Disklavier

Good afternoon, everyone.

On Nov 6, 2005, at 11:20 AM, Fred wrote:

> I had previously given up on WMP. Because of my lack of midi
> interfacing experience, I couldn't get it to play to my Yamaha UX16
> USB interface. Piano Bench's pointers on the audio system driver
> settings cleaned up the Media Player problem and its output sounds
> identical to VanBasco and very usable except for the lack of computer
> control of velocity. As long as I have consistent levels in my files
> the Disklavier controls are adequate and rarely needed.

Fred, I am glad that this helped. Further explanation for anyone who  
is interested:

MIDI-aware applications seem to fall into 2 distinct categories:  
those that have their own MIDI setup preferences and those that do  
not. Generally speaking, programs that have MIDI input (for  
recording, for example) have a MIDI setup preference window. Many of  
those that simply output MIDI data do not, and they rely on the  
system-wide preference. A web browser is a good example of the latter.

On both Macintosh and Windows, there are system-wide preferences that  
can be set for MIDI output but not input. So, in setting up your  
particular application, you have to deal with one of these scenarios:

Application MIDI setup preference: choose MIDI input and output devices

System-wide MIDI preference: choose default MIDI output device

Sometimes QuickTime gets into the chain. On the Mac, QT is the system  
wide default for MIDI output. On Windows, QT only comes into play if  
it is installed and the particular application (such as iTunes)  
defaults to it. In these cases, the chain consists of:

QT MIDI output default: (1) either QT Music Instruments (a software- 
based General MIDI synth made by Roland) or (2) the system-wide  
default (designated in the QT control panel as General MIDI).

As I mentioned earlier, on the Mac, the QT control panel used to  
offer General MIDI output as an alternative to QT instruments.  
However, this feature has not been available under OS X despite the  
fact that the OS X documentation says that it is possible. This  
circumstance on the Mac is truly unfortunate because the Mac now has  
MIDI I/O functions built in to the operating system. For those who  
wish to explore the Mac's view of MIDI, go to  
Applications:Utilities:Audio MIDI Setup.

Regards,
PianoBench