Cannot Open Midi Device

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Cannot Open Midi Device

2007-05-14 03:42 am

Whenever I try to play a Noteworthy file I receive an error message ("MIDI Device Warning") stating: "One or more of your selected MIDI devices are failing to open.", "Would you like to go to the MIDI options tab to investigate?"

When I click on "Yes" and open this tab I see that the only "Available play device" listed is "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth." Selecting it causes this error, and de-selecting it causes another complaint: "No MIDI Play Devices."

I'm running NWC2 under Windows Vista (Home Premium), and I have no problem at all playing back MIDI files in Media Center and in MIDInight Express.

I've read about volume settings, but I have no volume setting for MIDI on the volume mixer, so that's not an option for me.

I've looked at lots of different solutions to this problem, but I have to admit that I'm stumped. Can anyone help?

Re: Cannot Open Midi Device

Reply #1 – 2007-05-14 04:56 am

G'day wenzows,
the problem is there is another program opening the MIDI device before NWC can.

What other software do you have running?

You might also try setting NWC to open the MIDI device only when playing - goto:
Tools
Options
"Play Options" section
Port Usage
select "While Playing" or possible "While Open" - I use the former...

Re: Cannot Open Midi Device

Reply #2 – 2007-05-14 02:16 pm

Hi Lawrie: Thanks very much for the insight. Unfortunately, I have no obvious other processes running concurrently. I opened Task Manager and killed a number of processes I thought might be villians (anything associated with Media Player or Media Center), but still no luck. It could be almost anyprocess, or it could even be a service. So, I have two more things to ask of you:

1./ Do you know of any diagnostic tool or technique I could use to help me to identify the offending process or service?
2./ Do you know of any alternatives to "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" that I could download and use as a work-around?

Again: thanks very much for your advice!
Michael

Re: Cannot Open Midi Device

Reply #3 – 2007-05-14 02:41 pm

G'day Michael,
haven't played with vista yet so I don't have any particular suggestions as to what may be running... Nor do I know sure fire way of finding out what may be opening the synth.

Can you not "de tune" the user interface? Reduce the "wow" as m$ would have it... Perhaps there is something there that is opening the MIDI synth...

Unfortunately, unless you have a sound card with a hardware synth I'm not sure I can suggest alternatives. The only softsynths I'm aware of do not say they are suitable for vista - they may work but I don't know...

If you check out "synthfont" there may be a vista version - you'll also need a "virtual MIDI cable" like MIDIYoke (will also need to be vista compatible) and a soundfont to load into synthfont. This will at least give you an alternative synthesizer, if it works...

Regardless of the above, there must be something opening the MIDI synth... Startup as "vanilla" as you can, load nothing you can avoid and see what happens.