As far as I know OpenMPT cannot send MIDI commands to MIDI devices (only in VST instruments it's well supported) like does VMPK to a soundcard, it only can receive from external keyboard. I'm not the right person to tell if this works I'm not currently using/have external MIDI controllers.

cheapo MIDI keyboard can be had for $49 from radio shack, all that is left that is needed is usb-midi interface (you can get that from sweetwater.com), and

so what's all the MIDI stuff in the instruments for, and the GM soundbanks if it doesn't support MIDI output? those soundbanks and stuff on the left are for assigning output if I am not mistaken. or for reference. yes? If they are for reference, having Yamaha XG would be nice too.

that would be SO COOL if this fully supported MIDI. this way, I can write MIDI-only songs with it. or a mixture.

If you have a sound card, you have a MIDI output device. Mine is currently mapped to the microsoft GM wavetable synth I think, so I can play .mid files.
channel 10 is the drum kit. channels 1-9,11-16 are whatever you want them to be.

the vst plugin mentioned in the manual called vst2mid by tobybear.de that gives midi output to vst no longer exists.
please add midi output to openmpt. thanks. obviously, you are not going to be just let someone else do it because you have now run the risk of dropped support - that is, unless you write your own plugin and supply it with the program.

Yes, it exist:

VSTNETMID is a suite of experimental MIDI
network plugins and programs:

MID2VST: This is a VST plugin that takes MIDI input
from a system MIDI port and sends the events as
VST MIDI data to the host.
VST2MID: This VST plugin receives VST MIDI data
form the host and sends it as regular MIDI data to
a Windows MIDI out port.

Get from http://www.tobybear.de/p_midibag.html VST2MID is inside MidiBag.

MIDI Out over VST has many advantages such as per-song MIDI device settings and also all the code for sending MIDI messages is already there for VST plugins, so adding native support would introduce a lot of duplicate functionalty and would not be guaranteed to work - while VST2MID is.

I have a collection of songs to convert from sample-style to MIDI format. is this going to work, or are the samples going to take priority over the MIDI assignments like I have been seeing? because I should be hearing nothing, and I am hearing the same old sample and watching the sample cursor do its thing while the music plays.

like I said, there is no MIDI/sample "switch". currently it all seems to work buy priority, and samples seem to get the priority over MIDI/VST. am I correct?

You first need to assign the VST2MID plugin to any mod instruments that you want to be played over MIDI out, and then you also mustn't forget to specify a MIDI channel the data should be sent over. A mod instrument can control a sample and a plugin at the same time.

openmpt upon open midi (I think that was it) when I specified instruments, imported the GM samples from some sort of soundbank. now I can't delete the sample. I am up a creek without a paddle. bad UI. since you say it can do both sample and MIDI at same time on same instrument, I find no way to:

• enable/disable MIDI, sample individually. this should be part of the UI. it can simply say "enable sample" and "enable MIDI" or even be shorter than that and say "sample" and "MIDI".
• delete sample (may be a moot point if I can disable it)
• have maybe separate panels for sample and MIDI (tabs?)

enable/disable checkboxes should be above (outside the tab panels) the tabs and tab panels should be at the bottom somewhere of course...

now I can't delete the sample.

bad UI