Comprehensive Keyboard Troubleshooting for Windows 7/8
First of all, we are sorry you are having issues with your keyboard and Windows. These kinds of issues are rare (thankfully) but when it is happening to you, it can be very very frustrating, and it is really an issue between Microsoft and your keyboard manufacturer, with the real issue being Microsoft in our opinion. That alone does not help you, but let's see if we can't guide you to some things that have worked for other people.
Simple fix to try first.
Suggestion A
Windows is not too good at hot-plugging midi devices apparently, you need to have them plugged in and 'on' before launching software. One user plugged it in and turned the keyboard on, then opened the Devices window and it did connect and appeared as a USB device...which means that Keystudio 49 is class-compliant with Windows 8.
If you turn the keyboard on first and then open Piano Wizard, it should list it as a MIDI device and you should be able to use it to play MIDI notes.
If this does not work, we may have to try a few other things.
These suggestions below were taken from a Windows support forum, on Microsoft.com
We are sharing this with you as this is a common Windows issue with MIDI keyboards. We are not and cannot be "Microsoft tech support", but we are sharing this with you as a courtesy as this is possibly affecting your keyboard installation. Note that some of these these instructions were written for Windows XP and Vista, but it seems to work for Windows 7 and 8 as well.
Suggestion B
Vista MIDI Tool
http://www.benryves.com/products/vistamidi
"Fix" your default MIDI output device on Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Download (requires .NET 2.0).
What's this for?
It can be used to change the default MIDI output device. Several changes were to the sound subsystem between XP and Vista. While this is generally a good thing, some things are noticably missing, such as - at least, in my sound card's case - hardware MIDI support.
In fact, the MIDI support is still be there, but unlike on XP where the MIDI output device could be picked from the control panel Vista, 7 or 8 don't appear to provide such an option.
Does it work? Sort of.
Under previous versions of Windows, device 0 would be the MIDI mapper. Thus, a program could use MIDI device 0, and the mapper would pick which MIDI output device to send your output to.
Under Vista and later there is no MIDI mapper and so the software MIDI synth appears as device 0. Therefore an app using device 0 will still use the software synth. If it uses the default device (-1) it should end up using whichever device you selected using this tool.
How do you use it?
Double-click "Vista MIDI Fix.exe", pick your hardware MIDI device from the dropdown box, click OK.
You shouldn't need to run the software as an administrator; it works for me without any UAC prompting. Source is included. This is just a crude front-end to what boils down to changing a single registry setting.
Where's my hardware MIDI device? (Creative)
I had a Creative Audigy Value. Creative's Vista drivers did not (as of 2007) appear to support hardware MIDI - they may do by now, but I can no longer check this myself.
It might work if you run the drivers in XP SP2 compatibility mode, when I tried this I got some extra features that I didn't get when I installed them straight, but was still missing tools.
The best solution I found was to install the XP drivers from the original CD-ROM bundled with your sound card. There are some pros and cons to this method, not sure what applies to other cards (just the ones I've noted).
Pros
- Hardware MIDI support ("SoundFont bank manager").
- Speaker bass boost and redirection ("Creative Speaker Settings").
- Graphical equaliser.
- Ability to enable 96kHz/24-bit mode ("Device Control").
Cons
- CMSS doesn't work.
- Common Features
- EAX console.
Suggestion C
Generic USB MIDI Adaptors are supported under Windows 8 - for example a cheap generic one to control an old commodore 64 Keyboard, which shows up in Device manager as a "USB MIDI Cable" natively
What hasn't been supported since Windows 7 (officially, at least) is the 15 pin Joystick/MIDI port that used to be found on a lot of soundcards, which results in a lot of the online confusion to do with MIDI Support.
This could be a bit tricky to get to the bottom of, as these kind of adaptors are often unbranded, and use an unmarked chipset (If it is branded, the make and model could really help out)
I can offer a bit of general advice.
- If you have a Windows XP/7/Vista Machine to hand, plug it in, and check the cable is recognised only as a MIDI Device, and it isn't trying to do something clever, like register as an ASIO Soundcard as well as a MIDI Cable.
If you can grab the Hardware ID, Someone on the forums may be able to help:
- Open Device manager (Right click the start area, device manager)
- Right click the device, and click properties
- Select the Details Tab
- From the properties box, select hardware ID's and make a note of what appears in the Value Box
As a last resort, You could try forcing the device to be recognized as a MIDI Controller, but this may not work or cause stability problems - if it does, you'll need to Open Device manager, Right click the Device, select properties, Click the Drivers Tab, and select Uninstall (Advance)
With that warning out of the way:
- Open Device manager (Right click the start area, device manager)
- Right click the device, and click Update Device Driver
- Click Browse My Computer
- Click let me Pick From a list of devices on my computer
- Untick Show Compatible hardware
This will list all the hardware .inf files available. Looking at an out of the Box Windows 8 Installation, the two most likely ones to work are:
- Yamaha > Yamaha USB MIDI
- (Generic USB Audio) > USB Audio Device
You can try each one in turn, uninstalling the device between turns
Click Next, then Click Close.
The device should then show up with the name of the driver you used, hopefully without a yellow exclamation mark, ready for testing.
Suggestion D
Reinstalling the USB Audio Codec Drivers
Many USB audio devices use Window's built in USB Audio Codec drivers to communicate with the computer. The USB Audio Codec has been built in to Windows since Windows 98SE.
In very rare cases, this set of drivers may go missing, or become corrupt, causing USB audio devices to no longer function. However, the same symptoms can be caused by several much more common situations. It is important to rule out these more common causes, before trying to reinstall the drivers:
- Bad USB Ports: Have you tried all the ports on your computer?
- Bad USB Cable: Have you tried another cable? (you can borrow the cable from your printer)
- Conflicts: Have you tried the device with all other USB devices disconnected (except for your keyboard and mouse)
- Logitech Web Cameras: Have you ever had a Logitech Web Cam connected to this computer? (if so, call their TechSupport Department at 401.658.3131)
- Software Configuration: Have you installed the latest version of your recording software from the company's website, and carefully followed the setup instructions?
- Computer System: Have you installed all available updates for your computer's Operating System? On a PC, visit www.windowsupdate.com. On a Mac, select "Software Update" from the Apple Menu in the upper-left of the screen.
- Other System: Have you tried the device on a second computer? If the device does not function on more than one computer, and you've tried multiple USB ports and cables on both computers, do not try any of the suggestions below.
If you have ruled out all of the more common causes of USB Audio Device connectivity problems (listed above), download the following
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/49840836/Windows%20USB%20Audio%20Codec%20Files/Windows%207.zip
and read through the instructions, copied here below.
Perform the following:
Open the Device Manager:
Windows XP:
- Select the Start menu at the bottom-right of your screen.
- Choose Control Panel (or Settings, then ControlPanel on some computers).
- In the window that opens, double-click the control panel titled System. If there is no item titled System listed in the Control Panels window, click the link in the upper-left of the window titled Switch To Classic View. The System Control Panel should now be visible to the right. Double-click it to open the System Properties window.
- At the top of the System Properties window that opens,click the tab titled Hardware.
- Then click the button labeled Device Manager. You will be presented with a list of all the components installed on your computer.
Windows Vista:
- Select the Start menu at the bottom-right of your screen.
- Choose Control Panel.
- In the window that opens, double-click the control panel titled System. If there is no item titled System listed in the Control Panels window, click the link in the upper-left of the window titled Classic View. The System Control Panel should now be visible to the right. Double-click it to open the System Properties window.
- At the top of the ControlPanel>System window that opens, click the tab titled Hardware.
- Then in the upper-left of the window, under Tasks, click the link labeled Device manager. You will be presented with a list of all the components installed on your computer.
Uninstall the Drivers:
- Connect your USB Audio Device to your computer.
- Locate your device in the list.
- Normally, it will be listed as USB Audio Device in the Sound, video and game controllers section. However, if your device drivers didn't get installed properly (which is likely if you're reading this guide), the USB Audio Device might have the wrong name (i.e. Unknown Device) or be listed in the wrong section of the Device Manager (i.e. under Other Devices).
If you are unsure which one is the correct device, you can unplug the device's USB cable, and then take not of which item gets removed from the list. Then, reconnect the device and proceed. - Once you have located your device in the list,right-clickit,and choose Uninstall from the menu that pops up. A warning will appear, saying something like: Warning: You are about to uninstall this device from your system. Click OK.
- After the operation is complete,disconnect the AudioDevice from your computer.
- Restart your computer.
Reconfigure the Audio Device
- After your computer has been completely restarted, reconnect the USB Audio Device to your computer.
- Shortly after you reconnect the device, the Hardware Installation Wizard should open, allowing you to reconfigure the device.
- Essentially, to proceed through the installation's various prompts and questions, you'll want to click buttons with labels such as Next, OK, Continue, Automatic, and Allow.
- When the installation is finished, your audio device should work properly. If your device still does not function properly, repeat the two sections above titled Open the Device Manager and Uninstall the Drivers and then perform the following:
Reinstall the Drivers:
The USB Audio Codec Driver Files included with this document need to be copied to very specific locations on your computer.
Windows XP:
1. Copy the files below into the location on your computer titled C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers
• drmk.sys
• ks.sys
• portcls.sys
• stream.sys
• USBAUDIO.sys
2. Copy the files below into the location on your computer titled: C:\WINDOWS\system32
• ksproxy.ax
• ksuser.dll
• wdmaud.drv
3. Restart your computer
Windows Vista:
1. Copy the files below into the location on your computer titled: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers
• drmk.sys
• portcls.sys
• USBAUDIO.sys
2. Copy the files below into the location on your computer titled: C:\WINDOWS\system32
• SysFxUI.dll
• WMALFXGFXDSP .dll
3. Restart your computer
Reconfigure the Audio Device
- After your computer has been completely restarted, reconnect the USB Audio Device to your computer.
- Shortly after you reconnect the device, theHardware Installation Wizard should open, allowing you to reconfigure the device. Essentially, to proceed through the installation's various prompts and questions, you'll want to click buttons with labels such as Next, OK, Continue, Automatic, and Allow.
- When the installation is finished, your audio device should work properly.
We can point you to articles that show them how to run Windows 8 in XP or Windows 7 mode. Backwards compatibility and MIDI compliance, especially class compliant keyboards, is really on Microsoft, and therein lies M-Audio's and our frustrations.
One strategy may be to use a 32 bit or Windows XP "mode" or emulation option, Windows 7 has a mode for XP,
Just searching online I found this resource. There are many others since it seems to be a common problem with Windows 7 that they perhaps even anticipated and so left a back door solution.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee851564.aspx
We are not and cannot be Microsoft tech support to guide you through the setting up of these modes in Windows, let's just say they are there for a reason, Microsoft is always trying to move their customers up the upgrade path, but thousands of other programs are not rewritten in sync to jump to the next version, so they create these modes to try and accommodate their customers to their own self created incompatibilities.
Microsoft is a difficult platform to develop for, always moving with thousands of hardware and software companies writing to a moving specification designed to handle everyone and pleasing not so many. Our programmers are engaged in different projects right now so we are not sure when their schedule will allow them to look at these handful of issues, if they will be able to replicate the conditions and discover the problem, and then how long it will take to resolve.
Let us know if you are able to get to Win XP mode, and if it work with our 2.0 version. If the above does not resolve it, but you are able to move the system into these compatibility modes, we also can supply you with our classic 1.0 version free of charge. It is virtually identical to 2.0 but with lower resolution graphics. That may work as well, the compatibility modes are not perfect across all hardware and software configurations either.
We cannot even recommend you move to Windows 8, here is a link on the general challenges of the industry with Windows 8.
"In all likelihood, it’s probably a noxious concoction of all three circumstances."
-From the article below.
Hope this helps give you some resources as well as let you know where we stand with Windows 8. If it was a universal problem we would be overwhelmed, but we are not, it is perhaps once a month I get an inquiry or issue, if that. That said, it does not help that various online resources such as M-Audio state that they are not compatible as a way to get out of helping their customers. There is usually a lag before people themselves, the manufacturers, or Microsoft figures out a work around and solution, which some of the suggestions above are. Such is the world of "constant beta" of Windows releases. We will and do help the people as much as we can.
We hope this helps. Feel free to submit a ticket if these suggestions don't resolve an issue.
Music Wizard Support
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