Get a lower latency within the default MIDI Synthesizer: Microsoft SW Synth Tutorial! (For Free!)

[James_The_Composer]

I do not in any way want to discredit the original writer of this article, but to thank him (or her) I will re-write the wording of the article so that this is relisted on google.com.

Therefor, I encourage you to give credit to the man or woman who wrote the following page:

http://www.1manband.nl/microsoftsynth.htm

Microsoft SW Synth is the only available music synthesizer on most Windows XP and Vista machines. Using this guide and Windows Vista 64-bit I have reduced the latency of the default Windows SW Wavetable Synth from 200ms to about 45ms. It's not perfect, but for MIDI composers/musicians MIDI is now available to us by default for free, on any computer with the required (free) software set up and installed (no need to buy a sound card).

By using Direct Music Producer as a software synthesizer you connect it to any DAW or Sequencing software that you would like to use such as Cakewalk, Cubase, Band-in-a-Box or even Anvil Studio.

Get a copy of MIDI Yoke and the Microsoft Software Direct Music Producer.

MIDI Yoke is easy enough to find, but Microsoft will make you jump through hoops on their website to get DMP so I've provided a link for you here:

http://www.takutogame.com/images/DMP81.exe

First, install MIDI Yoke. This is not the type of software that you open up, it's just something that adds MIDI Ports to the Input/Output selection within your DAW or Sequencing Software.

If you don't trust the above link you could always go through the microsoft way.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=microsoft+direct+producer&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=microsoft+direct+producer&fp=Q9hKAq0-8-0

Now fire up Direct Music Producer.

1) Within the upper left you should to the right of Standard Stereo & Reverb, you should see a little MIDI-like icon or button that when hovered over will say "MIDI/Performance Options".

2) Within MIDI INput select "In From MIDI Yoke: 1 [Emulated]

3) Within MIDI Input Device select "In From MIDI Yoke: 1 [Emulated]

4) Check the Box that says "Echo MIDI In"

5) Adjust Latency from 100ms to 0ms

6) Set Number of Voice to 64. The reason you don't want 128 is that the latency will jot itself up. Yep, it really does take a lot of windows memory even for a computer with 5 Gigs of Ram to run a 2MB big Synthesizer with low latency.

[Dafydd]

I'm going to see if this reduces the latency for FamiTracker, which has bumped up to at least 150ms from almost nothing after I started using it in Vista instead of XP. Regardless if it has any effect, it might still make my Eee PC able to play back MIDI without stuttering.

EDIT: Interestingly, if I shut down the program and start it again it's bumped up to 100ms latency again. Any workaround?

I don't use MIDI a lot myself, and if I do, it's usually through ASIO anyway.

[Dhsu]

Sweet, thanks for this post!