Load soundfont through command line

Please let our ADS show!

This sites offers only FREE software and it's supported by a few advertisement boxes (no intrusive popups).
Please:

  • disable your AdBlocker by adding CoolSoft website to whitelist
  • give the proper cookie consent
  • enable JavaScript for this website

This seconds wait is to let you update your browser configuration...

Ok, I've done the required changes... now show me your content!
!!! Please enable JavaScript !!!
Anonymous user
Load soundfont through command line

Is it possible to load a soundfont in VirtualMIDISynth through the command line?  If so what would the syntax be?

Posts: 1972
Joined: 25 Mar 2012 - 01:19
Re: Load soundfont through command line

Currently there's no way to load soundfont (and more generally "interact with") VirtualMIDISynth from the command line.

The biggest problem is that VirtualMIDISynth driver is a DLL, so it is loaded and "hosted" by the MIDI player application, being it Windows Media Player, VanBasco, ...
It's quite impossible to implement some kind of IPC (intra process communication) between such a large number of different softwares.

Another issue is that, actually, VMS loads its settings at startup and will keep the MIDI-IN queue as fast as possible.
A soundfont change requires to stop picking messages from the MIDI queue, load/unload the new SF2 files then restart the queue.
The hosting software (MIDI player) could not like this and could hang, crash or show any unexpected behaviour.

Consider this possible workaround:
VMS configuration is fully contained into VirtualMIDISynth.conf file into folder C:\Windows\SysWOW64\VirtualMIDISynth (or C:\Windows\System32\VirtualMIDISynth).
This file is a simple INI configuration file and the section you're looking for is [SoundFonts].
With a batch file (or with few VBScript lines) you could edit it and/or switch between different copies; remember that you must restart VirtualMIDISynth to let these changes be read.

Anyway, command line management is a good idea and I'll add to ver. 2.x TODO list.

Anonymous user
Re: Load soundfont through command line

I think your workaround will let me do what I was wanting.

Thanks.

Posts: 1
Joined: 26 Dic 2017 - 16:29
Re: Load soundfont through command line

(whee necrobump)
Has command-line management been added? Only I have roughly 200-odd folders each with a soundfont (and anywhere from one to one-hundred midis each made expecting that soundfont) that I want to encode... I really don't want to try learning how to do this using timidity just for automation's sake

Posts: 1972
Joined: 25 Mar 2012 - 01:19
Re: Load soundfont through command line

No it's not and, honestly speaking, it's really hard it will ever be ;)
There's actually a similar request on the TODO list (https://coolsoft.altervista.org/virtualmidisynth/todo) asking the possibility to "automate" VMS through SysEx MIDI messages.

Both of these request will satisfy the needing of a really small user group; if I have to choose which one to implement, I'll go the SysEx way.
SysEx could be stored in MIDI files, received from MIDI sequencers, DAWs, keyboards and so on.
So that's the way to go... sorry ;)

I suggest you to have a look at AutoIT, a well-known free Windows automation software.
It allows to automate simple (to more complicated) tasks like opening/closing programs, interacting with windows, clicking buttons, changing files, by using a graphical interface or an easy scripting language.
https://www.autoitscript.com/site/