Configuring Your sound card and MIDI Equipment

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When Composer runs for the first time after installation, it automatically detects the type of sound card that is installed on your computer. For most systems, you can immediately start playing MIDI files that you have opened. You should hear sound through the speakers connected to your sound card.

If you do not hear sound, then use the Quick MIDI Device Setup command in the Setup menu. Use it to test the playback of alternative MIDI playback devices on your system, and choose a device for which you do hear sound. If that does not work, then follow the advice in What To Do If You Do Not Hear Sound.

If your sound card is connected via a cable to a MIDI keyboard, then you should also be able to play at your keyboard and hear sound through the speakers connected to your sound card. If you do not, then follow the advice in What To Do If Recording Does Not Work.

If the MIDI playback and recording capabilities of your system are simple, Composer makes it very easy for you to set up your MIDI devices. See Procedures for Common MIDI Configuration Tasks. The topics in that section are:

B8Assigning Device Names That Make Better Sense to You
B8Changing the Default Playback Device
B8Installing a MIDI Cable Between Your sound card and Keyboard
B8Adding a New MIDI Keyboard to Your Configuration
B8Deciding Whether or Not Your Keyboard Should Directly Produce Sound

Composer has been carefully designed to avoid overwhelming music enthusiasts with many of the underlying technical details of MIDI. However, if you have a sophisticated MIDI studio, Composer provides a powerful, but intuitive MIDI Device Configuration Window, in which you can describe to Composer exactly how your MIDI studio is arranged. Common tasks for managing MIDI studios that are more complicated than a single sound card and keyboard are described in the section Procedures for Advanced MIDI Configuration Tasks, which includes these sub-topics:

B8Installing a Software Synthesizer
B8Anticipating the Delay on Some MIDI Output Devices
B8Configuring a New External MIDI Sound Module
B8Exchanging Device Descriptions With Other Computers and Users
B8How to Handle Devices Connected with MIDI Thru Cables
B8How to Save Effort If You Rearrange Your MIDI Equipment Often

The final section of this chapter provides a detailed guide to using all of the features in the MIDI Device Configuration Window. Again, if your music equipment consists of no more than a sound card and a keyboard, then you will find it easier to use the Quick MIDI Device Setup window. However, if you want to utilize the full performance capabilities of Composer on your computer, then these topics will be interest to you.

The topics in this chapter's final section, Using the MIDI Device Configuration Window, are:

B8Understanding the Details of the MIDI Device Configuration Window
B8Testing Playback and Recording Devices
B8Watching Device Activity While Playing a Song
B8Managing MIDI Ports
B8Managing MIDI Devices
B8Assigning Bank and Patch Names to a MIDI Device
B8Managing Alternative MIDI Device Configurations

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