Virtual midi cables

[dj]

Hi,

Virtual midi ports (which term I prefer to virtual midi cables) aren't quite as complicated as you fear.

For virtual midi ports, at least on Windows 7 which I still use, you have the option of Midi Yoke (www.midiox.com) or LoopBe1 (www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html). Follow the instructions for each; installation should be fairly straightforward. Once installed, you have 8 separate in/out ports with MidiYoke, or one port that is both in & out with up to 8 connections with LoopBe1. Same end result, different approach.

I don't use Garritan, myself, but it seems to be that, with the Garritan stand-alone player, it's a matter of opening the midi setup menu in the Garritan player and selecting the input port you want for each instrument you've set up: either one of the 8 possible MidiYoke input ports that should appear in the list, or LoopBe1. Assign a midi channel to your instrument, as well. I can't help you set up instruments in Garritan, as I don't have it.

THEN go to Notation Composer, load up your file and assign each track you want to send to Garritan to the port you want in the Staff Setup dialogue, make sure your midi channels agree with Garritan and your voice selections.

At that point, you should be able to make music.

I would suspect that Garritan should respond to voice changes sent from Composer, provided that the Garritan voices are mapped to General Midi -- OR that you have set up a specific map for the Garritan voices you're using in the Notation Device Properties dialogue.

I'll also point out that, if you're not happy with the sounds you are getting from the built-in Notation Software Synth, you can go into Composer's Midi Device Configuration dialogue, find the Notation Software Synth, click on it, then on the Soundfont button and change the Soundfont being used to virtually any other one you might have. There are MANY very useable free or nearly so Soundfonts available, from 4 megs in size up to several gigabytes. One of my favourites is Masterpiece.sf2, which is only 28 megs but has a good orchestral sound.

Another trick is to find a specific Soundfont that works very well for each track, load that into the Notation Software Synth, exportONLY that track as WAV and then continue to do so for each track. Then assemble those WAVs in Audacity or another DAW and use that program's features to massage the tracks and add effects. Trick: make sure you do your Export to WAV with the computer's system volume at no more than 70%, otherwise you can get distortion.

Sounds tedious, but it gets easier with repetition and it's still far easier than writing out your score by hand, extracting and copying parts, assembling a group of musicians, rehearsing them, getting them to a recording studio and recording and re-recording their output, then massaging that and adding effects. And I've never heard a virtual clarinettist complain about too many flats.

I hope that helps.

David

[Sherry C]

Hi guys,

We have a couple of tutorial videos that show exactly how to install a virtual MIDI cable (or port as David J says), as well as how to set up Garritan Libraries both in the Aria player and in Composer.

You can find those either on the Tutorial Videos page on our main website or here on the User Forum in the Tutorial Videos section. There are also template .not files for the various Garritan ensembles that you can download from either location.

Enjoy
Sherry

[Reinhold H.]

And finally: Microsoft is going to launch new MIDI software as part of Windows 11 by end of 2025/early 2026. The existing MIDI driver software from the mid 80s will be replaced. This software package is called Windows MIDI Services. The final update package of Windows 11 is not yet defined today as of Oct. 22nd, 2025.
Windows MIDI Services offers MIDI loops which are integrated into Windows 11. Composer/Musician 5 will support these loop features in an update.

Reinhold

[Sherry C]

Hi friends,


For those of you who may be a little fuzzy as to what this all means, it means that for stand-alone software MIDI playback devices like Aria or the like, the new MS MIDI Service will provide ways (the "loopbacks") to connect the playback software (eg. Aria, SynthFont, and others) to Musician and Composer. Our software will be capable of detecting these ports and allowing you to use them to connect devices and use them as the audio output for our software.


All of this will be coming out at some point in the future (see the link in Reinhold's post for further information and updates), and Notation Software will be ready to implement the service to help streamline your music making


ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

Interesting development (oh, what an obscure pun).


David