Brand New to MIDI

[Mortiz1965]

Hi,

My name is Mike and I am brand new to MIDI and forums, so please keep that in mind.

I just got mine the other day in the mail and I was so excited to play with my new "toy" I just plugged into my PC laptop and that's when excitement turned into disappointment-all the instruments sounded the same. Then, a few days later, when I came back to it, I found out I had to download a MIDI player (sforzando). I'm such a dummy. I was using the configuration tool ONLY.

Now that I have that somewhat under control, I was playing with it this morning (and having fun) I left to go have Easter Lunch with my family and when I came back to play around some more, I didn't get any sounds. I was in sforzando and went to tools-->preferences--> and noticed Warbl wasn't checked. I checked it and got a message that said MIDI device is currently unavailable. Somehow, I fixed it. Then, I went to play it and it worked only one time. I unplugged the Warbl and restarted my computer and plugged the Warble back in. I heard the "ding" when I plugged it in but the message about the firmware says its not available and when I click to yellow "connect Warbl" nothing happens.

Now, I'm just frustrated. What am I doing wrong and how do I "fix" this?

Thx
Mike

[Mortiz1965]

Update

Now, I go back and my firmware is up-to-date (everything is fine) so I thought and now I am back to all the instruments sounding the same.
BUT, whenI use my mouse on the piano keys (still in sforzando), I get ALL the instruments.

HELP!!!!

[gonzoB]

Hi Mike

Have you got the config tool still running while you're trying to use sforzando? If so, you need to close it so it doesn't grab the Warbl instead of sforzando.

If in doubt, shut down, reboot, load sforzando (only) and plug in the Warbl. It should then be available.

Gonzo

[Mortiz1965]

Gonza,

thx,

I'll try it today

[admin]

Hi Mike,

I received your email but I'm going to reply here too in case others have similar questions-- the Windows issue that GonzoB mentioned above is a very common question. Windows will normally only allow a MIDI controller (WARBL) to connect to one MIDI app at a time, so it can't be connected to both the Configuration Tool and SForzando simultaneously, like it can on iOS, Mac, etc, So, you have to close one app and possibly unplug the WARBL before opening the other app.

To make sure I understand, when you click a piano key in SForzando, it sounds like it's playing multiple different instruments? I don't think I've run into that before. Which SoundFont are you using? If you're using the WARBL SoundFont, I believe it should list one instrument in the SoundFont (for example "001_Tin_whistle" in the top left, and should only play sound from that instrument.

[Mortiz1965]

Thank you both of you.