EF2000 Reloaded & VirtualMIDISynth

EF2000 Reloaded

A guide to using VirtualMIDISynth with EF2000 Reloaded. This guide assumes properly installed and configured EF2000 Reloaded and VirtualMIDISynth apps.

In earlier articles VirtualMIDISynth was used with DOSBox Staging, 'DOSBox Staging and VirtualMIDISynth' and with DOSBox-X in the article, 'Jetfighter III: Tech refresh 2025'.

EF2000 Reloaded is based on a highly modified and patched version of vanilla DOSBox, called DOSBox-EF2000 (see EF2000 Updated Part 3: EF2000 Reloaded & DOSBox).

So, if vanilla DOSBox supports Window synths, then so should DOSBox-EF2000 and so should the Reloaded app.

DOSBox-EF2000 configs

The Reloaded app uses two config files to setup DOSBox-EF2000, a default DOSBox-EF2000 config file and a launcher DOSBox-EF2000 config file. When the launcher starts the default settings are applied and then the launcher settings are applied, replacing any default settings.

If we take a look at the Reloaded installation folder, we can see a number of files and folders, some of the more interesting ones include:

• The Reloaded launcher app (EF2000_Launcher.exe).

• DOSBox-EF2000 (dosbox-EF2000.exe).

• The launcher DOSBox-EF2000 config file (EF2000_Launcher_User.conf).

Config settings panel

My installation folder is D:\DiD\EF2000 Reloaded, but obviously this will depend on where you installed EF2000 Reloaded.

The launcher DOSBox-EF2000 config file is written each time a change is made to the config settings panel (see screenshot) in the EF2000 Reloaded app.

The VirtualMIDISynth changes should not be made here as they will be overwritten when changes are made in the config settings panel.

So any VirtualMIDISynth changes should be made to the default DOSBox-EF2000 config file. This configuration file is usually hidden away in a DOSBox folder in user settings in Windows.

On my Win10 machine this was:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\DOSBox 

Where <username> will be your own username. The AppData folder is normally hidden by default so you may need to unhide it with Windows Explorer. Within this folder you should see the default config file (dosbox-EF2000.conf).

VirtualMIDISynth setup

The first step is change the default config file (dosbox-EF2000.conf) to use Windows MIDI devices, by applying the following change:

[midi]
mididevice=win32

Now we need to find the device number. To do so, run DOSBox-EF2000 (dosbox-EF2000.exe) NOT the launcher app. This will start DOSBox-EF2000.

At the DOSBox command prompt issue the command:

Z:\>mixer /listmidi

mixer /listmidi

The results should be similar to the screenshot.

We now know the VirtualMIDISynth device is device 0. (Note: depending on the software installed on your machine it may show a different device number).

We can now complete the changes to dosbox-EF2000.conf by setting the MIDI device number in the 'midiconfig' setting as shown:

[midi]
mididevice=win32
midiconfig=0

That completes setting up VirtualMIDISynth in EF2000 Reloaded!

Below is a demonstration of changing MIDI soundfonts with VirtualMIDISynth as EF2000 Reloaded is running, but mostly using the expansive Timbres of Heaven soundfont.

Good hunting!