[linux-audio-dev] Software Sequencer API?

Christian Henz chrhenz at gmx.de
Thu Sep 11 21:23:00 UTC 2003


On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 12:56:06PM -0700, Sean Don wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'd like to program a "player piano" under GNU/Linux for OSS/Lite. All it would
> do is play MIDI files and light up a song's notes on a graphical keyboard.
> 
> Unfortunately, my old SB16 sound card does not have AWE support and its Yamaha
> OPL3 FM synthesizer support sounds very inorganic. Hence, I'm looking for a way
> to use a "software sequencer" (like Timidity.) I tried Fluidsynth, but it causes
> midis to break up on my computer.
> 
> Here are my questions:
> 
> 1. Is is possible to have a previously written player for OSS (such as SDL Mixer
> or Timidity) play a stream in the background, and I somehow "read into" what
> notes are being played at every moment so I can light up the correct piano key?
> Unfortunately, Timidity is stand-alone; that is, is has no developmental
> libraries.
> 

Hmm, I don't know about OSS, but you really should consider using ALSA!

A simple solution would be to use timidity or fluidsynth as standalone apps and write a simple ALSA-sequencer client(check out http://www.suse.de/~mana/alsa090_howto.html) that just reads incomming events and draws the piano keys accordingly. Then you (a)connect your sequencer's MIDI-out to timidity/fluidsynth AND your app. 

cheers,
Christian Henz




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