Microsoft baking MIDI support into Windows

[N i g e l]

Yep = They are both required by musicians, who are a very small minority sector of the computing market.

Last century, windows had a limit to (approx ) 11 hardware MIDI devices. It never bothered me as I only had 2 synths; its a niche on a niche on a niche. That took ages to expand apon.

[Wonks]

Does ASIO have any connection with MIDI? It never occurred to me they were related?

Software-wise, not directly (though I presume most audio interfaces with MIDI ports will have the MIDI element bundled in with the driver package). But changing the audio buffer size doesn't affect the MIDI response time.

[James Perrett]

There has been a new announcement today - the production version of Windows MIDI Services is now available to Dev and Beta Insiders. More info about halfway down this page

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insid ... -channels/

They say that it will be generally released later this year.

[The Elf]

From what I've gleaned from one of the developers, this should finally clear up the Korg driver nonsense we've all had to endure for far too long.

Here's hoping...

[The Elf]

KB5074105 is the update bringing us native Windows MIDI Services (with support for MIDI 2.0).

On my system this update is showing as a 'Preview Update' and tells me it is available to download. I have no idea what 'Preview' implies, but I'm not touching it with a barge pole and chain mail gloves. I'll let it sort itself out. Supposedly it will begin installing itself over the next 30 days.

I'm optimistic about this development, but with the complexity of my system I'm wary. I have high hopes, but realistic expectations...

[OneWorld]

KB5074105 is the update bringing us native Windows MIDI Services (with support for MIDI 2.0).

On my system this update is showing as a 'Preview Update' and tells me it is available to download. I have no idea what 'Preview' implies, but I'm not touching it with a barge pole and chain mail gloves. I'll let it sort itself out. Supposedly it will begin installing itself over the next 30 days.

I'm optimistic about this development, but with the complexity of my system I'm wary. I have high hopes, but realistic expectations...

Having gained more confidence in Win11, I set my updates to automatic, but my confidence has yet again taken a knock. The latest update (26200.7705 the troublesome one) caused problems, to the extent MS have created a new section on their website specifically to deal with this latest update, there are so many fixes included that they have a topic, how to fix the fixes.

Where most problems were seen were with computers with NVIDIA cards, about half the world! but once that fix was dealt with, other issues appeared. SO yes best choice to keep the update away from your PC till they've sorted it all.

Putting "problems with 26200.7705" into a search will tell the whole story, somehow, in some cases system files get corrupted, which a SFC /SCANNOW now fixed, so an easy fixed, if that doesn't work increasingly convoluted fixes are suggested.

What many people seem to complain about is that this latest update seems to be be used as an opportunity to sprinkle Co-Pilot all over the place.

[Martin Walker]

I have high hopes, but realistic expectations...

Love this cautious approach Monsieur Elf

[The Elf]

There are already 'workarounds'.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows- ... rkarounds/

Unfortunately LoopMIDI is something I rely on, so this doesn't fill me with joy, or optimism. Happily, I've established that it is possible to uninstall the KB update.

[Folderol]

So they are maintaining {cough} standards - late to the party and still manage to screw up

[James Perrett]

So they are maintaining {cough} standards - late to the party and still manage to screw up

Midi has been part of Windows for 35 years - possibly before Linux V0.01 was released. We are mainly talking about Midi V2 support here.

[BillB]

There has been a new announcement today - the production version of Windows MIDI Services is now available to Dev and Beta Insiders. More info about halfway down this page
https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insid ... -channels/
They say that it will be generally released later this year.

It's definitely a what-could-possibly-go-wrong-? moment, but:

Windows MIDI Services
We’re excited to announce the highly anticipated production release of Windows MIDI Services, going to the Dev and Beta Windows Insider channels today, and then to retail Windows in the next few months. This is our update of MIDI on Windows with a focus on a great experience for musicians using MIDI 1.0 or MIDI 2.0.

New features in this release include:

• Full support for WinMM MIDI 1.0 and WinRT MIDI 1.0, complete with in-service translation, enabling any API to use any MIDI 1.0 or MIDI 2.0 device. This means your existing applications will use the new service and gain important new features like the ability for more than one app to open a MIDI port at the same time, custom port names, and more.

• New loopback and app-to-app MIDI support.

• Lots of performance improvements and bug fixes thanks to our vibrant community. Thank you!

Native multi-client MIDI ports is a big deal and only about 20+ years overdue. Custom port names would be great too.

I hope it all works...

[Folderol]

So they are maintaining {cough} standards - late to the party and still manage to screw up

Midi has been part of Windows for 35 years - possibly before Linux V0.01 was released. We are mainly talking about Midi V2 support here.

Ah! I didn't realise that was V2. Now I'll have to appologise to Microsoft.
{and wash my mouth out with soap and water afterwards}

[OneWorld]

So they are maintaining {cough} standards - late to the party and still manage to screw up

Midi has been part of Windows for 35 years - possibly before Linux V0.01 was released. We are mainly talking about Midi V2 support here.

Ah! I didn't realise that was V2. Now I'll have to appologise to Microsoft.
{and wash my mouth out with soap and water afterwards}

And I reckon you ought to buy us Windoids a pint too

[Philbo King]

I wonder if it is a multiclient driver (allowing 2 or more programs to receive external midi). Perhaps replace Bome & Midiox while they're at it. That would solve some problems I encountered in the past.

Edit: I guess it does

[junkmale]

Call me a wrinkly old pessimist, but I predict a launch blessed with chaos and hasty software patches. I'd love to be proved wrong.

Looking into my crystal ball, I suspect your prediction has a high chance of coming true

totally in agreement with you both - Win11 so far seems to have been a catalogue of avoidable disasters as all QA at Microsoft appears to have gone out of the window. Every monthly update seems to break something
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/19/ ... tdown_bug/

[The Elf]

I've given the new MIDI system a try. It's not been good. I'm trying out a few things, then it's an image recovery.

[Mike Craig]

I use 3 MOTU Express 128 Interfaces (USB).
Windows historically added a suffix to each one, (1),(2) and (3), which made configuring midi ports easy peasy
A couple of days ago I noticed that the (1),(2) and (3) suffixes had disappear, causing Cubase 15 to get itself in a bit of a tizzy when I opened a project. On checking the list of available MIDI ports, my MIDI interfaces were showing up with 3 sets of identical names, with 3 identical lists of midi ports. The interfaces still work as normal, but if I connect a synth to say, port 6 on device 3, I might have to select "Midi Express 128 - Port 6" three times within the list, before I get the right one.
I followed some troubleshooting guides (drivers/USB ports etc) and managed to change the "FriendlyName"s in the device manager so they have unique names within the device manager, but this made no change within windows applications.
I then tried to change the device names within my Windows applications (including Cubase 15). This works as long as the session is active, but the the new names reset the next time I restart Cubase. I tried a clean installation of Windows 11, but no change
I discussed this with a Technician from MOTU, who was really helpful.
The technician put together a 6 minute video, explaining my issue and also the planned/ongoing Windows updates in respect of improved MIDI implementation. While the MIDI related updates are exciting and will benefit many of us going forwards, my MIDI issues seem to related to initial updates. Hopefully there will be a hotfix for this in the future. I don't suppose anyone can suggest any work-arounds in the meantime? Many thanks, Mike

[OneWorld]

We always manage figure it out in the end. But suely, is there no-one at Microsoft who understands that the popularity of Windows is that it has become the de-facto operating system on the PC, and a significant amount of users use their computers in a working environment, we want to be left alone to get on with our work. A recent update of Windows has been so pernickety I believe there is a website devoted to fixing it, and even MS has acknowledged, it is a cwok of cwap. People on the whole, in a working environment especially, people like predictability, so they can sit down, switch on and get to work - doesn't anyone at MS understand that? Or do they know but in order to keep their job they keep coming up with some update that adds a new functionality that is for the main part superflous.

After using my PC for several years, I still get those irritating "We need to finish setting up your computer" No 'We' don't I am happy with how it is so go away and leave me alone, don't call me, I'll call you. Each time the confounded thing does an update, it changed my accessibility settings. OK I know how to restore them, but with one update, I lost access to NAS drives and it was a sod of a job getting them back again, and yes, all 'friendly names' have gone.

Many years ago I worked for a company that did a lot of installs, mostly at charities, and we had 'volume copies' that were fee of all the digital bric-a-brac Windows comes with these days. We used a install script, set it running and that was that, when updates came along, things stayed the same, it made the job so much easier.

[The Elf]

Microsoft are aware of the duplicate hardware problem. Hopefully a fix will be along soon. I've hit it with my pair of MicroMonsta 2s, which was easily solved by using the rename in the new MIDI Settings utility, but my pair of Seaboard 49s (Mk1 and Mk2) can't be fixed in the same way: I have no idea why, but re-naming them caused other ports to adopt the same name.

Like it, or not, we will have to move forward with this, so best check when it installs itself and be prepared to do some testing/troubleshooting.

[Mike Craig]

I use 3 MOTU Express 128 Interfaces (USB).
Windows historically added a suffix to each one, (1),(2) and (3), which made configuring midi ports easy peasy
A couple of days ago I noticed that the (1),(2) and (3) suffixes had disappear, causing Cubase 15 to get itself in a bit of a tizzy when I opened a project. On checking the list of available MIDI ports, my MIDI interfaces were showing up with 3 sets of identical names, with 3 identical lists of midi ports. The interfaces still work as normal, but if I connect a synth to say, port 6 on device 3, I might have to select "Midi Express 128 - Port 6" three times within the list, before I get the right one.
I followed some troubleshooting guides (drivers/USB ports etc) and managed to change the "FriendlyName"s in the device manager so they have unique names within the device manager, but this made no change within windows applications.
I then tried to change the device names within my Windows applications (including Cubase 15). This works as long as the session is active, but the the new names reset the next time I restart Cubase. I tried a clean installation of Windows 11, but no change
I discussed this with a Technician from MOTU, who was really helpful.
The technician put together a 6 minute video, explaining my issue and also the planned/ongoing Windows updates in respect of improved MIDI implementation. While the MIDI related updates are exciting and will benefit many of us going forwards, my MIDI issues seem to related to initial updates. Hopefully there will be a hotfix for this in the future. I don't suppose anyone can suggest any work-arounds in the meantime? Many thanks, Mike

Update: I think I have found a work-around. I found the following Utility: "Windows MIDI and Musician Settings PREVIEW," which seems to be a Microsoft Work in Progress. The downloadable file is called Windows.MIDI.Service.SDK.Runtime.and.Tools.
If you run the utility and select "MIDI devices and endpoints" it lists your connected MIDI devices. On clicking a device, you can click "personalize", which allows you to create labels for your devices and ports. Cubase and other software then adopts your newly created labels. So far so good

Maybe doesn't work for all hardware though, as mentioned by Elf above.

[The Elf]

As I mentioned above - BEWARE!!!

I also used the 'Personalize' option in the MIDI Settings utility, which worked fine for my MicroMonstas, but for my Seaboards it also renamed other ports, such as my Integra-7, and several others. That wreaked havoc in my system, and I had to spend time tracking it down and re-setting all the corrupted port names.

[The Elf]

On a friend's system, where the new MIDI stack has managed to install itself without him knowing, everything is working apart from his Korg Kronos. The Kronos shows up in Device Manager, but does not show in the MIDI Settings utility.

If anyone else has a Kronos and the new MIDI stack on their computer, I'd like to know how you get on. At the moment I can't find a solution, other than attaching the Kronos to a MIDI interface by DIN.

[ajay_m]

Well, this'll be interesting. My sequencer project which was stalled for the last couple of years, got revived a couple of weeks ago when I found a MIDI library 'multimidi' for the Pico Pi and Micropython. Until then I was stalled because when I created a MIDI host device on the Pico Pi, I could see it in Reaper but when I closed Reaper, it would hang, and not terminate. For some reason using multimidi, this seems to have worked, or it may be that the Micropython folks finally did something about the bug I raised at the time.

Either way I was gonna dust this project off but... now I guess I better check whether Microsoft's new MIDI stack introduces any fresh issues. Would be nice to get this back on the road again. It's a little Pico Pi based sequencer that uses a 3d printed case. There's a small OLED display and a rotary encoder, and then a 3d printed button overlay that sits on top of a cheap resistive touchscreen that in turn sits on two 8x8 RGB LED matrixes. This gives you a 16x8 matrix of buttons (plus 9 more underneath intended as transport control, mute/solo etc) each with its own RGB LED. It also has a micro sd card slot plus old-school MIDI out as well.

The hardware worked perfectly - it's a much simpler way of building large button matrixes then having a huge pile of switches not to mention the LEDs - and the touchscreen overlay is only a few quid from China as are the 8X8 LED matrixes.
[and if I can find a suitable larger touchscreen, I was thinking of replicating the Tenorion with a 16x16 matrix]. Having little 3d printed translucent buttons makes it possible to cram them in much closer and still reliably press one, compared to directly exposing the touchscreen.

But that MIDI issue stalled me since obviously without that, it's not much use. Idea was then to build at least a reasonably functional sequencer in Micropython and open source the whole thing. So... fingers crossed....

[Drew Stephenson]

Might any of this have anything to do with why my Korg Nanokontrol has stopped working?
It's showing up in my list of devices in Windows, but doesn't appear to showing up to anything that might recognise it as a midi device (Reaper is showing it as disconnected, MidiOx isn't showing it at all, Korg editor doesn't find it).
Unfortunately I can't pinpoint when it stopped working.

[The Elf]

Might any of this have anything to do with why my Korg Nanokontrol has stopped working?
It's showing up in my list of devices in Windows, but doesn't appear to showing up to anything that might recognise it as a midi device (Reaper is showing it as disconnected, MidiOx isn't showing it at all, Korg editor doesn't find it).
Unfortunately I can't pinpoint when it stopped working.

That's certainly consistent with the kind of problems you could see. Run the checker first, to see if you've been updated. If so, install the MIDI Settings utility.