is offered.

 

[Dominique]

That information is available by right clicking on a MIDI file and
selecting "Properties." The current default playback device is shown,
and an option to change it is offered.

I followed your instructions, I can see a default playback APPLICATION but
no default playback DEVICE.

Am I missing something?

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

I followed your instructions, I can see a default playback
APPLICATION but no default playback DEVICE.

Am I missing something?

No, I misunderstood. The device is shown in the Device Manager:
(Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Sound, video and game controllers)

 

[Dominique]

No, I misunderstood. The device is shown in the Device Manager:
(Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Sound, video and game controllers)

Yes, all the MIDI devices show up in devices manager, in my case 4 devices,
7 ports, but there is no way to select a port by default in Win7 (and Vista
as I understand it), so WMP will always use the SoftSynth provided by MS. I
can use any port I want in my music application (all at the same time if
needed) but not in Windows MIDI mapper which was possible from Windows 3.1
to XP.

One of my MIDI ports is a Yamaha stage piano with a USB interface and a
built-in General MIDI sound bank (XG) which sounds a lot better than the MS
softsynth but Windows 7 won't let me use that.

 

[Paul]

Amazing.

People come up with all kinds of hacks and applets to fix the little
annoyances and deficiencies in Windows 7, but no one has written a
simple interface enabling one to select the default MIDI out device.

Thanks to all responders.

Did you check out this one ?

http://akkordwechsel.de/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/plw-vista-midi-mapper.jpg

The link to the akkordwechsel.de page, is in my other post. The page
is in German, but you can fix that with translate.google.com .

I think that will give you the control you seek.

Good luck,
Paul

 

[Paul]

I downloaded the PLWMidiMap.cpl file to System32 directory.

It does
absolutely
nothing.

http://translate.google.com/transla...hsel.de/15-windows-vista-und-der-midi-mapper/

Is your OS the 64 bit version ?

If so, that akkordwechsel.de page, in the comments section,
suggests to copy the file into SysWOW64.

On my x64 laptop, there are 18 .cpl files in Windows/System32
and 21 .cpl files in Windows/SysWOW64. Maybe the thing
works in the 64 bit directory ?

Something else to consider, is files downloaded via browser,
are marked according to their zone of trust. Perhaps the
file needs to be "unblocked" of something ?

http://windows7themes.net/how-to-unblock-blocked-iconsfiles-in-windows-7.html

You would think, if there was an issue with permissions,
a dialog would have popped up by now. That control panel
is presumably making writes to the registry - that's about
all it should do, is change the registry.

Normally, if a program had a proper installer, it would
have permissions, ownership, and directory selected by
the installer. "Copying" the file, is not foolproof,
and not guaranteed to succeed. Installers are supposed
to use the TrustedInstaller account, as a means to
write to disk, just about anywhere.

From the other web page, is information you can use to judge
whether the operation the CPL attempted, is actually succeeding
or not. It should be changing the registry, if it is working.

"The registry value MidiOutId in

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\devenum\{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}\Default MidiOut Device\
MidiOutId (DWORD)

needs to be set to the MidiOutId of the device you want.
All your devices will have their own keys in

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\devenum\{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}.

Find the device you want and check its MidiOutId and put that value
in the Default MidiOut Device\MidiOutId value.

When I used regedit to check, there was also a "devenum 64 bit" key
as well, and it has a 4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B
GUID in it. It's unclear whether the CPL sets both of them, or not.

Paul