How is media player playing midi .mid files?

Question

Win7-64: I have to do a midi project, and I just realized my asus p5k motherboard has no midi device, just the ad1988b high def audio chip. There is no midi device listed in device manager. How then is windows media player playing .mid files? It is playing them ok, is this some kind of software simulation of midi?

Solution

It's using the default software MIDI synthesizer (device 0). Device 0 used to be the MIDI mapper, which would choose your default MIDI device. There are several fixes, but not one of them claims 100% support. Just do a quick google for Windows 7 MIDI for some more information.

Comments

[r0ca]

By default, WMP can play .mid files... ????

[Jorge Guzman]

I want to understand how it is playing .mid files given the absence of any midi hardware.

[Jorge Guzman]

This is Windows 7 and none of the expected devices are showing up. No midi devices, software synth, mapper, nothing.

[Jorge Guzman]

I am just scratching the surface of this now. What a screw up by microsoft. It appears you have to get into registry hacks and 3rd party apps to see anything. There is nothing in control panel/sounds for midi.

[Jorge Guzman]

No no no no. This stuff is gone, vanished, vamoosed in Windows 7. I know all about XP and it's midi affordances. This post is for Windows 7 only.

[slancio]

brainmaster.com/kb/entry/334 I use this as a work around. If you don't want to use it, this is the change: "The registry value MidiOutId in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\d evenum\{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}\Default MidiOut Device\ needs to be set to the MidiOutId (DWORD) of the device you want. All your devices will have their own keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\d evenum\{4EFE2452-168A-11D1-BC76-00C04FB9453B}. Find the device you want and check its MidiOutId and put that value in the Default MidiOut Device\MidiOutId value."