[linux-audio-user] I'm tired of being a moron

Mark Wilson mrmoo1231 at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 10 13:33:32 EDT 2004


--- Robert Jonsson <rj at spamatica.se> wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> 
> Your days as a moron are over!! ;-P 
> 
> On Monday 09 August 2004 17.17, Mark Wilson wrote:
> > I'm relatively new to the audio on Linux scene,
> and
> > admittedly don't have near the best equipment to
> do
> > anything serious, but I'd at least like to hear
> some
> > sounds of out of the synth and/or MIDI sequencing
> > software on my Agnula distro.  I don't have an
> > external keyboard, so I'm limited to writing the
> score
> > with rosegarden or lilypond.  I'd like to edit the
> > MIDI sequences I produce with something like muse,
> but
> > I can't figure out how to hear what changes I make
> > *from within muse*.  I don't have an on-board
> > sequencer (/dev/sequencer is never recognized or
> > accessible, which is no surprise, really) on my
> card.
> 
> Ok, this might require some explaining. 
> /dev/sequencer is the sequencer interface for OSS.
> MusE and Rosegarden do not
> support this interface. If AGNULA has ALSA you
> should instead have the alsa 
> sequencer interface. I think this should have been
> loaded even if your 
> soundcard does not have any midi features (I could
> be wrong about this 
> though). 

I forgot to specify that my soundcard is a
SoundBlaster 16 PCI.  According to the ALSA website,
the modules for the Ensoniq 1371 are the best match.
There is no on-board wave-table, if I read the
documentation correctly.


> Since you don't have any external keyboard and do
> not plan on using any 
> outboard gear at the moment the features of your
> soundcard should not matter.
> Whether the alsa-sequencer really exists is easiest
> to check by doing 'lsmod' 
> as root and checking if the module snd-seq has been
> loaded. (I think there is 
> a device somewhere also but I forget..)
> 
> I guess AGNULA has MusE 0.6.3 ? With the config you
> are suggesting this should 
> work fine, stability wise 0.7 would be better but it
> requires jack at the 
> moment which is another obstacle to overcome. 
> 
> The real question here is whether MusE outputs any
> errors?
> 
> If not you should be able to get some of the
> internal synths to output enough 
> beeps to make you happy for a few seconds atleast ;)
> Under the config menu select the "Midi ports /
> Softsynth" and instantiate the 
> organ synth and connect it to a midi port in the
> "Midi connections" view.
> After this you can connect it to the midi track
> you've done by clicking in the 
> O-port column in the arranger. 
> 
> After you get this to work it should be no problem
> stepping to more advanced 
> grounds, other synths etc.
> >
> > I thought I'd try using timidity with the -iA
> option,
> > and when I do that, then try to play a midi file
> from
> > within muse, muse crashes.
> 
> If this persists after you tested the above I need
> to know some more, like if 
> there are any printed errors in the terminal?
> 

I'm heartened that I seem to have figured correctly
that having timidity started with the -iA option is a
possible correct thing to do.  I also tried 
$pmidi -p 128:0 foo.mid
after starting timidity with the ALSA option, and I
could see that the CPU is significantly taxed, but I
still hear nothing.  Also tried other ports like
129:0, 130:1 -- even 64:0.  Just wild guessing. Still
no joy.

BTW, just playing individual midi files from CLI works
fine--I've even messed around with different patches. 
Agnula 1.2.0 BETA comes with a pkg. called freepat,
which has most (all?) of the same patches that
timidity-patches*.deb contains, but they're located
elsewhere so I have to specify the full path, which is
kind of a pain.

Thanks!
Mark

=====
--
Seek professional help!  Ask a librarian.


		
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