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When Composer runs for the first time after installation, the default Notation Software Synth allows you to immediately start playing MIDI files that you have opened. You should hear sound through the speakers connected to your sound card.

If you do not hear sound, then use the Quick MIDI Device Setup command in the Setup menu. Use it to test the playback of alternative MIDI playback devices on your system, and choose a device for which you do hear sound. If that does not work, then follow the advice in What To Do If You Do Not Hear Sound.

If your sound card is connected via a cable to a MIDI keyboard, then you should also be able to play at your keyboard and hear sound through the speakers connected to your sound card. If you do not, then follow the advice in What To Do If Recording Does Not Work.

If the MIDI playback and recording capabilities of your system are simple, Composer makes it very easy for you to set up your MIDI devices. See Procedures for Common MIDI Configuration Tasks. The topics in that section are:

▪Assigning Device Names That Make Better Sense to You

Composer has been carefully designed to avoid overwhelming music enthusiasts with many of the underlying technical details of MIDI. However, if you have a sophisticated MIDI studio, Composer provides a powerful, but intuitive MIDI Device Configuration Window, in which you can describe to Composer exactly how your MIDI studio is arranged. Common tasks for managing MIDI studios that are more complicated than a single sound card and keyboard are described in the section Procedures for Advanced MIDI Configuration Tasks, which includes these sub-topics:

The final section of this chapter provides a detailed guide to using all of the features in the MIDI Device Configuration Window. Again, if your music equipment consists of no more than a sound card and a keyboard, then you will find it easier to use the Quick MIDI Device Setup window. However, if you want to utilize the full performance capabilities of Composer on your computer, then these topics will be of interest to you.

The topics in this chapter's final section, Using the MIDI Device Configuration Window, are:

▪Configuring MIDI Devices that are in one location but not another (eg. in your studio but not your performance venue)

 

Please note that the release of Version 5 of Notation Composer made it necessary to change the format of the older MIDI Device Configuration files (MidiDev.cfg) to a new paradigm.  The configuration "master file" is now C:\Users\Public\Documents\Notation_5\Composer_5\MidiDev.cf3  and contains all configurations that you set up.  You can use Setup -> MIDI Devices Configuration -> Config -> Save/Backup to backup this master configuration file.

If you are installing Notation Composer after having used a previous version, you will need to reimport any INS (Cakewalk filetype) device descriptions that you may have had previously.  

 

Please see the topic Managing Alternative MIDI Device Configurations for details.