Alesis IO 26 won't play MIDI sounds

[kart672]

Hi,

I have a Dell laptop with Windows XP Professional SP3.
My Alesis IO 26, which is running the latest drivers and firmware won't play back midi files. No matter whether I configure it to be the standard device for everything within windows, I only can play midi files back via my internal laptop sound device. In fact when I deactivate the internal sound device, the Windows GS Wavetable SW Synth disappears, and the only drivers that are left are the "Microsoft Midi Mapper" and the "Alesis Firewire Midi" drivers. Both of them just put the signal to the MIDI-Out port, so again I cannot hear anything through the audio-out of my Alesis.
I need to run band in a box, so this functionality just should work.

Can you help me with this matter?

 

[oretez]

there is no 'sound engine' in the IO26, it is essentially merely a midi I/O device, passing MIDI Data. MIDI has not 'sound' by itself it is merely control data that a sound engine (or light board) interprets i.e. note on note off, note number, volume, pan, etc.

when you disable the GS synth engine there is, apparently, nothing set up to interpret MIDI data passed by the IO26, thus nothing to return

additionally you hear sound you need to attach audio out of the sound engine to an audio in on the IO26

 

[kart672]

Hey,

oh yes the IO26 is indeed a recording/sound producing/midi device.
Of course I can use it as a sound producing device, even when I disable my internal soundcard.

At DXdiag.exe I can test the interpretation of midi sounds, and it works even on the Alesis device, but unfortunately the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth seems to be linked to my internal card, so each time I disable my internal card, the driver disappears.

Until now I have not found the solution for that.

 

[oretez]

OK believe what you want

without some type of synth, tone generator (MIDI compatible) you are not going to get sound from MIDI data

the Alesis IO26 lacks any type of synth tone generator


when you disable the GS wavetable unless you have another synth tone generator you disable the ability of the system to interpret MIDI note data as audio

so yes, disable the driver and disable sound derived from MIDI but there is no way to fix this via the IO26, it lacks the sound engine to interpret MIDI data as audio

 

[kart672]

Ah, now I think I understood what you mean.

The Alesis in fact has no hardware tone generator, that might consist of wavetable sounds for example.

The only thing that I want is that the existing software synths are routed to the audio output of the Alesis, which is possible (I tested it with DXdiag.exe). But somehow the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth is linked to my internal device only and disappears, when the internal card is disabled.

On an M-Audio Firewire Solo device the whole thing works perfectly.

On the Alesis I only get some VST-Instruments to work.