The Virtual MIDI Router from Sony acts like a virtual MIDI cable. It allows you to route MIDI inputs and outputs as if you had real hardware MIDI ports with a MIDI cable between them. ACID Pro, Vegas Pro, and other MIDI applications will think these ports are real MIDI interfaces and allow you to assign other software like the Bome Mouse Keyboard to an input just like it was a real hardware MIDI keyboard with a MIDI cable attached. It’s a very handy device so lets see how to install it.
Software Needed for this tutorial can be downloaded from the Sony Creative Software Download Utilities web site:
The instructions for the Virtual MIDI Router for Windows NT and Windows 2000 are included in the download package from Sony. This tutorial is for people who are running Windows XP which is not covered in Sony’s instructions:
- Download the Virtual MIDI Router from the Sony website and expand the ZIP file to reveal the WinNT folder. You will need to find this later in Step 10 when we install the driver.
- Go to: Start > Control Panel and double-click on Add Hardware. (Note: you must be in Classic View to see the icons. Category View does not have this option)
- This brings up the Add Hardware Wizard. Click the Next button to begin.
- Select Yes, I have already connected the hardware. Press the Next button to continue.
- Scroll to the bottom of the list and Select Add a new hardware device and press Next.
- Select Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced) and press Next.
- Scroll down the list and Select Sound, video and game controllers and then press Next.
- Select Have Disk… and press Next.
- Press the Browse button
- Navigate to the WinNT folder you unzipped in Step 1 and select the OEMSETUP.INF file. Press the Open button to continue.
- Press the OK button.
- Windows will complain that this driver has not passed their rigorous testing for software. (yea right!) Press Continue Anyway.
- If everything went right, it will have correctly found the Sonic Foundry Virtual MIDI Router (x86). Press Next to continue.
- Press Next to confirm that you want to install the Sonic Foundry Virtual MIDI Router (x86)
- Once again Windows feels compelled to warn you about unverified drivers. Once again well tell Windows that we know what we are doing and press Continue Anyway.
- At the Configuration dialog you get to select between 1 to 4 virtual MIDI ports. You only need one for this tutorial but feel free to select more. When you are finished selecting the number of ports, press OK to continue.
- Congratulations. You have successfully installed the Virtual MIDI Router. Press Finish to claim the rewards of your labor.
Oh yea, one last thing. Windows isn’t as robust as a “real” operating system like Unix so you have to reboot every time you make a change to the system. Maybe someday Linux will take over the desktop and we will never have to reboot our computers again. Until that day, Press OK and go get a cup of coffee. 😉
That’s it, you’re done.
Happy Recording,
Johnny “Roy” Rofrano
installation – bullshit,
Where I can find router?
I’ve updated the link in the tutorial. The router can be downloaded from: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/utilities
How do you get rid of the TBIA “The data is invalid.” error?
I got this with a different NT MIDI router too, one associated with Hubi’s loopback.
I’ve never seen this error myself but a quick Google search shows that lots of people are having it and it seems to be from an outdated driver issue. There was some information on M-Audio’s site on how to resolve it with their drivers if you think that might be causing the problem. These MIDI Routers were all created for NT/XP and I’m surprised they still work on Windows Vista/7/8. Sorry I can’t provide more help but as I said, I’ve never seen this error myself. Good luck.