BASSMIDI MIDI driver for Windows Vista/7 (x64 incl.)

[Shadowdane]

Excellent!! Glad I found this, this works great!
Also is there a way to adjust the level of reverb at all? I think its set a bit to high for my tastes, some midi songs I've played just get drowned out in echos.

Also I noticed a bug in the way this sets the MIDI Device, your tool doesn't create a key here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\devenum\{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}\

Some games and applications seem to use this key in the registry and don't end up using BassMIDI.

[mudlord]

I am not sure how that key works. eg. if its for kernel mode drivers or not.

Not to mention, if I set the synth as default, Windows seems to create the right reg key...so....yeah, I am confused.

[kode54]

Reverb control is internal to the BASSMIDI synthesizer, and is supposed to reflect the SoundFont 2.0 specifications. It really depends on the SoundFont you are using, too. No, BASSMIDI does not offer a way to control the reverb level, short of adding some sort of mathematic scale to the values which the MIDI files send for the Reverb Send Level control.

I'd also love to know which files are using too much reverb, since, as far as I know, the specification only allows for a maximum send level of 20%.

Also, I would use floating point output, but I don't think that BASS supports real time playback synthesis with the floating point flag. (Which would allow for automatic compression to +/- 1.0 by the Windows 7 sound system. ASUS Xonar users with the GX crap turned on would be screwed, though.)

[Shadowdane]

Reverb control is internal to the BASSMIDI synthesizer, and is supposed to reflect the SoundFont 2.0 specifications. It really depends on the SoundFont you are using, too. No, BASSMIDI does not offer a way to control the reverb level, short of adding some sort of mathematic scale to the values which the MIDI files send for the Reverb Send Level control.

I'd also love to know which files are using too much reverb, since, as far as I know, the specification only allows for a maximum send level of 20%.

Also, I would use floating point output, but I don't think that BASS supports real time playback synthesis with the floating point flag. (Which would allow for automatic compression to +/- 1.0 by the Windows 7 sound system. ASUS Xonar users with the GX crap turned on would be screwed, though.)

Ok yah its definitely the Soundfont I was using and its more like distortion though, weird thing is I don't hear this problem loading it as a X-Fi Soundbank or using TiMidity++ with this Soundfont.
Here is the Soundfont if you wish to mess around with it: http://shadowdane.com/files/Jurgen%20GM ... ank.sfpack

It doesn't happen on all midi I've played using it, but here are a few good examples:
http://vgmusic.com/music/console/ninten ... irman2.mid
http://vgmusic.com/music/console/ninten ... al_Man.mid

[mudlord]

Driver updated.
Now floating point sample output is used on Windows Vista and higher.

[MaliceX]

(XP latency bug fixed thanks to above change, thanks for prompt response)

I dunno if this is also a bug, but it appears once you invoke Bank Select 127 to a channel, not only does it select the Drum bank by default (as opposed to bank 127; sfz shows the drumbank as 128), but once it's in, you can't change out of it without unloading/reloading the driver and/or sending a sysex reset message to it.
EDIT: Seems my suspicions were correct. sYnerGi GS and DLSbyXG banks are incapable of selecting bank 127 without being shifted to bank 128, making their XG-compatible kits inaccessible. This problem does not happen with the Creative drivers.

Still having hanging issues with my sequencer whenever any sysex message is sent to BASSMIDI.

[Maxime]

I tried the latest installer on a XP virtual machine running on my MacBook Pro.

- The issue I had with missing DLLs has disappeared, and I don't have these separate DLLs on my System32 directory.
- The driver successfully appears in the MIDI output devices list without any registry hack (but I don't have any other MIDI device installed on this VM).
- However, the default MIDI output device combobox keeps reverting to MS Synth even if I specify BASSMIDI Driver and click on Apply.

I have one (very silly) question, mainly directed towards kode54:
What are the system requirements for this synth to work properly?
Does it require any hardware SoundFont synth? (eg. Sound Blaster, E-MU or Auzentech X-Fi, Live!, Audigy...)

I'm asking this, because I don't get any sound output on my VM with BASSMIDI driver.
This VM supports any other audio application (including games using DirectSound) but only has a virtualized audio card (Parallels Audio Controller) over an Intel integrated soundchip.
Whereas my Windows 7 PC has a dedicated Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 soundcard, hence my question.

[MaliceX]

The following is not important but thought I should mention.

CC74 response seems to be slow with a held note going from one point to another, however new notes always start at the value currently set..

Banks >128 (accessible via CC32; Bank Select LSB), are they currently supported? It seems it might be necessary, particularly with XG-compatible soundfonts. Creative's soundfont bank manager doesn't support banks above 127+drums (128), but the soundfont spec makes a mention of it, and soundfont editors are capable of saving banks to a maximum 128*128.

[kode54]

It claims to support hardware mixing of sound channels, but as far as I know, the SoundFont synthesizer is entirely software-based. I haven't tested on any non-SF capable systems, though.

If you can reproduce those controller change message bugs with XMPlay's MIDI plug-in, which is based on the same code, you can report it on the un4seen forum, in the giant MIDI plug-in topic. I can at least forward your post to Ian, but there's probably not a lot he can do without a test case.

And as for high bank numbers, I don't think it pays attention to bank LSB, and I'm not sure if there are any full XG banks which use banks over 128. The file format does use a 16 bit field for bank numbers, but I'm not sure how many synthesizers support that.

[MaliceX]

Well, the DLS standard indeed supports high bank numbers, that should serve at least some merit.
I've also manually attempted to remap the DLSbyXG soundfont to their correct bank numbers (as much as the SF standard will allow), but the patches that will work are the ones called via CC0 as opposed to CC32. (On my sequencer, this would mean the bank numbers are on the wrong box, to put it simply)

Here's a test case to use:
http://djtbmx.stdrand.com/junkpile/midirape.mid (ignore channel 10, haha. I was testing BASSMIDI's awesome support for 127st pitch bend range, which is perhaps better demonstrated with http://djtbmx.stdrand.com/junkpile/midirape2.mid)

[mudlord]

Fixes are being worked on for MIDI Yoke.

[RichNagel]

Just wanted to "check in" here, MudLord. I had previously posted a message over at Ian Luck's forums, as well as at the Hydrogen Audio forums; but it looks like that this is the "official" place for it

Anyhow, a big thanks and a "great job" to Kode54 and MudLord for this driver! Works great on my rig (P4 2.666Ghz/768MB RAM/WXP Pro SP3), with almost ZERO latency... and the last update that you did MudLord, fixed the MIDI Yoke problem

I had been nagging Ian Luck for eons now for something like this <grin> (a "global" Windows MIDI driver of sorts based upon the BASS audio libraries, or his XMPLay MIDI Plugin), and now it looks like it has came into existence

Anyhow, I myself have a real SBLive (with the latest drivers for XP from Creative Labs), so in actuality I don't really require something like this. But... I'm always on the lookout for others who do (who only have the bog-standard MSGS SW Synth <YUCK>!), and even on my PC, another soundfont compatible MIDI driver is always welcome

Thanks again, Kode54 and MudLord!


P.S. I've been announcing this thing all over the Internet, most any forum that I frequent that would benefit from it (e.g. DOOM/ZDOOM/DOSBox-VOGONS/Synthesia/NoteWorthy Composer/XMPlay/etc...); all of these forums have constant discussion about methods to enhance/increase the quality of their MIDI music playback

[mudlord]

Noticed.

Now I have to get off my ass to work out WHY the MIDI mapper isn't been set. Kinda hard to reproduce if it doesn't occur on my Win7....

Updated the license to something compatible for BASS.

Now Graf Zahl can no longer complain at all.
Unless the idiot wants to complain that almost public domain is not recognised.

[mudlord]

Hooray, found a weirdass bug on a XP VM.
The MIDI selection was sticking. Did some more aggressive stuff in the config app to override it.

[RichNagel]

Hooray, found a weirdass bug on a XP VM.
The MIDI selection was sticking. Did some more aggressive stuff in the config app to override it.

Super, I'll try it out ASAP

BTW, LOVE the new license agreement LOL!!