John's Midi File Choral Music site
Playing Midi Files under Windows 8
Midi Files are a set of instructions that tell a device - such as a computer's soundcard - that is Midi compatible (that knows about the Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol) what to do to provide a representation of a piece of music.
Most Computer Operating System software, such as the various flavours of Windows, includes a Player that can accept Midi instructions; the Windows one is called "Media Player" (it will usually be found in Start|Programs|Accessories|Entertainment), and it can do all sorts of other exciting things as well as play Midi Files. Windows 8, however, appears to be horribly different.
The following, provided by my Correspondent Mike Stone (who uses MidiPlay to play back Midi Files) - and at the moment I take no responsibility for it at all (apart from anything else, I do not have a Windows 8 machine, and so cannot check it out) - explains what is going on, and one way to do something about it.
1. Firstly, read ‘What happened to MIDI Mapper on Windows 8’ at coolsoft.altervista. Briefly, it seems that, though Media Player and Midi Mapper still exist in Windows 8, Microsoft has removed easy access to the latter, which means that choosing to play Midi Files has become difficult if not impossible.
What to do? Go back to coolsoft.altervista, and - and the following instructions and comments refer to the Coolsoft.Altervista page - read on.
2. In the ‘Navigation’ pane on the left, click on ‘VirtualMIDISynth’.Note a Menu Bar just under the heading ‘VirtualMIDISynth’
3. Click on ‘What now?’ in the Menu Bar and note the instructions:
• Download VirtualMIDISynth following the link you find at the bottom of this page and install it (you need administrative privileges)
• Download a SoundFont (you'll find a list of free high quality files below) and add it to VirtualMIDISynth
• Run your favourite MIDI application and configure it to use VirtualMIDISynth or, better, set VirtualMIDISynt as your default MIDI Out device (see screenshot below)
• Donate to Coolsoft - oops, this step was not mandatory, anyway... thanks for doing it!
4. Click on ‘Download’ in the Menu Bar and download the latest version of VirtualMIDISynth (ideally into your Downloads folder)
5. Click on ‘SoundFonts’ in the Menu Bar. Here, as it explains, you will download some SoundFonts. Some of these, including the one I chose, come in a compressed format and you will need a decompressor – so click on the link to decompressors http://woolyss.com/chipmusic-soundfonts.php#compressors
6. This takes you to a Woolyss web page where you will see the heading ‘Soundfont compressors/decompressors’. Click on the little blue house symbol by ‘SfArk’ and download the program to your Downloads folder
7. Now go back to the VirtualMIDISynth page. Click on the ‘FLUIDR3_GM’ soundfont which takes you to the SynthFont web page. Click on ‘Chaos Bank V20’ and save the file Chaos_V20.sfArk to your Downloads folder
8. Open the sfArk SoundFont Compression program that you downloaded in 5 above. Click on ‘File – Open’ and select the Chaos_V20.sfArk file that you downloaded in 6 above. Click on the file name Chaos_V20.sfArk (that you now see under the heading ‘Selected Files’) to highlight it, then click the red ‘Start’ button. This will produce a decompressed file called Chaos_V20.sf2 in your Downloads folder
9. Open Midiplay and open a midi file.
10. Click on ‘Play’ and you will get a window.
11. Click on ‘OK’ and you get another window.
12. Click on the green ‘+’ button and select the Chaos_V20.sf2 file (that you created in 8 above) from your Downloads folder. You will now see the Chaos_V20.sf2 file in the ‘Soundfonts chain’ in the above window. Click on ‘Apply’
13. You will see a window.
14. Click on ‘OK’
15. Close Midiplay. Re-open Midiplay. Open your midi file. Click on ‘Play’. It should now work!
16. You will also note that if you select ‘Output Devices’ from the Midiplay menu bar and click on ‘Select Output Device’ you are able to choose between ‘Microsoft MIDI Mapper’ and ‘CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth’. It doesn’t seem to matter which you choose – they both seem to work.
17. Also, you will find that Windows Media Player now plays midi files!
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Last updated by John on 20/Mar/14