After I send a few songs to the keyboard the sounds get all wonky and I have to turn the keyboard off and back on to get it corrected. Any idea why this happens and what I can do to fix it?
You could start by telling us what you actually mean by 'send a few songs to the keyboard' and also tell us which keyboard you have. No one will be able to help you without knowing that. Also, what do you mean by 'the sounds get all wonky'?
I have a YAMAHA EZ-200 and a cheap MIDI USB cable on a Pentium 4 Windows XP machine. I have the USB MIDI Cable set up as the default player for MIDI files in XP. When I play MIDI files with Mindows Media Player it sends the info to my keyboard through the USB MIDI cable and the song plays on my keyboard. After playing a few files this way some of the sounds are played wrong on the keyboard. If I turn the keyboard off and back on everything sounds like it should again.
Given what you've said, my guess would be that the sounds are not reset at the beginning of a midi file, so it will play back using the sounds of the first file you played. I'm not entirely sure would cuase this to happen - it could be a problem with windows, with your keyboard or with the midi files you're using. I know the midi support in WMP isn't great - it feels like a bit of an afterthought on the part of the designers. You might try using different software - I personally use Sibelius or Cubase to play back midi files, but there are hundreds of free alternatives out there.
I will try using better software for playback and see if it corrects the problem. By the way, I had another question. The Yamaha EZ-200 is one of those teaching keyboards that lights up the keys when it plays back MIDI files. Some MIDI files will light up all the keys that are played. Other MIDI files just light up one hand or the other or maybe just part of the song. Some MIDI files do not light up anything at all. Any idea what would need to be edited in the MIDI file to make them light up? Or could the fault also be with Windows Media Player?
Do any of the MIDI files have more than one sound in them? If so, I bet the Yamaha is only lighting up for MIDI data on channel 1 (or whatever happens to be set as the default channel).
Yes they do have more than one sound. I suppose the way to figure this out would be to edit the midi file and change the channel numbers. What software is good for doing something like that?
In regards to the sound problem, I spoke with someone from Yamaha. He was telling me that some of my MIDI files are specifying program changes and some of my files are not. When I play a file with program changes and then play a file without that information the keyboard is using whatever was specified in the previous file. To get rid of the problem I would need to edit my MIDI files to make sure that they all contain the necessary program changes for each song.
