Windows 7 MIDI output device selection

Anonymous

I am an active musician who has recently made the switch from XP to Windows 7, skipping Vista. I connected my Edirol UM-1, and the drivers installed successfully. The interface works fine within my DAW software, but I also like to have WMP use the UM-1 as the default MIDI output device. When I went to the control panel to make that selection, I discovered that the MIDI device section was missing completely.

There are several threads on this topic in the Vista forums, but I haven't found much discussion about this topic in the Windows 7 forum. The fact that this problem remains from Vista to Windows 7 does not give me much hope that a solution will come from Microsoft.

My questions: Is there a solution to this problem that doesn't involve registry hacks or questionable downloads? And/or has anyone had any success in Windows 7 using registry hacks or software patches.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

Hi again Don well I've found where you are making your mistake! You are not editing the registry in the right place. You must go to the DEFAULT MIDI DEVICE folder or directory. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\devenum{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}\Default MidiOut Device

You are going to the directory in the same 4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B but you are editing Tascam US122mk2 and the Microsoft Wavetable synth directories DO NOT EDIT THESE FOLDERS. You MUST GO TO THE DEFAULT MIDI DEVICE DIRECTORY! You must also re edit the two device Tascam and MS WAvetable directories back to the original zero for Wavetable and 1 for tascam. Then edit the DEFAULT MIDI DEVICE directory to either zero for onboard or 1 for USB. A simple mistake that's cost you a few folicles ;-) Terry

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Anonymous

Mike,

Its actually all to do with the drivers, not the OS.

I have an Edirol PCM30 keyboard and a Edirol SD20, bioth of which work perfectly under W7 Pro as Edirol has written W7 specific drivers for these products. I can also use the keyboard through a Presonus FS26x26 as it also has W7 specific drivers.

If your midi devicde manufacturer has not written W7 specific drivers then you'll have to try using Vista drivers (install in compatibility mode), but there are no guarantee they work.

UM1 drivers are here :

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=498#

Emu beta drivers are available here (scroll down) :

http://connect.creativelabs.com/emu/default.aspx

Cheers,

jerry

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43 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-08-23T15:00:32+00:00

Actually, it is to do with the OS, as in it used to do it but now it doesn't. Anyway, this should sort you out. It's free. I don't work for them. I found it because I had the same problem.

http://www.notation.com/DownloadNotationPlayer.htm
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Anonymous

2011-09-16T12:46:05+00:00

I agree with Mike, this is not answered.

There is nowhere that I can see in the UI to change my MIDI device whether hardware or softsynth. Why should I start hacking the Registry to do this??

For midi playback on my Win7 laptop I'm stuck with the MS offering. I also have the Roland VSC, ForteDXI and Native Instruments Bandstand installed but I can only select them through a host (Sonar, Cubase, Pro-Tools etc), not through the Windows Control Panel or anywhere else that I can see.

Why have MS removed the ability to do this? If I'm missing something I apologise in advance and hope someone correct me.

Regards
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Anonymous

2011-10-12T18:57:22+00:00

Add my voice to the list.

My nice new Win 7 notebook would be great but it doesn't work with my Ketron SD4 HW synth via USB. Ketron never had any special drivers, they simply relied on the Microsoft stock drivers. Those drivers worked just fine in WinXP Pro. For Windows techs to say that this is a 3rd party driver issue is uninformed at best.

Microsoft severely broke MIDI USB support in their Win7 drivers, don't know about Vista but I expect the same.

Microsoft; you borked your stock USB MIDI driver(s). This is NOT an issue for the HW manufacture it is purely on M$oft's back porch. Probably because providing valid support for MIDI doesn't put any money in M$oft's pocket :) Remember that 3rd parties generally have to pay a hefty fee to have their drivers "certified" by M$oft and anyone that doesn't jump though that hoop is likely to not get much in the way of support ;0

I working on putting WinXP Pro in a VM on the notebook right now, while waiting for a new USB to MIDI adapter to arrive to test with. Those two approaches may be a solution for some of you even if it is a pain in the butt.

Another possibility is to shrink the partition and install WinXP so it never sits on top of Win7 even via a VM. Of course that is harder these days since there may not be WinXP driver support for some of the newer hardware.

If this fails then I'll shrink the Win7 partition and install Linux on this notebook. And install WinXP in a VM under Linux so I'm not sitting on top of Windoze 7. I rarely run Windoze these days because of these kinds of problems. If the one program that I need to run on Windoze could access USB via Wine under Linux I'd be doing that since the application runs just fine, but Wine of course doesn't handle driver level Windoze support.

Very disappointed with Win7 since that was the only reason I purchased this notebook. Had I known that Win7 was severely broken as far as the native USB MIDI drivers I would have switched to a MacBook since there is a Mac version of the sequencing software I use available and that "just works" on the Mac :)

BTW my wife's new Win7 machine drives her crazy as well. She's not very technically oriented so Linux wasn't an immediate option for her, but she has noted that things that used to take her one or two steps with WinXp now take her much longer to do with Win7. Can't wait to see how much longer Win8 might take :)

Just my $.02
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