NEWS
November 26th  2011
UPDATED  FAQ  SECTION
 More answers to frequently asked questions. There is more information about compatibility with add-on cards if your motherboard does not have a parallel port.
Read all about it here.
August 26th  2011
SIGNED  64  BIT  DRIVER  AVAILABLE  NOW
 Ok. Forget everything I said before about the 64 bit driver. The unthinkable has happened. I actually acquired a code-signing certificate!


 I found out that it is possible to get a code-signing certificate on personal title, as opposed to one issued to a company. So that is what I did. I am extremely happy to announce that as of now you can obtain a signed driver that you can officially run on the 64 bit version of Windows 7. Oh, and it also runs on Vista 64 bit but I suppose not many of you are using that.


 So if you have been wanting to make the move to 64 bit but were unwilling to go through the hassle of running in Test mode: this is your chance! Go to the order page and obtain your copy of the driver. Take your MIDI setup to the next level!
Also there is a demo version available that you can try before ordering. The demo version is also fully signed and can be installed on any 64 bit version of Windows. It has certain limitations built in but the core code is identical to the full version. If the demo works on your system, the full version will also work. Download the demo here.


 For those of you that already purchased the unsigned version of the 64 bit driver: you will receive an email shortly with an offer to have it replaced with the signed version free of charge.
November 29th  2010
64  BIT  DRIVER  HAS  FINALLY  ARRIVED
 After over three years of silence I am happy to announce the arrival of a 64 bit version of the driver. The target platform for this driver is Windows XP 64 bit. This needs some explanation. Why Windows XP when it is no longer supported by Microsoft? The short story is that it is possible to install the driver on Windows Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit, but this will require some actions on your side. Officially I will and cannot support those operating systems.


 Why these complications? Can't you make it easy for us for a change? Yeah yeah, I know. It's not nice. The root cause of this inconvenience lies in the fact that Microsoft has tightened its driver signing policy. All 64 bit operating systems, starting from Windows Vista, will no longer load unsigned drivers. For you, the end-user, there is no choice. You cannot set your own rules. Microsoft has declared that it will be so and you have no say in this.


 Effectively this makes it next to impossible for an independent developer like myself to release drivers to the public. In order to be able to sign drivers I will need a certificate from a Microsoft approved Certificate Authority. One example of such a Certificate Authority would be Verisign. A certificate will cost around 500 US dollar per year. If one wants to apply for a certificate, this can only done be under the name of a registered company. This requires registering a company name, which I cannot do because the contract I have with my current employer specifically states that I am not allowed to do so. So exit signing drivers with my own certificate. The investment is impossible to justify.


 So that's it? There's no way out? Well, there is a way out, but it's not a particularly nice one. Since developers need to test their drivers too there is a tiny hole in the fence. It is possible to run Windows in so called test mode. In this mode the signatures of drivers will not be verified when the driver is loaded. This means that a driver can be signed with any certificate, even if the certificate is not signed by some authority. When the operating system is running in this mode, it will show the text 'Test Mode' overlaying the desktop in the lower right corner. Other than this there is really no difference in terms of performance or functionality. The only important side-effect of running in test mode is that the security of your system is weakened. The signing policy applies to all the drivers in your system so also malicious drivers have a change of sneaking into your system. This is a risk you have to evaluate for yourself. Therefore I cannot officially support operating systems that enforce this strict driver signing policy.


 If you decide that the benefit of using the driver on Windows 7 outweighs the disadvantage of running in test mode, there exists a tool that makes the setup of such a system very smooth and simple. It is called Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider and can be found with a simple search on the Internet. This tool itself is perfectly legal. It doesn't do anything that is forbidden. The only catch is that you use it at your own risk. The best way to use the tool is applying it to the driver file before installation. The driver file can be found in the zip package you download after ordering the driver.


 Apart from all the hassle, there are some additional benefits if you decide to step over to the 64 bit side. During the development of the 64 bit driver I fixed some issues which ensure that this version of the driver is the most stable released. Also I finally gave in to the many requests to create a tool to configure the 8 Port MIDI matrix. As you know the original configuration tool had some issues which made it a nuisance to work with. Now I made a brand new version of it and I must say I'm quite pleased with the result. You can find a screenshot of this new tool on the order page here.


 All in all I wished it were simpler but unfortunately it is not. I am not calling the shots so please don't blame me. I have been hesitant to release the driver at all because of these obstacles. But in the end I figured I could make at least some people happy and that would make the effort worth while.
February 6th  2007
NEW  DRIVER  CONFIGURATION  TOOL
 There is a new driver update available. This does not change the driver files themselves, the driver version remains 2.14, but updates the driver configuration tool. It adds an option to tweak the parallel port communication speed. In some cases this might help to solve hardware incompatibility problems.


The driver update patch has version number 2.14b. This is to illustrate that the driver version is still 2.14. If you have purchased the driver after november 2006 you already have the new configuration tool and there is no need to download this patch.


The new driver setting is called 'latency'. The default value is 1 but you can increase it to 999 maximum. It is advisable not to set it too high. I recommend not to set it any higher than about 32. If you have no problems with the reliability of the parallel port communication than just leave the latency at it's default value.


You can find more information in the new 'Read Me' file that comes with the update. You can download the update here (only for registered users).
November 8th  2006
ANNUAL  REVISION  UPDATE  VERSION  2.14
 My credo is you have got to come up with something new at least once a year. Therefore it is time for a brand new version of the good old driver. It fixes a small, yet potentially painful problem.


Read more about it and download it here (only for registered users).
November 10th  2005
QUICK  UPDATE  FIX  VERSION  2.12
 Within a day after releasing version 2.11, I was contaced by a customer who told me he had still some problems with his Mackie Control Universal, even with the new version 2.11. I was fortunate enough to be able to try this out myself and I came to the conclusion that there was indeed still a problem.


 Of course I felt obliged to fix this as soon as possible so that is why there is now a version 2.12. I will not make the same mistake by starting to cheer too soon, but silently I am very positive that all issues have now been resolved.


Please convince yourself and download the new patch here (only for registered users).
November 9th  2005
RELEASED  NEW  VERSION  2.11
 The latest and the greatest. Download the patch now (only for registered users). This version finally solves all remaining system exclusive issues. If you had problems with previous versions, this update is for you.
Aug 17th  2005
UPDATED  FAQ  SECTION
 More answers to the age old questions.
July 3rd  2004
NEW  RELEASE  VERSION  2.9
 The best and most stable version of the driver is out now. You are advised to update to this version. Download the patch now (only for registered users).
March 17th  2004
BUG  FIX  RELEASE  
 A new bugfix release is out. Some users reported strange behaviour of the driver, sometimes leading to serious crashes (BSOD). Thanks to Claude Voit I was able to find the cause of these problems. It appeared that system exclusive messages of certain sizes would lead to data loss and memory corruption. Because of the relatively rare occurence of this problem it was missed in the test phase.

 On top of this I improved the handling of so-called system realtime messages and reduced the memory usage of the driver considerably.
January 06th  2004
BUG  FIX  RELEASE  
 Sometimes you want to do things too fast. The update I released a little more than a week ago appears to have an annoying problem. You may have encountered it if you have a keyboard that emits something that is called 'active sensing'. The updated driver does not handle active sensing well. It causes lost data.


 Fortunately it did not take me long to fix, only this time I wanted to test it thoroughly before releasing it. So here is the new version 2.6 of the 8 Port SE DirectMusic driver. It passed my stress test flawlessly. Grab the update patch here.
December 27th  2003
NEW  VERSION  DIRECTMUSIC  DRIVER  
 There is a new version of the DirectMusic driver out. Registered users can download a free update patch here.
October 18th  2003
INSTALLER  FOR  DEMO  DRIVER
 I added an installer program to the demo driver, making it a lot easier to install (and uninstall). I am removing part of the installation manual from the web-site. It's not needed anymore.
October 10th  2003
BUGFIX  FOR  DEMO  DRIVER
 I discovered a fairly serious bug in the demo driver when running on Windows XP. If you open an input when the driver is active, the system will freeze when it receives input after the time-limit has passed.
As I do my development on Windows 2000 and the bug does not occur on that OS, it managed to escape my attention all this time. I have put a new version of the demo up that fixes the problem.


 This bug applies only to the demo driver and happens only on Windows XP. The full version drivers don't suffer from it.
September 30th  2003
DIRECTMUSIC  DRIVER  RELEASED
 It has been announced in this same place but finally it is there.

The 8 Port SE DirectMusic Driver was released today. Registered users of the 8 Port SE WDM Driver received an email notifying them of the special upgrade offerings. If you are a registered user of the WDM driver and you did not receive the mailing, please contact me and I will send it to you.



 The DirectMusic driver will replace the WDM driver. The WDM driver will from now on only be available by special request. If for some reason you prefer the WDM driver to the DirectMusic driver you will still be able to order the WDM driver.



 The new DirectMusic driver is fully backwards compatible with the WDM driver. No functionality is lost, only new features are added. Technically speaking the DirectMusic driver is even still a WDM driver. To avoid confusion and to keep the old and the new driver apart I use these names to refer to them.
Features of the DirectMusic driver
  • Uses DirectMusic technology for faster hardware access
  • Multi-client capability
  • Easy renaming of individual inputs and outputs with PortNamer utility
  • New installer application makes installing and uninstalling the driver a breeze
  • Read more about DirectMusic and the driver here.
    What is an 8 Port SE?

     The 8 Port SE is a MIDI interface that connects to the parallel port of your PC. When it was released it came with a driver for Windows 95. This driver also works on Windows 98. There also exists an NT driver, released in 1998. Some people claim to have been able to get this driver to run on Windows XP. I tried this myself but it would not install on any computer I tried it on.



     Since the release of the NT driver, no new drivers have been released for this device. Until now.

    Why would you need a WDM driver?

     You need a WDM driver if you want to work with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. WDM stands for Windows Driver Model which is the standard for drivers for these operating systems.



     There are not many MIDI interfaces that connect to the parallel port for which WDM drivers have been developed. Most MIDI interfaces produced nowadays connect to your PC via USB. I personally think that USB in its present form is not particularily suited for connecting such realtime devices. The main reason lies in the WDM driver model itself. The WDM model is a layered model. Messages from and to a device have to pass through these layers. The more layers the slower the communication between device and system will be.



     A developer writing a device driver for a USB device will not write the various layers himself. Many of the layers in the communication are part of the operating system. The Windows operating system was never designed for real time operations. It was designed mainly for business applications. USB was designed for connecting printers and scanners and the like. A printer doesn't mind waiting for half a second. For a MIDI interface such a delay is disastrous.



     Interfacing through the parallel port is much more straightforward. The operating system provides for in-between layers but they can be easily bypassed. This way a driver can talk straight to the hardware and thus provide faster handling of MIDI data.