PPT97: Problem with Drum Sound/Yamaha XG Sound Card

ID: Q162629

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

For Yamaha XG sound cards, the drum instruments reside in a different bank from standard General MIDI (GM). If your XG module has been switched to XG mode by playing an XG MIDI file or by using XG-enabled software, it will play an instrument other than drums. This behavior occurs because the card received an XG initialization code from a MIDI file.

The PPGMON.EXE file, available from Microsoft Technical Support, will reset the card to GM mode. To reset the card, download this file, and run the attached MIDI file (GM_ON.MID).

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Software Library:

 ~ Ppgmon.exe (size: 16484 bytes) 
              Release Date: September 11, 1997

For more information about downloading files from the Microsoft Software Library, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q119591
   TITLE     : How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services

MORE INFORMATION

The following is the text of the Readme file included in Ppgmon.exe.

Custom Soundtracks

This setup installs the PowerPoint Custom Soundtracks add-in to your PowerPoint installation (you must already have PowerPoint installed). This Custom Soundtracks add-in will allow you to add a smooth custom soundtrack to your presentation, and provides many styles and motifs to complement the tone of your presentation.

Creating a Custom Soundtrack

Once you have installed the add-in, you can create a custom soundtrack for a presentation by choosing Custom Soundtrack on the Slide Show menu in PowerPoint.

Playing a Custom Soundtrack

The playback of the custom soundtrack requires only that PowerPoint be installed and does not require the Custom Soundtracks add-in to be installed on the machine that will play the presentation.

Creating a Custom Soundtrack for a looping, self-running presentation

If you are planning to run a presentation continuously and unattended, you should be sure to have at least one slide in the presentation that contains an End Music setting. In addition, if your presentation contains branches, then this slide should be placed such that it is shown at least once per iteration of the presentation. Failure to do this could result in eventual performance problems, or even crashes.

The easiest way to ensure that this does not happen is to insert a blank slide at the beginning of the presentation, give it an End Music setting, and set its slide timing to 0 seconds.

Yamaha XG Sound Cards

For Yamaha XG sound cards, the drum instruments reside in a different bank from standard General MIDI (GM). If your XG module has been switched to XG mode by playing an XG MIDI file or XG enabled software, it will play an instrument other than drums. This occurs because the card received an XG initialization code from a MIDI file. To reset the card to GM mode, run the GM_ON.MID MIDI file , available in the Support area of the PowerPoint Web site.

Additional query words: 97 ppt97 7.00 8.00

Keywords          : kbfile kbmm kbsound kbualink97 kbdta
Version           : windows:97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Hardware          : x86
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: November 25, 1998