Hi All, Been trying to get my head around this issue and need help. Myself and an old Buddy have been using midi tracks for a lot of years. We both ran XP with the virtual canvas and audio was good. I upgraded my PC to a win 7 one and bought BIAB now I render all my stuff into MP3 on a tablet with hard copy's of the words and chords so I'm ok. My Buddy uses vanbasko with all the words in the midi files so he has no hard copy of words/chords when he gigs. Sadly his old PC died the new one is win 7. The old virtual canvas does not work on win 7 so the audio which is coming out of van basko is not the canvas sounds and pretty bad. He wants to still use van basko and see the words karaoke style so he wants to change back from Win7 to XP so the canvas will work. I don't think he should go back to XP but is there a way that he could get win 7 to generate the good audio like the canvas from the midi while still using van basko. Now I've managed to confuse myself, hope this makes sense. Regards. Bryan.
If you are using the Coyote WT DXi that comes with BIAB, then the sounds you get are just the stock MIDI sounds that come with Windows (Coyote WT just wraps the Microsoft Wavetable sounds as a DXi so at least you have something). You should look into a better GM sound module. PGMusic also sells the Coyote Forte, which has much better sounds than the Coyote WT. If you have an old Cakewalk Sonar or Music Maker license, you can get the Cakewalk TTS-1 DXi synth installed (but you can't buy it since Cakewalk went out of business). You could also use Synthfont VST with a good soundfont, and some folks use the Steinberg Halion Sonic in GM mode for pretty good Sounds. Those solutions would bring you closer to what you had with the Sound Canvas. Of course you can spend a lot more money to get more realistic sounds, as well.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
It's time for him to come into the modern world..... sound canvas is old. There are much better sounds out now. Samples are one example.
I still run XP but I do not use the default sound players..... I use synths with samples when I use midi.
Write the words and chords on paper or use a word processor. He could also search for a new player that will scroll the words karaoke style. When they mothball one thing, someone generally sees the opportunity and fills it with a new, hopefully better version of a program to do the same thing.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
I upgraded my PC to a win 7 one and bought BIAB now I render all my stuff into MP3 on a tablet with hard copy's of the words and chords so I'm ok.
What are you using for your midi sounds? Also you say you upgraded to Win 7. Going to Win 7 isn't an upgrade, Win 10 has been out for 3 years now, that's the upgrade. Microsoft is stopping support for Win 7 in about 14 months.
[Mac] OS X 10.8.5 or later/OS X 10.9/OS X 10.10 - Steinberg Cubase 8 Series (64bit Edition) - Steinberg Cubase 7 Series (64bit Edition) - MOTU Digital Performer 9 *Only AU Plug−in
EDIT: Coyote Forte DXi sounds better and it's less than half the price.
I use play along chords and lyrics with a high quality WAV rendering of my song.
There are several ways to do this.
1. You can use a CGD+Mp3 maker and player (such as the one from Power karaoke)
2. Use a program called Youtube movie maker that will make an MP4 file that contains the song and the scrolling chords and lyrics. You just need any program that can play a normal video file to use it. My whole Youtube channel is based on this. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL73jwH9WpDNR0DXMzBK4FMaZgzrXo15Bk
Sometimes, I'm hesitant to ask a question, more often than not I get to feel like I just got thumped on the nose. Most of my issues are solvable, it seems, if I could afford to throw money at them. Well this is South Africa and the money is rather weak and unfortunately and old guy just cannot set aside the budget for the real upgrades especially for luxuries. My PC came with Win 7 besides not having the budget to get all the updates, it works, it's not broken so no point in fixing it. Same as my 9 year old Toyota I'd love to have the latest model but I'll just have to stick with this one. I'm quite happy with the MP3 files my BIAB is rendering from the few midi files I have, with the standard Coyote. Just goes to show how the old ears are way past their sell by date. Most of the rest of my songs I just use those great styles and make up the backing that way before rendering to MP3. Point is I'm coping. I would like to help my Buddy to find a way that he could continue to use his free karaoke software to sing along with and get a better sounding audio from his midi files by adding a virtual synth to the win7. I'll keep trying, thanks for the replies. Take Care. Bryan.
Unfortunately, as TTS-1 is a DXi synth, it can't be loaded as a default Windows synth that you can just select as a MIDI port.
That being said, there are some options to try:
1. You certainly could use the Coolfont Virtual MIDISynth with a good GM Soundfont, and it's going to sound better that the standard Windows GM synth. It installs as a virtual hardware synth (so you select it as your default Windows synth in whatever application allows you to select it. Load whatever soundfont you want (I have several I can share) and it should do what you want, or...
2. If you really want to use TTS-1, it seems to me that Pipeline posted a link to a free utility that wraps a DXi synth as a VSTi (I can't remember the name of it right now). You could then (in theory) run that VSTi as a standalone synth using the free SAVIHost. Then by installing something like LoopBE as a virtual MIDI port, you can set your MIDI application to send to the LoopBE port and set the SAVHosted TTS-1 to receive from that LoopBE port. I imagine it would take just a few minutes to test. In theory, it should work. In fact, if I can find that "wrapper", I'll try to give it a try this evening after work.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
There is the freeware FFX-4 Direct-X Plug-in rack from VB-Audio software. It was published in 2008 but is still available for download from the developer's website. +++ VB-Audio FFX-4 +++
Here was I would suggest: 1. If he still has the MIDI files to dump them all into his computer, grt some good virtual instruments and create the backing tracks 2. Go online and find all the lyrics to every songs that he has as a midi file.
3.
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
Well, I tried the FFX-4 Direct-X Plug-in rack and unfortunately it didn't work. It didn't even see my TTS-1 DX plugin (but it did see both Coyote WT and Forte DXi, so I tried them instead). Unless I did something wrong, nothing seemed to get transmitted from PowerTracks (which I used to test it) over to the wrapped DXi via my LoopBE virtual MIDI port. Alas...
If I find another wrapper, I will try again, as it seems like in theory it should work (albeit probably with a little latency).
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
Is it possible your version of TTS-1 is 64 bit? The Cakewalk Command Center (CCC) automatically selects the same bit rate download as the computer operating system. You have to go into settings > options and place a checkmark for Verbose install to be asked if you want a 32 or 64 bit download.
I'm pretty sure it's 32-bit, since TTS-1 works fine in PowerTracks, Realband, and BIAB (they only recognize 32-bit DXi's and jbridge doesn't work with DXi's, only Vsti's).
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
Sounds like too much for me to get in to. If I recall correctly the old Roland VSC3 software (for 32 bit machines only) used to act as a hardware sound card and therefore take place as the default Windows midi synth. I was hoping there was a simple way to get the TTS-1 to do that. But, it's not all that important to me. Thanks for your efforts.
Sforzando with the Timbres of Heaven sounds work with my Win 7 machine and BIAB. Both free... I also wonder if forum member Mike Head's free XG download with Yamaha sounds would work for the OP?
You can run XP in Windows 7. I bought windows 7 for that reason as i have old programms which will not run in windows 7. Google for XP in windows7 for details and see if it works for your buddy.
Old school trick - Another option to get windows to sound different is to replace the gm.dls file in your Windows\system32\drivers folder. That's where windows itself gets the sounds. Editor/Translators like Vienna and ChickenSystems usually allow getting a font or other sound file to the DLS format.
Back in the day there weren't as many options as we have now.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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