As a first MIDI project I am planning to make a "guitar" that plays four common chords by pressing four buttons on the "fret board" with my left fingers and pressing a button with my right thumb to strum the pressed chord. I will program an Arduino Nano to produce the single NoteOn, NoteNumber, and NoteVelocity MIDI messages for each note in the given chord, in response to button presses, and will output each message as a serial data stream from the Nano USB connector. The latter will input to a Windows 10 PC which will be loaded with a Hairless Serial-to-MIDI software interface and the AmpleSound Guitar M Lite II synthesizer.

To date I have simplified things by using a bare Nano on a breadboard hooked to my Windows laptop with a USB cord. The Nano simply turns one note on and off continuously. I see the Hairless software outputting the messages correctly. I connected Hairless to the Microsoft GS Wave Syth that is incorporated in Windows, and I hear the note playing. I am now trying to find how to add the Ample Guitar M Lite II synthesizer to complete the test setup. I down loaded the software but cannot even see how to turn it on.

I have the following questions relative to the Ample Guitar synthesizer:

1. How do I turn it on? There is no Desktop Icon and I see no application/.exe file to make one. The Activate application file
doesn't turn it on. The manual says to look for shortcuts to turn it on, but the only "shortcuts" are three XML files.
2. Do I need additional host software like loopMIDI or will it link directly to Hairless like the Microsoft Synth? (I have already
used loopMIDI successfully with Ampleton Live 10.)
3. Is there anything else I need to know for my simple test setup?

I will appreciate any help,

John Anderson