MIDIMapper

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CoolSoft MIDIMapper is the missing (and needed) MIDI Mapper for Windows 8, 10, 11.

It installs as a MIDI Output device and forces itself as MIDI device #0 (read below for an explanation).
It can be managed with a configuration panel accessible from Control Panel or its Start menu icon.

CoolSoft MIDIMapper is not only a configurator for the well known MIDI registry keys (because that "hack" stopped working from Windows 8, see below) but a full alternative to (the now missing) Microsoft MIDI Mapper.

MIDIMapper configurator

What is a MIDI Mapper?

Let's get back to Windows XP era, where MIDI was "exposed" to the public and it had its own place into "Sound and Multimedia" control panel application.
Users were able to select their default MIDI Out device from a list of all installed MIDI devices.
Based of this choice, all programs that were outputting a MIDI data stream (and had not selected a specific MIDI Out device) had their stream played by the selected device.

MIDIMapper was not real device but sort of "pipe": it receives a MIDI stream on its input and drive it to an user configured (real) MIDI Out device.
MIDIMapper, as said, was bundled with Windows, installed as MIDI device #0 and preconfigured to use the first available "real" device, usually the well-known Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (MGWS from now on).

Another MIDI device was bundled, the well known Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (MGWS from now on).
MGWS is a (low quality) software wave synth, installed as MIDI out device #1.
So on Windows XP, programmers had 2 well known devices: #0 (MIDIMapper) and #1 (MGWS), the former preconfigured to use the latter.
When a MIDI software (i.e. your MIDI player) starts playing, it should select a MIDI out device otherwise #0 is used.
There are a lot of softwares around without a configurable output device (think about game emulators and Active Movie based players, like Windows Media Player and MediaPlayer classic): they all use #0 by default.
Device #0 is MIDIMapper --> MIDIMapper is configured to use MGWS --> MGWS will play your MIDI.
This chain worked well: default users had a working MIDI synthesis out of the box.

It all worked up to Windows 7, but getting worst version by version:

  • Windows XP: device #0 is MIDIMapper, #1 is MGWS
  • Windows Vista / 7: same as above, but MIDIMapper configuration disappeared from control panel (registry settings were still available, so some third part tools were released as workaround)
  • Windows 8 and newer: no more MIDIMapper, registry keys hack not working anymore!

Why do I need it?

Well, in fact you don't need it, but only if your MIDI clients (players, games, DAWs) allows you to select a specific output device.
If not, then go on reading...

On Windows 8 the MIDIMapper device has been completely removed so MIDI softwares are now REQUIRED to select a specific device (no selection still means #0).
I wrote "REQUIRED" because, worst of all, MGWS is now installed with some sort of "dynamic" ID: #0 out of the box, but it becomes #1 if you install another one (like VirtualMIDISynth or an USB MIDI device).

Anyway #0 won't lead to a well known situation like in pre-Windows 8 era; #0 could be MGWS or any other one; that's why you now need to select a specific device (it could also force you to upgrade your software).
If you can't (and your software uses #0), you're out of luck: it will use the first in the devices list...

Links

If you have any issue with MIDIMapper (or you have a suggestion/request) visit the MIDIMapper forum and search if another user had the same issue before; if not, start a new thread there.

Version history 

v.2.1.2 - 2024-01-07

FIX Fixed parsing of x86 MIDI devices names (the ones with ":" in their name were not shown).

v.2.1.1 - 2022-08-03

FIX Applied square-root compensation on volume level
FIX Fixed volume handling bug causing many MIDI messages (other than NoteON) to be patched.

v.2.0.3 - 2021-06-07

FIX Improved management of Proxy86 execution timeout, used to retrieve x86 MIDI devices names on x64 systems.

v.2.0.2 - 2021-02-02

FIX Fixed error when confirming update check frequency value to "never".

v.2.0.1 - 2020-08-28

FIX Fixed bitness detection on x86 Windows versions.

v.2.0.0 - 2020-08-11

NEW MIDIMapper now installs as a Virtual Device Driver and it's shown in Device Manager.
NEW Installation folder can now be changed by the user (default is <programFiles>\CoolSoft MIDIMapper)
NOTE: driver component still needs to be installed in System32\SysWOW64 folders.
NEW Configurator now runs natively as x64 application on x64 OS.
FIX Fixed bug with Windows 10 (2004) removing the driver at each boot.

v.1.1.0 - 2019-09-30

NEW Updated setup procedure to NSIS 3.x (https://nsis.sourceforge.io) to improve compatibility with latest Windows 10 updates.

v.1.0.0 - 2018-03-04

NEW First official release.

Download

Mirroring, repackaging and any other way to redistribute my software to end users from outside coolsoft.altervista.org is FORBIDDEN! (unless expressly authorized)
Links to this page are welcome (do not use HTML #fragments and do not link the .exe file directly).

ANTIVIRUS FALSE POSITIVE WARNING

Some antiviruses are reporting CoolSoft MIDIMapper (and also CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth) as infected.
These are false positives, maybe due to the fact that both softwares install some components in "sensitive" system folders like C:\Windows\System32.
To be crystal clear with my users, I always publish a VirusTotal scan report link next to each download, even if it contains those false positives.
There's no way for me to demonstrate I'm right; submitting my files to each AV vendor is simply unfeasible.
Read here for further details.

CoolSoft_MIDIMapper_2.1.2.exe
Description Latest version
Release date 2024-Jan-07 Size 476,992 bytes
MD5 52152297e11b36035dd4f45c3af8f5f8
SHA1 63f944179a4e41c843036fa0d60c14eae631e3e1
SHA256 4c7cbeba33c55fd77d89aabdf577343c2339a5c34b108b68f2e43be3c08ac716
TIMESTAMP 1704640717
Open virus check report
CoolSoft_MIDIMapper_2.1.1.exe
Description Previous version
Release date 2022-Aug-03 Size 468,088 bytes
MD5 184ec171a92bb5ad565f9311bedaad5f
SHA1 d66e917dca4f3fcf663d0005ffb494e0944b1f37
SHA256 219faeae4f3a5286b07862fe87a328a5785cae826d22be7f76ae295ff9c7f0d8
TIMESTAMP 1659517025
Open virus check report
CoolSoft_MIDIMapper_2.1.0.exe
Description Previous version
Release date 2022-Apr-22 Size 466,624 bytes
MD5 79fadfe7cf933c59a16f84eee74c88ca
SHA1 dff627697756e81dd9fbc6cdd5fa22f1c6e61781
SHA256 dcd8aa1b757905aa8fdf0ee55925b0c16c5f354ba0493dc70e0b8d6acd553b48
TIMESTAMP 1650579465
Open virus check report
CoolSoft_MIDIMapper_2.0.3.exe
Description Previous version
Release date 2021-Jun-07 Size 432,439 bytes
MD5 ff1beb57b5d29eea083cafcc146d73ef
SHA1 f53f255bec00aea24ad5a61192f073cefdae05c6
SHA256 c4c86dd8bd1832587cba154d3e1e6ddf33948417af145f3fa85168bbceb194da
Open virus check report