VOGONS


First post, by rfnagel

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(Prequel EDIT) The newest version of the BASSMIDI Driver can always be found here -> http://www.kode54.net/bassmididrv/ .

DOSFreak had previously posted a link to this over in his "Interesting Links" thread -> Release Announcements Consolidation , figured I'd post it here as well 😀

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php … showtopic=87639
Download -> http://kode54.foobar2000.org/stuff.php

Directly from the Hydrogen Audio forums message thread:

This is a new SoundFont-based usermode MIDI system driver for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. It uses the BASSMIDI library by […]
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This is a new SoundFont-based usermode MIDI system driver for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. It uses the BASSMIDI library by Ian Luck, as the synthesiser.

Features:

* Dynamic sample caching
* Unlimited polyphony
* SoundFont chaining/stacking
* Works on Windows Vista and Windows 7, including 64-bit versions.
* Support for the following controllers & events:

MIDI note events.
MIDI program events.
Channel pressure.
Pitch wheel.
Bank change MSB. (CC#0)
Modulation. (CC#1)
Portamento. (CC#65 / CC#84 / CC#5)
Volume. (CC#7)
Panning. (CC#10)
Expression. (CC#11)
Sustain pedal. (CC#64)
Soft pedal. (CC#67)
Low-pass filter resonance. (CC#71 or NRPN 121h)
Release time. (CC#72 or NRPN 166h)
Attack time. (CC#73 or NRPN 163h)
Low-pass filter cut-off. (CC#74 or NRPN 120h)
Reverb send level. (CC#91)
Chorus send level. (CC#93)
Stop all sounds. (CC#120)
Reset all controllers. (CC#121)
Release all keys. (CC#123)
Mono/poly mode. (CC#126 and CC#127, respectively.)
Pitch wheel range. (RPN 0)
Fine tuning. (RPN 1)
Coarse tuning. (RPN 2)

And presumably if GS/GM2 mode is activated:
Drum key low-pass filter cut-off. (NRPN 14knh)
Drum key low-pass filter resonance. (NRPN 15knh)
Drum key coarse tune. (NRPN 18knh)
Drum key fine tune. (NRPN 19knh)
Drum key volume level. (NRPN 1Aknh)
Drum key panning. (NRPN 1Cknh)
Drum key reverb send level. (NRPN 1Dknh)
Drum key chorus send level. (NRPN 1Eknh)

It also supports GM, GS, and XG reset System Exclusive messages, and the drum channel enabling features of GS and XG when switched into those modes. It also supports GS and possibly XG reverb preset control messages for adjusting reverb time, delay, low-pass cut-off, high-pass cut-off, and level. And chrorus delay, depth, rate, feedback, level, and chorus to reverb send level. It also supports the master volume level message.

Kode54 should be thanked for making this possible. I wrote the installer and configuration app.

...and cut 'n' pastes of what I posted over in DOSFreak's "Interesting Links" message thread:

I haven't tried it yet, but that looks EXTREMELY interesting... been saying to/nagging Ian for sometime that he should create a 'global' WinDoze MIDI driver using the MIDI plugin for XMPlay (the BASSMIDI Synth is essentially that) 😀

OK, I installed the BASSMIDI MIDI Synthesiser... and it works GREAT!

From what I could tell, ZERO latency, and it sounds just like XMPlay's MIDI plugin 😀 Running on a P4 2.666Ghz CPU with 768MB RAM, output was smooth with no glitches or stutters.

One problem though, it seems to completely knock out/disable Jamie O'Connell's "MIDI Yoke" patch driver ("Out To MIDI Yoke: #", "In From MIDI Yoke: #", etc...). I use that driver for various things when composing MIDI music.

(Update) I posted a message over at Hydrogen Audio forums ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php … showtopic=87639 ), and the author said that he would see if he could fix the MIDI Yoke problem with the driver 😀

P.S. Of course, like the XMPlay MIDI Plugin, it sounds GREAT using my "¥Weeds¥ General MIDI SoundFont v3.0" -> http://www.richnagel.net/#soundfonts <grin> 😀

P.P.S. Oh, and of course this MIDI driver can be used with DOSBox as well 😀

Last edited by rfnagel on 2015-02-08, 18:24. Edited 1 time in total.

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 2 of 280, by ADDiCT

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Don't have time to test this now, looks very interesting though. Can anyone say something about memory usage? If a large soundfont is loaded, does it stay in memory all the time, even when there's no MIDI playing? "Dynamic caching" could mean that only "active" instruments stay in memory, but I'm not sure.

Reply 3 of 280, by rfnagel

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ADDiCT wrote:

Don't have time to test this now, looks very interesting though. Can anyone say something about memory usage? If a large soundfont is loaded, does it stay in memory all the time, even when there's no MIDI playing? "Dynamic caching" could mean that only "active" instruments stay in memory, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure about the actual memory usage, but according to the author the memory is released whenever the instruments/samples are not being played (i.e if a MIDI file is not being played, no memory is being used).

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 4 of 280, by rfnagel

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I posted a message over at Hydrogen Audio forums ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php … showtopic=87639 ), and the author said that he would see if he could fix the MIDI Yoke problem with the driver 😀

Problem fixed! Download the new version here (*Note: Uninstall the old version before installing this newer one) -> http://mudlord.emuxhaven.net/crap/audio/bassmididrv.exe

Last edited by rfnagel on 2011-04-20, 09:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 5 of 280, by rfnagel

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Just a little linkage update, it appears that there's more "official" discussion about the BASSMIDI driver over at the VGMusic forums here -> http://www.vgmusic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13967 .

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 6 of 280, by phanboy_iv

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EXCELLENT. Been waiting for something better than a hacked-up Fluidsynth setup for ages now. Works well, but I'm still getting latency issues with it when using it with Dosbox. Using Shan's soundfont which is quite large (241MB) so that might be triggering it.

Reply 7 of 280, by rfnagel

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phanboy_iv wrote:

EXCELLENT. Been waiting for something better than a hacked-up Fluidsynth setup for ages now.

This BASSMIDI Driver is really something else, ain't it? 😀

In actuality, I really don't need something like this (as I have an SBLive)... but I'm always looking out for others who do, and another soundfont compatable MIDI device is always welcome on my PC.

This thing supports a lot of MIDI features that the EMU hardware does not... several XG parameters, as well as the General MIDI 2 standard 😀

phanboy_iv wrote:

Works well, but I'm still getting latency issues with it when using it with Dosbox. Using Shan's soundfont which is quite large (241MB) so that might be triggering it.

That's prolly the problem. On my PC (P4 2.666Ghz/768MB RAM/WXP Pro SP3) using my own custom soundfont ("Weeds General MIDI SoundFont v3.0", 55MB), I have little, or no latency at all 😀

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 9 of 280, by MrKsoft

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This is great... finally a different MIDI synth on Win7. I had to find a different program to switch the default MIDI driver though to use it in most programs.

Wafflenet OPL Archive - Preserving MS-DOS music in a unified format!

Reply 11 of 280, by rfnagel

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There are two that I know of (I posted info for them here -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFonts/XMP … nfiguration.htm ):

http://software.bootblock.co.uk/?id=vistamidipicker

http://akkordwechsel.de/15-windows-vista-und-der-midi-mapper

The first is a regular EXE, while the second is a Windows control panel applet (CPL file, copy to "C:\Windows\System32", and it'll be found in the Windows control panel).

Note that I don't use Vista or 7, burt from what I've read, one of those two should do the trick.

Heh, also, dunno about the first, but the second (control panel applet) even works under Windows XP (even though the same can be accomplished from the "Sounds and Audio Devices Properties" in Windows).

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 12 of 280, by MrKsoft

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The first one you listed there didn't work. But the second one, the control panel one ("Putzlowitschs Vista-MIDIMapper") did. I found it on a different page, it said to copy to System32 but since I'm on W7 64-bit I put it in SysWOW64. It shows up, opens, and works but won't show an icon in the Control Panel, probably because it was designed for Vista which still had the old style control panel.

Wafflenet OPL Archive - Preserving MS-DOS music in a unified format!

Reply 14 of 280, by leileilol

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BASSMIDI doesn't seem to show up on a clean WinXP SP2 32bit install, either, even post system restart. Though I should mention this system has a Live + kX drivers also

Do you test this driver using virtual machines? If not, you should try to.

Haven't tried Win95/98/ME 🤣

Also rfnagel thanks, the PLWMidiMapper.CPL works for me in 7. 😀

Last edited by leileilol on 2011-04-07, 01:49. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 15 of 280, by collector

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MrKsoft wrote:

It shows up, opens, and works but won't show an icon in the Control Panel, probably because it was designed for Vista which still had the old style control panel.

It is a 32-bit applet. Win7 shows both 64-bit and 32-bit applets in the same control panel, but Vista separates them. On Vista you need to select the 32-bit control Panel to access it.

Reply 17 of 280, by phanboy_iv

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Where's the original download link? I can't tell which mirror has the updated version, if any of them do yet. rfnagel's mirrored version seems to be from March.

Last edited by phanboy_iv on 2011-04-07, 14:36. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 18 of 280, by rfnagel

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phanboy_iv wrote:

Where's the original download link? I can't tell which mirror has the updated version, if any of them do yet.

The latest version will always be here -> http://mudlord.emuxhaven.net/crap/audio/bassmididrv.exe . BTW, since the versions don't really have a version number, I've been to myself unofficially calling the latest build "v1.04" <grin> 😀

Last edited by rfnagel on 2011-04-20, 09:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 19 of 280, by phanboy_iv

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rfnagel wrote:
phanboy_iv wrote:

Where's the original download link? I can't tell which mirror has the updated version, if any of them do yet.

The latest version will always be here -> http://mudlord.emuxhaven.net/stuff/bassmididrv.exe . BTW, since the versions don't really have a version number, I've been to myself unofficially calling the latest build "v1.04" <grin> 😀

Swell man, thanks.