Can I use a MIDI device as input for Soundplant?
--Soundplant is optimized for use with the computer keyboard for lowest latency, but you can use 3rd party software such as Bome's Midi Translator to convert any MIDI device's input into computer keyboard hits. This has been found to work well with Soundplant by many users with MIDI keyboards and other controllers.

I have multiple soundcards, how can I make Soundplant play out of a specific one?
--Soundplant outputs to whichever soundcard is set as the system default soundcard at the time of the program's startup. If your desired output card is not already set as your system default, simply make it your default device under the Sound Control Panel before starting Soundplant. If you do not want that particular soundcard to be permanently set as the default device, you can just reset the system Sound settings back to the way you want it after Soundplant starts. Soundplant will continue to output to the device that was set as default at the time of startup for the remainder of the Soundplant session, even if you change the default setting after Soundplant starts.

Soundplant seems to have odd playback problems and/or is very slow on my machine.
--There are a few possibilities:
1) You may need to change the 'sound mixing' setting in the Options (make sure you are running Soundplant v. 26.1 or later). Some software/hardware combinations can cause Soundplant to not be able to properly use the default and optimal sound mixing option, DirectSound. QuickTime is the second best option for performance; it requires the free download of QuickTime from Apple (which you may already have). Unless you know for sure that you can't use DirectSound on your system, you should try and update your sound card drivers and DirectX before resorting to using Quicktime. If neither Quicktime or DirectSound work for you, you should always be able to use the much slower but more stable MacroMix option. It would be helpful to me if you could send me an email (marcel [at] soundplant.org) letting me know the specs of your computer, OS, and soundcard if you find that you have problems that require altering the 'sound mixing' setting.
2) If you have audio "enhancement" software called 'SoundMAX' installed on your computer (some brand name computers come with this software preinstalled), its presence will hinder performance of audio-related tasks in general and will noticeably lower Soundplant's performance. Uninstalling 'SoundMAX' is recommended. [Note, however, that some sound cards require a SoundMAX-branded driver, which should not be uninstalled; what should be uninstalled is the SoundMAX software/utilities package. In some cases you may be forced to uninstall everything SoundMAX (driver and software) all at once; you should then reinstall only the SoundMAX driver without the accompanying software.]
3) If you have a laptop with a mobile AMD Athlon processor that uses 'Powernow', disabling 'Powernow' can noticeably increase Soundplant's performance by maximizing processor speed. Note: In WinXP, the only way to disable 'Powernow' is to set your system power scheme to 'always on'.

I've moved around my sound files to a different location on my computer and now when I try to load my keymap(s), Soundplant can't find the files. Is there a way to fix this without having to rebuild the keymap(s) from scratch?
--Yes, this can be fixed relatively easily. .keymap files do not contain binary data and can therefore be edited in any text editor (wordpad, notetab, etc.). Sound files are stored as absolute paths in the .keymap file data. You can simply open your .keymap(s) in an editor and do a mass 'find and replace' to fix the paths, e.g. change all occurences of "c:\oldfilepath" to "d:\newfilepath".

Is there a way to record Soundplant's output?
--Of course you can record what you do in Soundplant. This requires a full duplex sound card, which virtually all computers sold in the last 10+ years have, and an audio editing/recording program, such as GoldWave (also Windows includes a very basic one). You need to set your soundcard to record it's own output. To do this on Vista go to 'Control Panel->Sound->Recording', or in earlier Windows 'start menu->programs->accessories->entertainment->volume control->options->properties->adjust volume for Recording' and then click 'OK'. This brings up your recording control panel; this panel will look different from computer to computer depending on what hardware and software you have. Generally, it will show every possible input device on your soundcard with options for recording input level control. Here you must select the input device that represents your soundcard's own output, usually named "stereo mix" or "wave" or "waveout" or "loopback" (the exact name of this device will vary on different systems). You can leave this panel open as you try to record in your audio editing program in order to adjust input levels. This method of recording your sound card's output can be used to record any sound produced by your computer. On most computers, the default recording device is the 'microphone in' or 'line in' device, but once you set it to your 'waveout' device, then the setting should automatically be saved until you change it again manually. If you are unable to get this method to work for you, you might want to look at either of the following sites for shareware programs that can help: All Recorder or Wav Recorder.

Why do certain WAV files not play or cause error messages when loaded to ram even though I can play the same files in other audio programs? Some files even crash Soundplant when I try to load them.
--This almost always can be remedied by simply loading the sound file into an audio editing program that can read it and saving (or resaving) it as an uncompressed WAV file. There are a bunch of sound compression formats that can potentially hide under the 'WAV' extension, such as 'ACM'. If your sound file is not an uncompressed WAV file, then Soundplant will most likely not be able to load or play it and will pop up an error message. Note that quite a few commercial sample cd-rom packages as well as free sound file web sites include files that are compressed even though they end in '.WAV'. There is also a chance that your file is uncompressed, but is not a validly formatted WAV file (some of the 'cheaper' audio programs out there do not 100% accurately format the WAV files they output); this could cause a crash instead of an error message. The same solution applies in this situation: load the file into a respectable audio editor that will open it properly and then resave the file.

Do MP3s trigger more efficiently than wavs because they are smaller in size? [question applies to registered version]
--Using mp3s is more RAM and disk space efficient, but can be less cpu efficient on older computers. MP3s files are compressed. Soundplant does the work of decompressing them in realtime as they play. This makes them load to RAM quickly, and also take up much less RAM than their uncompressed counterpart. On slower systems, attempting to mix together multiple MP3s in realtime may drain the cpu of processing power and slow things down (faster systems should not have a problem with this). However, MP3s are relatively small, and using them will conserve RAM and hard drive space. If you are low on disk space and/or RAM, use MP3s to allow you to trigger very long sounds in RAM-based mode. Use mp3s for convenience if you already have many existing files in that format. But on older/slower computers, for maximum sound triggering speed, you may find that using high quality uncompressed sounds works better.

Why do MP3s not loop well or have extra silence added? [question applies to registered version]
--This is a limitation in the MP3 format (encoder delay/zero padding) and not a bug in Soundplant. MP3 was not designed to be a gapless format, and MP3 encoders add a few ms of silence to the audio as part of the encoding process. Normally it's not noticeable but if you try to loop a short sound as an MP3 there will be an audible gap in the loop. To work around this, either use Soundplant's offset controls to trim the silence, or, better yet, convert MP3s that require millisecond-perfect looping into uncompressed WAV or AIF.

Can I control the rate at which key presses repeat as I hold down keys?
--Yes. Go to the 'Keyboard Properties' in your Windows Control Panel to control the key repeat delay and rate. Also, if you want even more control over this, most motherboard BIOS setup software has a 'typematic rate' setting.

On one computer I can press several keys at once in Soundplant to create a 'chord', but on another computer I can't always do this.
--This is entirely dependent on the keyboard hardware. Unfortunately, there are some computer keyboards out there that simply don't support holding down many multiple keys at once (aside from 'modifier' keys - shift, ctrl, alt). Other keyboards support this only partially and will allow some keys to be pressed down simultaneously and not allow others (for example, I have a keyboard that in some cases won't allow multiple simultaneous key presses ONLY if one of the keys is "m"). Overall, there is not much you can do to remedy this. If the behavior of your keyboard in Soundplant is really bothering you, you should try buying a new one (they are well under $10 these days). I've found that some of the cheapest, no-name keyboards will support up to 7 simultaneous key presses, whereas some Dell-branded keyboards even have trouble with modifier key-holding support.