setting up instrument sound names for MIDI keyboard

Jim and Jaap,

Thanks, Jaap, for offering Jim some tips on setting up his MIDI devices in Composer.

I'm afraid that I introduced some confusion in the second post in this thread. The example of connecting a Yamaha Tyros through a USB MidiSport 1x1 is incorrect. The Yamaha Tyros has a USB cable that goes directly to the computer. The MidiSport 1x1 or 2x2 or NxM has MIDI female connectors to which you connect external MIDI devices via MIDI cables, not USB cables; the MidiSport connects to the computer via a USB cable.

In the example of the MidiSport 1x1, I should have used a keyboard that has a MIDI cable, not USB cable.

Jim, I happen to use a MidiSport 2x2, and it works well with XP SP2 and Composer. This sounds like a shoe salesman telling you that he bought that same pair of shoes himself, doesn't it? I suggest that you re-install the MidiSport driver. If that doesn't work, visit http://www.m-audio.com/ to see if they have any information on the problem.

Jaap, the MIDI Device Configuration window layout you have recommended is most appropriate for the case of the Yamaha Tyros, which has its own driver. The MIDI Device Configuration window layout that Composer currently offers is most appropriate for the case of a MidiSport USB hub, one more external devices are indirectly connected to the computer via the MidiSport. From the perspective of Windows, the MidiSport and Yamaha Tyros are both "MIDI ports". A port has a MIDI driver. The difference in these two cases is that the Yamaha Tryos is a real music instrument; whereas the MidiSport is only a hub between the real music instrument(s) and the computer.

The problem I've had in designing the user interface of the MIDI Device Configuration window is providing a uniform way to represent both cases described above. The current design is biased towards the somewhat more complex MidiSport case.

Cheers
-- Mark