Issues with midi synth sounds on 7

Hello,
I use windows 7 RC1 and i've been having this problem on two different pcs and 3 different sound cards. When i listen to midi files using window's basic midi synth, i have strange little noises comming with every note, some kind of click frequency, i can't really describe it. This is really anoying 'cause i often use the basic midi bank when i write songs. Any idea ?

I'm having this exactly same problem. Midi playback is terrible compared to XP. Is there any solution to this?

Dexterprog said:

I'm having this exactly same problem. Midi playback is terrible compared to XP. Is there any solution to this?

Click to expand...

How is your regular audio, clear?

No pops or extraneous noises?

Ap

I use a lot of MIDI as I have a computer based recording studio system and the GS Wavetable is not very good. If you have a SoundBlaster sound card, use the hardware MIDI synths that are on the card as they are much better. The Roland software MIDI synth (that comes with Band in a Box) is also far superior.

But, as noted Aphelion, are you getting any "noise" with regular audio?

fireberd said:

I use a lot of MIDI as I have a computer based recording studio system and the GS Wavetable is not very good. If you have a SoundBlaster sound card, use the hardware MIDI synths that are on the card as they are much better. The Roland software MIDI synth (that comes with Band in a Box) is also far superior.

But, as noted Aphelion, are you getting any "noise" with regular audio?

Click to expand...

I agree the Win7 MS Wavetable does not sound very good but I'm not getting any extra noise or garbage... I'd have to do a direct comparison but I don't think it sounds as good as the XP version which is probably the same wavetable.

Ap

They sound same to me [wavetab in XPro and W7] I run three puters [2x W7 OS and one XPro SP3] The only what I have probs is wavetab latency. This should be solved somehow in W7 and that should be perfect. Than you dont need any SB to run FS2 as "native" sound bank to avoid wavetab latency [out of sync] with VSTi.
I just stop here I don't wanna hijack the thread. As I said I have no crackles on wavetabs. I'm having more than one sound card instaled on each of my 3 puters.

Thanks for all the replies. Let me further explain. First of all, I have an external audio interface (Presonus Firebox). Sound in windows is excelent, no latency, cracks, whatever, as it is played thru the interface, but MIDI playback, which is done thru "Gs wavetable synth" is awful. I'm not sure if it is latency or what, but as notes get faster (or BPM higher) it sounds laggy. For those into music, specially metal, you might be aware what blast beats in drums are. Well, if I playback some blastbeats they sound choppy, I don't know how to explain this, but compared to Windows XP it's an insult.

This is an issue because I use Guitar Pro to write my music and this program plays it back in midi.

So, all in all, I was wondering if I could replace GS Wavetable Synth with another software synth. I've been googling for the past 3+ days and I couldn't find anything (at least not anything that works in x64)

Here's someone with the same problem and using Guitar Pro also: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1215-63-wavetable-problem

Listen to the file he uploaded. That's exactly how my midis sound

JazzSus said:

They sound same to me [wavetab in XPro and W7] I run three puters [2x W7 OS and one XPro SP3] The only what I have probs is wavetab latency. This should be solved somehow in W7 and that should be perfect. Than you dont need any SB to run FS2 as "native" sound bank to avoid wavetab latency [out of sync] with VSTi.
I just stop here I don't wanna hijack the thread. As I said I have no crackles on wavetabs. I'm having more than one sound card instaled on each of my 3 puters.

Click to expand...

The MS Wavetable is a "soft" synth, so the playback mechanism is all done in software and they give it a fairly good sized buffer to work in so there's always going to be latency.

I noticed it statrting to get sloppy with a busy MIDI file.

Ap

Dexterprog said:

Thanks for all the replies. Let me further explain. First of all, I have an external audio interface (Presonus Firebox). Sound in windows is excelent, no latency, cracks, whatever, as it is played thru the interface, but MIDI playback, which is done thru "Gs wavetable synth" is awful. I'm not sure if it is latency or what, but as notes get faster (or BPM higher) it sounds laggy. For those into music, specially metal, you might be aware what blast beats in drums are.

Click to expand...

Can you increase the audio buffer in the Presonus using it's control panel? If so, try a 1024 setting and see if that helps.

Do you have the Firebox as your default audio device?

Is the Presonus driver system compliant..? Does it show up as having enhancements (audio effects) like motherboard audio?

Ap

Yes, t is my default audio device. I can set the latency, but that's for ASIO, and it is compliant. No enhancements, as it is not the purpose of this interface.

I'm still sure it is a Windows problem as the same system plays midi perfectly (dual boot machine). Do you happen to know the name for the .sys file corresponding to the Microsoft GS wavetable synth? I'd like to try and replace it with the one from XP x64.

Have you listened to the clip in the link I posted? It sounds like it ****s up when there's fast notes, so I guess that the GS synth is laggy, maybe.

Dexterprog said:

Yes, t is my default audio device. I can set the latency, but that's for ASIO, and it is compliant. No enhancements, as it is not the purpose of this interface.

I'm still sure it is a Windows problem as the same system plays midi perfectly (dual boot machine). Do you happen to know the name for the .sys file corresponding to the Microsoft GS wavetable synth? I'd like to try and replace it with the one from XP x64.

Have you listened to the clip in the link I posted? It sounds like it ****s up when there's fast notes, so I guess that the GS synth is laggy, maybe.

Click to expand...

I understand the purpose of your interface (see my system specs).
But with some interface/driver combinations the ASIO buffer also changes the WDM audio buffer. It was just an idea to try.

There's a lot of other background processes running that aren't in WinXP, plus drivers for wireless, network adapters, video...etc are not as developed as they are on XP. It's possible for those to cause lagging. Updating the BIOS on my motherboard immediately lowered my DPC latency so that is an option to keep in mind. Also, nVidea graphics runs a couple of background processes that tend to be CPU hogs.

The file you're looking for is in the Windows/System32 directory. It's name is gm.dls. (DLS = Downloadable Sounds) I'm not sure but I think you can rename any gm based dls file to gm.dls and it will load, a good way to experiment with some different GM banks.

Ap

I don't think it is DPC latency as I had that issue before and I realized it was caused by overclocking. When I moved to Windows 7 my DPC latencies where even lower. Besides I don't have any conflicting devices (I disabled everything I don't need), plus it is not some sort of random latency (like how DPC latency spikes pike), but something related to bad midi playback behavior.

I tried different .dls but there was no change (in playback, of course the sounds changed). I even tried the one in XP x64 and it made no change at all, that's why I am looking to replace the driver with the one from XP, but I can't find the file name corresponding to the driver

Are you on W 7 x64 too? Maybe I can send you a .mid file and you can record it's play back in audio to let me see if this only happens to me

Sorry about the interface/effects thingy, I mean that my interface does not include effecs as a part of its specs

Well, I found this as an alternative to GS wavetable synth. It's a Timidity installer that DOES work on x64. Everything is in Japanese so I used google's translator:

Firs I got to this site: TiMidity++ windows synthesizer(TWSYNTH) Project Top Page - SourceForge.JP

I downloaded and installed that. That thing added a driver which I can use in Guitar pro (and I suppose in other programs).

Then I updated the content of the Timidity folder in Program Files with this: Google Traducir

That guy seems to have worked with Windows 7 x64 and updated Timidity's files.

It sounds similar to GS wavetable synth, with little differences

Dexterprog said:

Well, I found this as an alternative to GS wavetable synth. It's a Timidity installer that DOES work on x64. Everything is in Japanese so I used google's translator:

Firs I got to this site: TiMidity++ windows synthesizer(TWSYNTH) Project Top Page - SourceForge.JP

I downloaded and installed that. That thing added a driver which I can use in Guitar pro (and I suppose in other programs).

Then I updated the content of the Timidity folder in Program Files with this: Google Traducir

That guy seems to have worked with Windows 7 x64 and updated Timidity's files.

It sounds similar to GS wavetable synth, with little differences

Click to expand...

Nice work!! And this driver/MIDI synth combintion seems to work considerably better than the MS wavetable?

I would be interested in hearing a MIDI file that caused your system to previously glitch.

Ap

Aphelion said:

Dexterprog said:

Well, I found this as an alternative to GS wavetable synth. It's a Timidity installer that DOES work on x64. Everything is in Japanese so I used google's translator:

Firs I got to this site: TiMidity++ windows synthesizer(TWSYNTH) Project Top Page - SourceForge.JP

I downloaded and installed that. That thing added a driver which I can use in Guitar pro (and I suppose in other programs).

Then I updated the content of the Timidity folder in Program Files with this: Google Traducir

That guy seems to have worked with Windows 7 x64 and updated Timidity's files.

It sounds similar to GS wavetable synth, with little differences

Click to expand...

Nice work!! And this driver/MIDI synth combintion seems to work considerably better than the MS wavetable?

I would be interested in hearing a MIDI file that caused your system to previously glitch.

Ap

Click to expand...

It works almost exactly the same, except it has some things I dislike, but I can bare with that. For example, drums are panned on the listener's perspective and cymbals are a bit loud. Also I am not able to mute drum sounds anymore (as in when a drumer plays an open hat and then closes it with the pedal, you know), but that's no so terrible for composing

I wish I could record a sound clip of both drivers, but I don't know how to route what I'm listening to my DAW

I've do my USB to MIDI controller with pic 18F4550 and it was recognized under windows XP but under windows 7 didn't work, I find a solution in the web that work for me at:
telepicdata
Perhaps that could help