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General MIDI with Toshiba Libretto

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fatal3rror

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Sep 24, 2021
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My end goal is to control my laptop's OPL3 soundchip to make general MIDI sounds in Cakewalk (or other comparable tool) via midi input from a keyboard/DAW. I am running Windows 98 on a Toshiba Libretto 110CT with 64MB RAM.

I can successfully map MIDI input to these general MIDI instruments, however, issues arise when I try to play multiple instruments at the same time (for example, both keys and pads).

For some reason, I can only play a single general MIDI instrument (the most recent one selected) and all MIDI input channels are played using this instrument. Ideally I'd be able to use all 16 MIDI channels independently.

Does anyone know how to achieve this using Cakewalk or other comparable Windows 9X software?
 
Well, take a look at the MIDI Mapper settings in Windows, for starters. Back before they banished it from Win7+, you could set it up pretty much any which way you pleased, so there are a lot of possible wrong ways to have things redirected. Also, what are you using as a controller? If it's a keyboard, are you sure it's outputting on more than one channel? Have you tried, say, using a MIDI player on another machine outputting to the laptop's MIDI In?
 
Last edited:
commodorejohn said:
Well, take a look at the MIDI Mapper settings in Windows, for starters. Back before they banished it from Win7+, you could set it up pretty much any which way you pleased, so there are a lot of possible wrong ways to have things redirected. Also, what are you using as a controller? If it's a keyboard, are you sure it's outputting on more than one channel? Have you tried, say, using a MIDI player on another machine outputting to the laptop's MIDI In?
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I'll take a look at the MIDI Mapper settings -- I was unaware there was something like that built into Windows.

I've got a USB MIDI interface (MIDIMan 1x1) and have been sending MIDI signals to it from my DAW (reaper) on a modern computer. I've got a keyboard connected to the modern computer that I can route via the DAW to the Libretto if I want to.

I've set the input to be from separate MIDI channels but it unfortunately does not work -- instead taking all channels and playing all MIDI channels as the instrument of the last selected track instead of what has been assigned (using Cakewalk 9).

I'm sure that I'm outputting on more than one channel but for some reason its not being received properly.

Any further guidance would be appreciated!
 
Are you familiar with any other DAWs at all?
You could try Fruityloops 1.76 or even Ableton Live 4, for a more "modern" workflow.
But your computer is quite slow, not sure how well those will run. I remember struggling on FL with a Pentium 133.
 
I not only found a solution but it turns out even better than I could have imagined!

I'm posting here just in case if anyone else ends up in a similar situation.

Although this post begins by stating that I'd be happy with the default Windows General MIDI sounds, ideally I'd be able to modify the parameters of the OPL3 chip to have custom sounds that would be triggered via MIDI. I wanted to use AdlibTrackerII but realized that it wouldn't be able to see my USB MIDI interface as its DOS software. I had settled on the idea of using the cheesy Windows MIDI sounds but was having the above mentioned issues in Cakewalk.

While looking into alternatives, I found out about MIDI-Ox. This software allows you to route any MIDI input to any other MIDI device. Using this software allowed me to route my MIDI-in directly to the Yamaha FM synthesizer and use multiple MIDI channels at once to play the default Windows General MIDI sounds.

While I was poking around the MIDI-ox website, I then discovered that the developers have a set of additional MIDI tools!
One notable file featured within this collection is FMSYNTH.ZIP which contains an alternate sound card driver compatible with OPL2 and OPL3 sound cards. This driver allows you to, in real time, swap out the sound banks assigned to the sound card allowing you to use custom sounds if you route MIDI input towards the FMSYNTH device!

The linked MIDI tools page also includes some sample sound bank files (IBK.ZIP) and a few programs that allow you to edit these Soundblaster soundbank files (in IBK format). These IBK files can also be edited on a modern system using OPL3-BankEditor.

Thanks for all the suggestions and assistance folks!
 
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