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

[RichNagel]

Super, I'll try it out ASAP

PERFECTO -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... creenshots !

Thanks MudLord (and Kode54)!

[phanboy4]

Just registered to say thanks for this, I've been hobbling along with various MIDI yokes and Qsynth for ages now, this is a much much nicer solution.

One thing I am noticing is some stuttering in playback when using this with Dosbox (big CPU load), I had a similar issue with Fluidsynth that was fixed by increasing the synth process priority, dunno how this would work for BASSMIDI. Using Shan's soundfont which is quite big (241MB) so that may also have something to do with the latency.

EDIT: Huh, after trying it again I'm not getting the latency issue anymore. Oh well.

Thanks again for this, finally I can get hassle-free MIDI synth that doesn't sound like crap.

[mudlord]

RichNagel: WOW, that site is badass Looks super cool!
phanboy4: because XP sucks, it didn't like floating point sample output (boo!). So we made it only work on Vista and up, which do natively support such sample formats. Seems under XP in this case for BASSMIDI, the FP sample methods caused latency.

[RichNagel]

RichNagel: WOW, that site is badass Looks super cool!

Glad ya liked it The XMPlay section was something I had done a while back... my own personal plug for XMPlay and it's MIDI plugin. Was gonna do a seperate page for the BASSMIDI Driver, but figured, 'what the hey'... better suited on my already existing XMPlay plug page

P.S. If you're feeling brave, surf over to my main site at http://www.richnagel.net ... a few of my own compositions all recorded using a custom soundfont of mine (haven't got around to uploading but a very few of my own tunes though), as well as other soundfont and music-type stuff.

phanboy4: because XP sucks, it didn't like floating point sample output (boo!). So we made it only work on Vista and up, which do natively support such sample formats. Seems under XP in this case for BASSMIDI, the FP sample methods caused latency.

It's a weird thing with the latency... sometimes I have a bit of latency, other times, not. Seems like whatever "mood" that the drivers is in <grin>, can't really seem to find a pattern to it.

Anyhow, when I'm experiencing low latency, it's REALLY LOW... I mean, damned near *ZERO*. As an experiment (when I was hearing low latency), I setup my antique version of Cakewalk Pro v3.01 like this:

Track 1 / Channel 1 / Port SB Live! Synth A [DF20] (hardware synth, natively zero latency)
Track 2 / Channel 2 / BASSMIDI Driver

...with both tracks having an identical single-note melody piano riff on them. They followed almost PERFECTLY synched together

[mudlord]

P.S. If you're feeling brave, surf over to my main site at http://www.richnagel.net ... a few of my own compositions all recorded using a custom soundfont of mine (haven't got around to uploading but a very few of my own tunes though), as well as other soundfont and music-type stuff.

Okay, I will.

I got some server space spare, so I can mirror some MP3 recordings.

It's a weird thing with the latency... sometimes I have a bit of latency, other times, not. Seems like whatever "mood" that the drivers is in <grin>, can't really seem to find a pattern to it.

Latency for me under Win7 is fine. I found it perfect for sequencing.
If you are also referring to the SoundFont loading latency also, we discussed tinkering with the loading & playback thread priorities in the driver itself, but they are already as tuned as they can be...Really, I think at this point only Ian could optimize the SoundFont loading further.

[RichNagel]

Latency for me under Win7 is fine. I found it perfect for sequencing.
If you are also referring to the SoundFont loading latency also, we discussed tinkering with the loading & playback thread priorities in the driver itself, but they are already as tuned as they can be.

No, I didn't mean the loading of the SoundFonts (I noticed that too, an initial pause when the samples are first loaded, but I understand the reason behind that).

I meant actual playback latency. Most of the time there is little (or no) latency, but a very few times there is... a strange thing. Sometimes though (when I was experiencing latency), I found that I could shut down my sequencer, restart it, and the latency was zero then

Anyhow, I meant actual playback latency. When it's not happening, the hardware channel and BASSMIDI driver channel are synched perfectly. When it does occasionally happen, it results in a strange echo of the first MIDI track compared to the second, when they are playing at the same time (delay of notes of one track vs the next).

Hehe, in actuality, quite a cool sounding effect nonetheless <grin>

Anyways, it doesn't happen all of the time... more times than not I have zero latency

[mudlord]

Most of the time there is little (or no) latency, but a very few times there is... a strange thing. Sometimes though (when I was experiencing latency), I found that I could shut down my sequencer, restart it, and the latency was zero then

Anyhow, I meant actual playback latency. When it's not happening, the hardware channel and BASSMIDI driver channel are synched perfectly. When it does occasionally happen, it results in a strange echo of the first MIDI track compared to the second, when they are playing at the same time (delay of notes of one track vs the next).

The thread priority for the main MIDI event playback thread in the driver (likewise for SoundFont loading) is already as high as we can make it to make it work worthwhile unfortunately. I think there is not much I or kode54 can do there.

Hopefully at least all the major bugs are ironed out now in the installer and config app. Sorry for all the bugfixes on my end, and thanks for reporting the issues.

[RichNagel]

The thread priority for the main MIDI event playback thread in the driver (likewise for SoundFont loading) is already as high as we can make it to make it work worthwhile unfortunately. I think there is not much I or kode54 can do there.

Hey, no problem buddy... I'm not complainin' Most of the time it's ZERO latency, which is a far cry from some of the other VSTi and SoftSynth alternatives that I've tried

Sorry for all the bugfixes on my end, and thanks for reporting the issues.

Yer welcome, and no need for ANY apologies whatsover! Thanks for a great MIDI driver!


Hehe, there's been a lot of discussion around the Internet about the driver... I've read a lot of "Timidity+++ has NOW been UNINSTALLED PERMANENTLY from my system!", and the like LOL!

You and Kode54 are gawds

[mudlord]

thanks, kode54 did the major work with the driver itself, I just made the installer, and the config stuff...
Also, Ian did the actual synth itself.

Here's some recordings of the synth in action with your SoundFont in use.

[RichNagel]

Here's some recordings of the synth in action with your SoundFont in use.

EXCELLENT! Man... I dunno if I'm listening to my SBLive's EMU, or the BASSMIDI Driver <grin>

[Maxime]

Yeah, some new stuff here since my last visit!
@mudlord: I'll try your latest build ASAP, just to check if the MIDI device selection feature also works for me now...

@RichNagel: thanks for bumping this thread! We need to promote this driver for the few surviving people still interested in MIDI playback nowadays
I read that you also made your own SoundFont. Will also check this ASAP!
BTW, do you know of any significant places where we could promote our own (and newer) SoundFonts, and discuss of modern ways to enhance MIDI playback?
HammerSound, SF2MIDI.com, SoundFonts.it... all those SoundFont-related websites which used to be very popular, are almost all dead nowadays...

[RichNagel]

@RichNagel: thanks for bumping this thread! We need to promote this driver for the few surviving people still interested in MIDI playback nowadays

Hehe, 'tis still my primary form of composition -> http://www.richnagel.net

I read that you also made your own SoundFont. Will also check this ASAP!

I think that you'll like it Rave reviews from the people who have tried/use it -> http://www.richnagel.net/#comments

Heh, not to toot my own horn (well, yeah, I guess I actually will LOL!); After recently getting broadband out here in the sticks I'm *finally* able to download some of those 'monster GM' SoundFonts that I've heard about.

Some are nice, some are not so nice, some have a few intruments that are nice, some are horrid sounding for their extremely large size ("Crisis" comes to mind)... yet mine always sounds the best, at least to me, well balanced, with realistic sounding instruments.

As a real-instrument musician (as well as currently mostly a MIDI musician), I think *that* is what makes the difference. *I* know what the instruments are _supposed_ to sound like <grin>

BTW, do you know of any significant places where we could promote our own (and newer) SoundFonts, and discuss of modern ways to enhance MIDI playback? HammerSound, SF2MIDI.com, SoundFonts.it... all those SoundFont-related websites which used to be very popular, are almost all dead nowadays...

About the only places that I know of still left/around for SoundFont/MIDI discussion is my usual hangouts:

http://www.un4seen.com/forum
http://vogons.zetafleet.com
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/index.php
http://forum.zdoom.org

[RichNagel]

@Maxime,

Hey, I'd never heard of your "Arachno" SoundFont before... sounds real nice!

Love the documentation too! Hehe, I've always considered myself the "King of plain-text files" <grin>, but I like those spiffy looking docs that you provided with your Arachno SoundFont

[mudlord]

Yay, one Win7 end user solved the sticking problem.
They tinkered with reg keys they shouldnt have....
And so using the update, its fixed.

[RichNagel]

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.

Heh, wonder what he thinks about the 'license agreement' for that other 'clone' that cropped up recently? BTW, I noticed that you removed the sources... good idea IMHO!