My Computer Doesn't Recognize Midi Keyboard and I Get an Audio Renderer Error When Opening Reason Essentials

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So I have two problems, I have a Novation Launchkey 49 that I've barely used that isn't showing up in windows and whenever I open Reason Essentials both Youtube and Spotify give me errors saying the audio renderer isn't working, restart the computer. Not sure if this is the best place to ask these questions, so if you have a better suggestion let me know.

  1. I used the Novation Launchkey a bit about a year ago when I got it, and I remember having trouble getting it to work and actually get sound to come out when using Reason Essentials, but I don't remember the specifics. I know it worked tho. Now I'm trying get back into it and at first it appeared to be working. It connects via usb to the computer and typically there's a colorful display of lights from the drum pads which then stops. The drivers are built into the windows updates, so there aren't any separate ones, I believe its plug and play. So I think it was working at first, I had Reason open, no sound was coming out, which I remember having trouble with the first time, but it was registering visually when I pressed a key. Meanwhile I'm trying to solve this other issue with the audio renderer, so I'm replugging the keyboard repeatedly to test different things, and later on I plug it in the lights flash, but don't stop flashing, they're still going right now... So it has power obviously, but it doesn't show up in device manager at all like it's supposed to, and there's no indication that it's communicating with the computer at all. Looked at lots of help threads, and no one explains how to fix this, when the midi controller just isn't there.
  2. I noticed that Spotify and Youtube stopped working, and it took me a while to narrow it down to Reason Essentials. I can play a song on Spotify, start Reason, the song stops and says it can't play right now, close Reason, music plays again. Youtube gives the message, Audio renderer error, restart computer. I tried all the troubleshooting suggested online, nothing worked, but then I realized it was tied to reason, why I have no idea. Maybe Reason is taking over use of the Audio Device for it's own use when running? Not sure, maybe this is normal... but I can't tell if it will work because I can't get the midi controller connected!
All help is greatly appreciated.
 

SeaGtGruff

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The issue you’ve described with the audio is fairly normal when running a DAW; the DAW will typically take over exclusive control of the audio device, even if the DAW is just sitting idle in the background while another program has focus (is actively being used). There might be a setting in the DAW’s options to control whether or not it takes exclusive control of the audio device, but I’m not familiar with Reason so I don’t know if it has anything like that. I think it may also be a known issue with ASIO drivers and Windows, but I’d have to go review some discussions in another forum to refresh my memory about that; I may be getting it confused with something else.

I’m not sure about the Novation controller, but if you were repeatedly plugging it in and unplugging it while the computer was on then I wonder if something might have gotten messed up in Windows somehow? I know that Windows has a limit on how many MIDI ports can be connected to the computer— I believe it’s 10 MIDI In ports and 10 MIDI Out ports. And there can also be an issue with USB devices, since a particular device (such as the Novation controller) might show up in the system (i.e., in the Windows Registry) more than once if you’ve plugged it into different USB ports on the computer, since each USB port has a unique ID in the system and Windows will remember (in the Registry) the devices that you’ve connected to each USB port. The combination of these facts means that it’s sometimes possible for all of the computer’s available MIDI ports to get used up by old USB MIDI devices, even if none of them are currently connected to the computer! o_O If I remember correctly, Roland has a USB MIDI install/uninstall utility that will show you all of the MIDI devices that are set up on your computer. You might want to disconnect all MIDI devices from your computer, then use that utility to uninstall any old USB MIDI devices that are showing up, just to clean up the system. Then try reconnecting the Novation controller to see if the computer can set it up successfully. If that doesn’t help, you might want to try connecting the Novation to a friend’s computer to see whether it works, to determine whether there might be a problem with the controller itself rather than with your computer/Registry.
 
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SeaGtGruff

I meant to play that note!
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Actually, I think it might be Korg who make the utility I was referring to, not Roland. I’m not sure if it’s the driver installation that’s linked to on the following page:


As for what I was saying about the audio issue, I’ll check the discussions on the other forum to see if I can find the one I’m thinking of, then report back here.

Edit — By the way, Windows has a built-in MIDI soft synth that it uses for playing MIDI (unless you’ve selected a different MIDI device for playing MIDI), and that built-in soft synth will show up in the Korg utility as one of the MIDI Out ports in the system. I’m not sure whether the Korg utility will let you uninstall that soft synth, but you shouldn’t even try— just leave it be.

Edit #2 — Here is a link to the discussion I was referring to. There was some disagreement about whether this is an issue with ASIO or just a matter of changing the “exclusive mode” setting on the audio drivers.

 
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Actually, I think it might be Korg who make the utility I was referring to, not Roland. I’m not sure if it’s the driver installation that’s linked to on the following page:


As for what I was saying about the audio issue, I’ll check the discussions on the other forum to see if I can find the one I’m thinking of, then report back here.

Edit — By the way, Windows has a built-in MIDI soft synth that it uses for playing MIDI (unless you’ve selected a different MIDI device for playing MIDI), and that built-in soft synth will show up in the Korg utility as one of the MIDI Out ports in the system. I’m not sure whether the Korg utility will let you uninstall that soft synth, but you shouldn’t even try— just leave it be.

Edit #2 — Here is a link to the discussion I was referring to. There was some disagreement about whether this is an issue with ASIO or just a matter of changing the “exclusive mode” setting on the audio drivers.


Michael

I had to install he Korg MIDI utility to get Cakewalk to operate correctly with my Kross 2.

It was so much faffing about that I ended up getting a dedicated MIDI keyboard.
 

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