[linux-audio-user] Midi output

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
Alexander Feder hat gesagt: // Alexander Feder wrote:

> It seems though there is lots to do before i can do that.
> I've bought a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 card which i've set up using Alsa.
> Audio works fine when using the oss-emulation, but trying to access the
> card directly (aplay -D hw:0,0, or using the alsa-xmms plugin or with ecasound)
> fails with "Sample format non available".
> Isn't that odd? I've thought alsa-oss-emulation would be just another
> layer on top of what i would access when using aplay & co. ..

Yes, that's true, but using device hw:0 bypasses all layers and
directly tries to acces the Audiophile's hardware. And this hardware
only supports a very specific format, which is not CD-quality but much
higher. So to use it, you either nee to access hw:0 directly using
that format or you let ALSA convert between formats for you. The
device in ALSA, that does this conversion is called, surprise: "default".

So you need a commandline like
$ ecasound -i:alsa,default -o some.wav
or
$ aplay -D default some.wav

xmms is best used in OSS mode, the ALSA plugin did always crash here.
As the Audiophile has a somewhat strange mixer, you won't be able to
change volume with xmms in OSS mode. 

I prefer alsaplayer now anyway, which is much cooler, because it can
be remote-controled in various ways, for example from Pd. 

> Another problem i have is sequencing, actually midi as a whole. Neither
> outputting with pmidi, playmidi or muse works. I'm quite sure i've put
> all cables correctly into the Audiophile and my Yamaha CS1x
> synth. Both cables (male-male) are 5 pin, the one that i've plugged into
> the [in] in my soundcard and to [out] on my synth has 3 pins used (4,2,5
> - the three in the middle) and the other cable has all 5 pins used. I've
> checked every combination with my ohm-meter, so there is no short-circuit.
> All pins are mapped 1:1.
>                                                                                 
> 'pmidi -l' gives
>  64:0  Rawmidi 0 - M Audio Audiophile  M Audio Audiophile 24/96  MPU-401
>                                                                                 
> trying to output a midi file with pmidi (which i have successfully outputted
> using playmidi on a pc with an sb16 and oss, iirc) results in no audible
> result. :/ (pmidi -p 64:0 test.mid)
> 
> muse outputs something more interesting whenever a note should be played:
> MidiAlsaDevice::putEvent(): midi write error, returns -19 expected 28:
>  No such device
> Which i further find odd is that muse is not willing to start playing unless
> i've first stepped into the config->audio system to apply the already activated
> setting of No Audio. Before that the transport indicator will not move. Further
> when i activate "Use Alsa" muse exits with the 
> "ALSA: Sample format not available" message.

See above. But audio in Muse might be unstable, I always run Muse with
audio disabled.

> So does this mean i can't trust what /proc/asound/seq/clients and pmidi -l says? 
> or does that mean that at the other end, where my synth should be, is no
> device attached? 
> 
> same problem in the other direction. muse does not receive any signals
> from my cs1x. I've recorded with this cs1x successfully on another pc
> with.. another os.. so i think the hardware works.
> 
> I'm using Debian GNU/Linux Sid on an Athlon, alsa 0.9.1-2 (for base and libs). 
> The things i described both happen on vanilla 2.4.20 with the alsa drivers
> coming with debian (also 0.9.1-2) and on a 2.4.20 WOLK-kernel (rc3) with
> the integrated alsa-drivers. (these behave slightly different, for example
> i can't set the DAC volume with envy24control with the wolk-kernel - the
> sliders don't move. this works fine with the vanilla kernel.)
> 
> what could i be doing wrong? or could it be that the soundcard itself is
> broken? i have no other OS to falsify that.. :/

Well, unfourtunatly I cannot help much with this, sorry. It seems
really strange, that midi isn't working. With my AP, I can use midi-in
very well. I don't have gear that can read midi, though, so I never
tested midi-out.

ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__