My M-Audio Audiophile 2496 stops obeying MIDI instructions

ulrichburke · Joined: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

Dear Anyone.

The prob. is that, apart from the WINDOWS Wavetable sounds, nothing wants to obey MIDI instructions.

My comp. runs at 1.8gig, it has 1gig RAM, 200 gig hard drive space free and an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard. Because I'm disabled I can't use a MIDI keyboard, I have to use a mouse and a notation package. I use Voyetra Music Maestro.

Now if I use the built-in Windows sounds, everything works fine. Ifi I link to anything else, I use MIDI-Yoke to link with, it's like a universal Reason Rewire really, everything stays on full velocity, full volume, full everything no matter what I set the MIDI instructions to. The basic MIDI signal's getting through fine, it's just none of the controller signals seem to be. And I don't know why.

I've tried MIDI Yoking to Virtual Piano, to Kontakt, to Reason. The problem never changes, though Reason does its best to disguise it. Everything in Reason sounds like it's being hit with sledgehammers! I can make the Reason sounds quieter or louder, but it's just a quiet recording of something being hit with a sledgehammer or a louder sledgehammer recording. The velocity never changes, nor does the attack. Virtual Piano's the worst - nothing changes at all, ever, no matter what settings I use in Voyetra Music Maestro. Everything stays on full max. But if I play something in Maestro, pull up the M-Audio Mixer Panel and slide the M-Audio sliders about, nothing changes there either. It's like the soundcard doesn't want to even obey its own sliders, let alone messages it's getting from anything else. But if I play an MP3 and move the soundcard sliders, the sound will then change fine, just like it's supposed to. Ditto with CD tracks/DVDs, or MIDI tracks played with Windows Media Player. The soundcard sliders work fine then. It's just when I'm sending MIDI commands via Voyetra (or any notation package) MIDI Yoke and Virtual Piano etc. that I have this non-obeyance prob.

Please, this prob's been holding me back for many months now. Anybody have any ideas, no matter how vague, as to why nothing seems to want to obey MIDI commands, except for the built in WINDOWS sounds, they obey everything, they're just bad quality sounds.

All ideas gratefully received and tried out.

Yours hopefully

Chris.

Brien · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:17 am Post subject:

Hey Chris,

You read the manual and covered this issue with it?

Have you updated the driver for this card? I'm thinking your running XP or Vista and may need to do this, if you have not done so already.

Audio played by this or any card will be control able by your control panel sliders. MIDI is not an audio sound but is an series of electronic pulses that makes something else MAKE the sound at whatever velocity and for whatever duration...see?

ulrichburke · Joined: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

Dear Brian, or whoever reads this.

Yeah, I've got Windows XP, wouldn't touch Vista with a gun to my head.

Firstly I KNOW MIDI isn't sounds, it's instructions to make sounds. As the instructions I'm giving are, for instance, 'attack 40, volume 75', why isn't that reaching the sounds? Why is everything being read as 'full-on 127, and if there were higher numbers available we'd use those, too!'

Secondly, and I'm prepared to be corrected in this (as in everything else, I'm only a newbie!) the chain of events is this, isn't it? Instructions (MIDI) hit sound package. Sound package takes chosen sound, applies the attack/volume/whatever and bungs it out to the sound card, which bungs it out to the speakers. So what hits the soundcard is a sound with the instructions already applied to it. Am I right so far?

If I am, then surely from the moment the sound hits the sound card, the controllers on the soundcard's personal controller window should work just like the knobs on your standalone hi-fi - turning the sound up and down. I mean, if you think of a CD on your hi-fi, it's the same thing. A sound with the controllers (people playing instruments, the controllers are the people) already applied is sent to the speakers. Doesn't matter how hard they're whacking their instruments, the volume control will still turn the CD volume up or down. Surely it's the same with the soundcard. Irrespective of whether you've selected Volume 50, Velocity 30 or Volume 100, Velocity 127, the volume knob (controller slider on soundcard window) should turn the sound it's getting up and down just as though you were using Windows Media Player.

Except it isn't. Nothing happens at all. Unless I'm playing a MIDI file directly in Windows Media Player, in which case the volume controls work like a dream. Which bears out my point in the above paragraph - the MIDI signals from the downloaded file are being sent to the WINDOW Wavetable Synth, they're telling the Wavetable how loud to play the sounds, but you can still turn the music up and down on Windows Media Player, which tells me it's the SOUNDS that are reaching the soundcard, not the MIDI instructions per se.

When you're using MIDI anywhere else in my blighted-and-benighted system, even the main volume sliders won't play ball. Nothing plays ball. Everything just stays stuck on full blast. That's with Reason, Kontakt, Sampletank and Virtual Piano, which I downloaded in desperation! Right now, all I can write music on is the built-in Windows sounds and even they don't play ball sometimes. I've had them refusing to obey MIDI and then you have to restart Windows, copy all your notation files into a new instance of Voyetra Music Write, change all the channel numbers. check for any unwanted and self-installed sound changes.....

The second so-called sound engineer won't even come back again for a second try! He failed dismally on the first one, his car broke down (most conveniently) on the day of the second visit and I haven't heard from him since. It's a nice, fast computer. I can't believe there isn't an answer to this, but it's been killing me for years now. The first sound engineer had 3 tries, the last one was a freebie because he couldn't believe he couldn't make things work, and he battled for about 3 hours before he gave up and disappeared from the planet. I don't know what he tried or didn't try, I'm afraid - it was all vastly beyond me.

The three tries were 2 tries on my old computer and soundcard, a Soundblaster Live 5.1, and one try on the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. Both have identical problems with MIDI instructions. Exactly the same. They use their own sounds/Windows sounds fine, sound packages, everything 127. (I know the Audiophile doesn't have any built-in sounds, but the ones on the Soundblaster actually weren't too bad - I had 2 Hits with those sounds! I had Windows 98 then, there's a lovely trick way to make bad sounds sound really good in 98 that doesn't work in XP! Shame, that.)

What the heck's going on!?!

Yours sadly - I really do wanna write music on good sounds, whether or not it's bad music -

Chris.

Brien · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 2:50 am Post subject:

Chris,

I try to be fair and I don' expect a lot of bs for my time.

You did not answer this question: Have you updated the driver for this card?

All the huffin' and puffin' you did serves no useful purpose. I am not interested in those that came before me and under what guise they assisted you. Fact is a fast computer doesn't mean squat.

quote: The three tries were 2 tries on my old computer and soundcard, a Soundblaster Live 5.1, and one try on the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. Both have identical problems with MIDI instructions. Exactly the same. /quote

Not the machine.

quote: They use their own sounds/Windows sounds fine, sound packages, everything 127. (I know the Audiophile doesn't have any built-in sounds, but the ones on the Soundblaster actually weren't too bad - I had 2 Hits with those sounds! /quote

You quit trying to impress with the bs and lets try to fix this.

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