Trying to record from a software sound source on XP

[DickN]

I'm trying to record from the MusicNotes Player (a MIDI type application that plays files while displaying the sheet music) on Windows XP. This is on my laptop. There's no "Stereo Mix" bus nor anything equivalent.

I can do this via Stereo Mix on the Vista machine, but is there any software that would let me do it on XP? I tried Freecorder 4, but that seems to handle only what comes through Windows Media Player or the Web browser. Is there a trick I'm missing?

[steve]

Some sound cards have an option in the recording mixer to set "MIDI" or "SYNTH" as the input source (which, if it is available, records from the default MIDI synthesizer output). I only recall seeing this feature on XP (and earlier) but not on Vista.

If you've not got that option, you could use a suitable stereo audio lead to connect the headphone output of your sound card to the line-in of your sound card.

For standard MIDI files you could use "Timidity" to directly render the MIDI file to an audio file. (With a good sound font loaded this can produce very good sound).
http://timidity.sourceforge.net/

[DickN]

The files have .mtd extension and WMP can't play them. MusicNotes displays the sheet music and highlights the notes and chords as they're played. You can even click on individual notes of a chord and it will play them. So there's more in the file than just the MIDI data. It might not even be MIDI, it just works in similar fashion. That's why I called it a MIDI type application.

The sound section is Conexant AMD, which also contains the modem.

Mixer inputs are: Wave (Windows sounds and Audacity both play through this one.), SW Synth (MusicNotes plays through this one.), CD Audio, and PC Speaker (Always grayed out. Yes, this is on the input side; output is called Volume.). Nothing changes on this panel when I plug a mic in.