Windows MIDI Glass

This page covers information about a Windows MIDI Services feature and application that will be released to consumers in November 2026. It’s currently available for developers.

Windows MIDI Glass lets you build your own MIDI controller on screen. You put faders, knobs, buttons, pads and keys on a page, choose what each one sends, and then play it with your fingers, a pen or a mouse. It’s at its best on a touch screen, or on a second monitor next to your keyboard, but it works on any PC.

Each design is called a layout. A layout can have several pages and send to several devices. Its controls can also move and light up when your gear or your DAW sends something back.

Quick start

Windows MIDI Glass opens to the library, where all your layouts are.

1. New layout makes a layout. You give it a name, pick the device it sends to, and pick a template to start from.
2. Each card is a layout. Click a card to run it. Point at a card to see Run, Edit and … for more options. You can also right-click a card for the same options.
3. The status chip on each card says whether the devices that layout sends to are connected right now.
4. Search, sort and view. Type to find a layout. Sort by last used, by name or by last changed. Switch between cards and a list. The list shows each layout’s description under its name.
5. Open a file… runs a layout from any folder. Ask an AI assistant…, next to it, helps an AI assistant build a layout for you. … (More options) imports a pack, sets the name and license that go on what you make, opens the backups folder, and can keep the PC awake while a layout runs.
6. Appearance and settings sets the app’s light or dark theme and its window background, and turns Ask an AI assistant on or off.
7. The status bar shows how many layouts you have and where they’re saved. The chip on the right says whether the MIDI service is running.

Make your first layout

1. Select New layout.
2. Type a name. Under Send to, pick the device you want to play.
3. Pick a Template, then select Create. The layout opens in the editor.
4. Select Try near the top left, and play the page. The Sending list under the page shows what goes out.
5. Select Library to go back. You don’t need to save, because Windows MIDI Glass saves as you go. Click the new card to run your layout.

To play an app on the same PC, such as a DAW, pick Default App Loopback (A) under Send to. Then set the app to listen to Default App Loopback (B). A loopback passes whatever goes into one side out of the other side.

The editor

1. Add lists every kind of control. Click one, then click the page where you want it. You can also drag one onto the page, or double-click one to drop it in the first open spot. Outline, next to Add, lists every control on the page.
2. The page. Click a control to select it. Drag it to move it, or drag a corner or an edge to resize it. The arrow keys move it one pixel at a time. Hold Shift to move it one grid square at a time.
3. The inspector changes the selected control. Look sets its color, style, size and label. Sends sets what it sends. Listens sets what it does when a device sends something back. Behavior sets how it moves and where it starts.
4. Edit and Try. Try plays the page for real without leaving the editor. Ctrl+Enter switches between the two.
5. The toolbar has Undo and Redo, Snap and the grid size, the align and arrange buttons, Repeat, Group and Lock.
6. Layout… has the settings for the whole layout: its theme and colors, its pages and devices, the page size, a background picture or video, its name, and its keyboard order. Save and run is here too.
7. Under the page are the page tabs. + Page adds a page. Sending lists each message the layout sends while you try it.

Windows MIDI Glass saves your layout a moment after each change. The chip near the top right says Saved once it’s done. Press Ctrl+S to save right away.

Starting a new layout

New layout asks for three things:

• Name is what the card in the library shows. You can change it later.
• Send to is the device the controls play. You can add more devices later.
• Template is what the new layout starts with.

Template	What you get
Mixer	Eight faders, eight knobs and eight pads on one page.
DJ deck	Two decks with filters, three band EQ, cue pads and a crossfader.
Drum pads	A four by four grid on channel 10, with the lowest note at the bottom left.
Transport	Play, stop, record and loop, plus eight track faders.
Mackie Control	Eight channel strips, a master fader, transport and a jog wheel, for a DAW set up to use a Mackie Control surface. See How to control your DAW with Mackie Control in Windows MIDI Glass.
Horizontal toolbar	Eight buttons in a see-through strip that stays in front of your other apps.
Vertical toolbar	Eight buttons in a see-through column that stays in front of your other apps.
Floating palette	Sixteen buttons in a see-through square that stays in front of your other apps.
Blank	An empty page, ready for you to build on.

The toolbar and palette templates are explained in How to make a floating toolbar or palette in Windows MIDI Glass.

If no devices show up under Send to, plug one in, or make a loopback with Windows MIDI Loopback Setup.

Adding controls

The Add pane groups the controls by what they do.

Group	Controls
Buttons	Button, Toggle, Pad, Page tab, Switch
Knobs and faders	Knob, Turntable, Fader, Wheel, Ribbon
Two axis	XY pad, Joystick
Generators	Beat clock, LFO, Steps
Keys and pads	Mono keyboard, Note pads, Hex pads
Feedback and text	Meter, Lamp, Readout, Stopwatch, Text, Image
Grouping	Group, Line

A few of them need a word of explanation:

• A Page tab switches to another page of the layout when you press it.
• A Switch has two or more positions, and each position sends its own message.
• An XY pad or a Joystick sends two values at once: one for across and one for up and down.
• A Ribbon is a strip you slide a finger along. It sends one value, like a fader.
• Generators play by themselves once they start. Beat clock sends MIDI clock at the tempo you set. LFO sweeps a value up and down. Steps plays a short pattern of notes, one step at a time.
• Note pads and Hex pads take a finger on each pad, so you can play chords. The Mono keyboard plays one key at a time, and you can slide along it. Turn on Show note names, on its Look tab, to print each key’s name and number on it.
• Meter, Lamp and Readout show values that arrive from a device. You set that up on their Listens tab. A Stopwatch counts up from when the layout starts, so you can see how long you’ve been playing. Tap it to start again from zero.
• A Group control draws a frame around controls that belong together, and a Line divides one part of a page from another. Neither sends anything. Don’t mix up the Group control with Group on the toolbar, which ties the selected controls together.

Type in Find a control to narrow the list. To add a control without the mouse, pick it with the keyboard and select Add to page. Add to page stays off until you pick a control.

Arranging controls

• Select more than one. Hold Shift or Ctrl and click, or drag a box around them on an empty part of the page. Ctrl+A selects everything on the page that isn’t locked.
• Snap lines controls up with the grid, with each other and with the page edges. Hold Alt while you drag to turn it off for a moment. Hold Shift while you drag to keep the move straight across or straight down.
• Align and arrange line up the selected controls, or spread them out evenly.
• Gap labels. Select three or more controls in a row or a column, and the gap between each pair shows as a number under the row or beside the column. When every gap is the same, the numbers are filled in. Click one, type a number and press Enter, and every gap becomes that many pixels. The first control stays where it is.
• Repeat makes a row or a column of copies of what’s selected. It can count the channel, the note or controller number, or the group up on each copy, and number the labels too, so one channel strip becomes a whole bank.
• Group, on the toolbar, makes several controls act as one when you select and move them. Ctrl+G groups, and Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups. Lining up, spreading out and gap labels treat a group as one block too, so a channel strip keeps its shape. Select one group on its own to line up the controls inside it.
• Lock stops a control from being picked or moved on the page. That’s handy for a panel or a picture behind other controls. A locked control shows a lock on the page and in the Outline. To unlock it, select it in the Outline, then select Unlock.

Keys	What they do
Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y	Undo, redo
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V	Copy, cut, paste
Ctrl+D	Duplicate the selection
Delete	Delete the selection
Arrow keys	Move the selection one pixel
Shift+arrow keys	Move the selection one grid square
F2	Rename the selected control
Esc	Put away the control you picked in Add
Ctrl+Enter	Switch between Edit and Try
Ctrl+S	Save now

What a control sends

The Sends tab has an Action list. Each row in it says when to send, what to send, and where to send it.

• Trigger is one of these: Value change, On, Off, Touch or Release. A fader usually sends on Value change. A button usually sends one message on On and another on Off.
• Type can be a note, a control change, a program change, pitch bend, channel pressure, a per-note controller, an RPN or NRPN, or system exclusive.
• To is one of the layout’s devices, with its group and channel.

A few types need more than a number:

• A per-note controller changes one note that’s playing, not the whole channel. Note is the note, and Controller is which controller. Per-note controller (registered) has a list of the controllers MIDI 2.0 names, such as Volume and Pan. Per-note controller (assignable) is for the ones your instrument defines itself, so take the numbers from its manual.
• A note sent as MIDI 2.0 has an Attribute row. Type the attribute type, then its data, in hexadecimal, from the instrument’s manual or the profile’s specification. It goes out with the note on or the note off that row sends, so a button that sends both needs it on both rows. A keyboard or a pad grid puts it on every note it plays.

Windows MIDI Glass names notes the same way the rest of Windows MIDI Services does: note 60, middle C, is C3.

The fastest way to fill in a row is MIDI Learn. Turn on Learn, then move a knob or press a key on your hardware, and Windows MIDI Glass copies what it sends. Learn a bank fills several controls in a row: touch the knobs on your hardware one after another, and each one fills the next control in keyboard order. MIDI Learn listens to the devices in the layout’s device list, so add your hardware there first.

Each device has a Protocol setting: MIDI 2.0, MIDI 1.0 or Mackie Control. It decides how you type values on the Sends tab. How Windows MIDI Glass talks to each device explains the choices.

Controls that listen

On the Listens tab, turn on MIDI follow and the control moves or lights up when a device sends something, not only when you touch it. Under Follow mode, pick one of these:

• Single message: the control follows one controller, note or pitch bend, and shows its value. Use it when your DAW should move a fader, the way it moves a motorized fader on a hardware desk.
• Notes: the control lights while any note is held.
• Control changes: the control blinks whenever a control change arrives.
• Transport: the control lights while the other end is playing.
• Beat: the control flashes on the beat.
• Any activity: the control lights whenever anything arrives, like an activity light.

A fader that follows the DAW can be a long way from your finger when you touch it. On the Behavior tab, Pickup decides what happens then, for a fader, an XY pad, a joystick or a ribbon. Jump goes straight to your finger. Catch waits until your finger reaches the value, so nothing jumps. Relative moves the value by as far as your finger moves.

Trying a layout as you build it

Try turns the page on without leaving the editor. Every control sends for real, so you can check that a fader sends what you expect before you go any further. Ctrl+Enter switches back to Edit.

The Sending list under the page shows each message as it goes out. Selected control only narrows the list to the control you’re working on. Pause freezes the list so you can read it, and Clear empties it. The arrow at the right end folds the list away to give the page more room.

Pages

A layout can have as many pages as you like. The tabs under the page switch between them in the editor, and + Page adds one. To let people change pages while the layout runs, put a Page tab control on each page.

Open Layout…, then Pages and devices…, to rename pages and change their order. To make a band, open a page’s … menu there and select Always on screen. A band is a page whose controls show on top of every other page while the layout runs, such as a transport row, a panic button or your page tabs, so you only build it once. You don’t switch to a band the way you switch pages, so leave room for its controls on your other pages. In the editor, you edit a band like any other page.

Layout…, then Page size…, sets how big the page is, in pixels. Pick a size close to the screen the layout will run on.

Tempo

LFO and Steps controls run at the layout’s tempo. To set it, open Layout…, then Pages and devices…, and select Behavior. A Beat clock keeps its own tempo.

To follow another device instead, such as your DAW, set Tempo source to Incoming MIDI clock and pick the device under Clock comes from. The LFOs and Steps controls then follow the speed of the clock it sends. Until the clock arrives they use the tempo you typed, and if the clock stops they keep the last tempo they had. They follow only the clock’s speed. They don’t start or stop when the clock does, and they don’t line up with its beat.

Running a layout

To run a layout, click its card in the library, or select Run on the card. You can also double-click a layout file in File Explorer. The first time you do, Windows asks which app to open it with, so pick Windows MIDI Glass.

A running layout has its own window. The bar along the top has:

• Page, to switch pages.
• Size on screen: Actual size, Fit to window, or a custom size.
• Always on top, to keep the window in front of your other apps.
• Full screen. In full screen, everything on the bar moves behind one small button in a corner of the screen. It fades after a few seconds so it’s out of the way. You can move it to another corner. Press Esc to leave full screen, or F11 to switch in and out.
• Panic, which stops every note on every device Windows MIDI Glass is sending to. Ctrl+Shift+P does the same thing. Use it when a note gets stuck.

You can move more than one control at once with more than one finger: two faders, or a fader and a pad.

The bar also says whether the devices the layout sends to are connected. If one is missing, it says Waiting for and the device’s name. Plug the device back in and the layout picks it up again by itself.

If a layout runs for a long time while nobody touches the PC, such as one that only shows meters or plays a beat clock, Windows may turn the screen off or go to sleep. To stop that, select … (More options) in the library and turn on Keep this PC awake while a layout runs.

Devices

A layout keeps its own list of devices. Each one has a name, and the controls send to that name rather than straight to the hardware. So if you move to a different MIDI interface, you only change the device in one place, and every control follows.

Open Layout…, then Pages and devices…, and select Outputs to see the list. You can add a device, change which hardware one points to, and set how Windows MIDI Glass talks to it.

A device that isn’t connected is normal, not an error. The library card says how many are missing, and the layout sends to the rest. The status bar in the library says whether the MIDI service is running. If it isn’t, nothing can be sent.

Themes, colors and backgrounds

A theme sets how the whole layout looks: the page behind the controls, how each kind of control is drawn, and six colors. Open Layout…, then Theme and colors…, to pick one. Changing the theme changes every control at once, and you can change it as often as you like.

Each control uses one of the theme’s six colors, chosen on its Look tab. A control remembers which of the six it uses, not the color itself. So when you change the theme, the colors change along with it and still mean the same thing.

Layout…, then Background image…, puts a picture or a video behind the controls. You can set how it fits the page and how see-through it is.

Above the gallery, the page says which theme the layout uses and who made it. Select About this theme… next to it to see everything the theme’s file says.

The theme gallery shows who made each theme under its name. Group themes by, above the gallery, sorts the themes by who made them or by who signed them. Right-click a theme to see About this theme…, or, for one of your own, Pack for sharing….

How Windows MIDI Glass themes work covers every theme setting, where theme files go, and how to make your own.

Your layout files

Layouts are saved in Documents › MIDI Layouts, one file per layout. The files end in .midilayout. A picture or a video you add to a layout is copied next to it, so the layout and its pictures stay together.

• Back up now, on a card’s … menu, saves a copy of the layout in the Backups folder next to your layouts.
• Restore from a backup… puts a backup back. Windows MIDI Glass backs up the layout as it is now first, so you can change your mind.
• Pack for sharing… makes one file that holds the layout and everything it uses. See Sharing layouts and themes.
• Duplicate makes a copy to try ideas on. The copy says which layout it’s based on.
• Add to favorites puts the layout in a Favorites section at the top of the library. Favorites belong to this PC, so a layout you share doesn’t arrive as someone else’s favorite.

To have an AI assistant build a layout for you, select Ask an AI assistant… in the library, next to Open a file…. It shows a starting prompt to paste into the AI assistant you use, such as a chat in your web browser. The prompt has the link to Windows MIDI Glass layout files, a guide for AI agents, the names of your MIDI devices, and the themes you have, so the layout the assistant makes can find your devices. Windows MIDI Glass doesn’t send anything itself. If you’d rather not see it, open Appearance and settings and turn off Ask an AI assistant.

Sharing layouts and themes

To give a layout to someone else, or move it to another PC, select Pack for sharing… on its card’s … menu. In the editor, open Layout…, then Pages and devices…, and select Export…. Windows MIDI Glass makes a pack: one .midilayoutpack file that holds the layout, every picture and video it uses, and the theme it uses if that theme is one of yours. To share a theme on its own, right-click it in the theme gallery and select Pack for sharing…. That makes a .midithemepack file.

A pack lists every file inside it, with its size and a fingerprint called a SHA-256 hash. When someone imports the pack, Windows MIDI Glass checks every file against that list, so it can tell if anything was changed or added after the pack was made.

Who made it

Each layout and theme can say who made it: a name, a company or group, a website, a license, a version, and whether AI was used to make it. Windows MIDI Glass fills this in for everything you make, from Your info for sharing… on the library’s … (More options) menu. Other Windows MIDI Services tools use the same info. Before you pack something, Windows MIDI Glass shows what it says and lets you change it.

To see what a layout says about who made it, select About this layout… on its card’s … menu. For a theme, right-click it in the theme gallery and select About this theme….

• To change who made a layout, open it in the editor and select Layout…, then About this layout…. The page has the layout’s name and description, the fields that say who made it, and when and with what it was made. Changes save as you type, like everything else in the editor. Change it in the editor, in the library’s About this layout…, takes you to the same page.
• To say who made a new theme, fill in Who made it when you select Save as theme…. A theme saved under a new name starts with your info.
• To change who made one of your own themes, select About this theme…. You can’t change a theme that comes with Windows MIDI Glass, one from a signed pack, or one a newer version made.
• If AI helped, say so under How it was made, and pick how a person was involved. If an AI assistant made the layout for you, you can say you checked its work after you have.
• To change your info, select Your info for sharing… on the library’s … (More options) menu, or Change your info… on the editor’s About this layout page. Your info is only filled in for what you make from then on. Fill in your info puts it into a layout or theme you already have.

Anyone can type any name into a file. So unless a signature backs it, Windows MIDI Glass shows the name with (unverified) after it.

Signed packs

A publisher, such as an instrument maker, can sign a pack with a code-signing certificate. The signature proves who published the pack and that nothing in it changed since. It doesn’t mean the layout is safe or that it works.

• To sign a pack, pick your certificate under Sign it when you pack it. You need a code-signing certificate from a certificate provider, in your personal certificate store. A certificate on a hardware token or in a cloud signing service works when the provider’s software puts it in that store. Add a Timestamp server from your certificate provider, so the signature stays good after your certificate runs out.
• When you import a signed pack, Windows MIDI Glass shows Signed by and the name on the certificate. Windows checks the certificate, including whether the company that issued it has withdrawn it. A pack whose signature doesn’t match what’s in it, or whose certificate was withdrawn, isn’t imported.
• A layout from a signed pack says Signed by on its card for as long as its files are exactly what was signed. When you select Edit, Windows MIDI Glass offers to make your own copy, so the signed layout stays as it was published. The copy says which layout it’s based on.

Importing a pack

Select … (More options) > Import a pack… in the library. For a theme pack, you can also use Import a theme… on the Appearance page in the editor. Windows MIDI Glass shows what’s in the pack, who made it, and whether it’s signed, before it writes anything. If you already have the same layout or theme, it asks whether to replace it or keep both.

Windows MIDI Glass still imports the .zip layout packages that earlier versions made.

Layouts from a newer version

A layout made by a newer version of Windows MIDI Glass says From a newer version on its card. You can run it, and you can open it in the editor to look around and try it. Windows MIDI Glass won’t save changes to it, so nothing the newer version added gets lost. That’s also why Duplicate, Rename… and Edit description… are turned off for it. A control this version doesn’t have shows as a dashed outline with its name. It doesn’t respond to touch and doesn’t send anything. To change the layout, update Windows MIDI Glass.

Keyboard and screen readers

On a running layout, the Tab key moves from control to control, and a screen reader reads each control’s name. The keyboard order decides the order Tab moves through the controls, and the order a screen reader reads them.

To set it, open Layout…, then Set the keyboard order…, and click the controls in the order you want. Keyboard order, under the page, sets the order from where the controls are on the page. You can also move a control up or down in the Outline.

Open Layout…, then Pages and devices…, and select Accessibility check to see whether the colors are easy to tell apart and whether every control has a label a screen reader can say.

Learn more

• How Windows MIDI Glass themes work
• How to control your DAW with Mackie Control in Windows MIDI Glass
• How to make a floating toolbar or palette in Windows MIDI Glass
• Windows MIDI Glass layout files, a guide for AI agents