[linux-audio-user] Now trying to configure

[M P Smoak]

On Monday 18 October 2004 06:15, Alejandro Lopez wrote:
<snip>
> I've opened a MIDI file under MusE as well as under
> Rosegarden. Both seem to think they are playing it (no error
> will show up and the screen gets updated) but no sound comes
> out. Being a moron as for Linux, I need to learn some things
> from you guys in order to start troubleshooting.

I'm running rh9 planetccrma but I think this might work for
your troubleshooting.  Try (from my rh9commandsdused.txt file):

[marv at localhost marv]$ aplaymidi --port=65:0 yourmidifile.mic 

If that doesn't work (or to just see the doc's), try:

[marv at localhost marv]$ aplaymidi -h
Usage: aplaymidi -p client:port[,...] [-d delay] midifile ...
-h, --help                  this help
-V, --version               print current version
-l, --list                  list all possible output ports
-p, --port=client:port,...  set port(s) to play to
-d, --delay=seconds         delay after song ends

and 
[marv at localhost marv]$ aplaymidi -l
 Port    Client name                      Port name
 64:0    EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART) - Rawmidi EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
 65:0    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 0
 65:1    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 1
 65:2    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 2
 65:3    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 3
128:0    QAMix                            qamix

> 1. When I run an application from the command line (rather
> than from the desktop menu), I get lots of potentially useful
> messages. I'd love to have a look at the ones from rosegarden4
> but only part seem to be printed to stdout, so if I redirect
> to a file using "rosegarden4 > file.text" I'm still missing
> the majority of messages. I've been looking for any text file
> where these messages could be written but I can't find it
> (I've pushed my "find" and "grep" knowledge beyond limits
> now). Any advice? I'd like to check for silly things like the
> sequencer not getting the permission needed to open the
> soundcard and stuff like that.

Maybe the  aplaymidi -l  will tell you about the ports you have
(or don't have) available.  If the card is a wavetable type card
you have to load a soundfont; I use the command  sfxload.

sfxload --volume=100 audiovideo/FluidR3_20GM.SF2
see man sfxload for other options.

I'm still learning how to "see" or capture error messages myself.
Can't give much advice, but have found the following useful
for capturing man pages:

[marv at localhost marv]$man XF86Config | col -b > XF86Config.mantxt

Helpful for me to remember which commands I'm needing.

With rosegarden4, are you starting it from a terminal window? If
so do you see the messages there?  There is no man page on my
system for rosegarden or rosegarden4, but doing a commandline,

[marv at localhost marv]$ rosegarden --help
Usage: rosegarden [Qt-options] [KDE-options] [options] [File]

Rosegarden - A sequencer and musical notation editor

Generic options:
  --help                    Show help about options
  --help-qt                 Show Qt specific options
  --help-kde                Show KDE specific options
  --help-all                Show all options
  --author                  Show author information
  -v, --version             Show version information
  --license                 Show license information
  --                        End of options

Options:
  --nosequencer             Don't use the sequencer (support editing only)
  --nosplash                Don't show the splash screen
  --nofork                  Don't automatically run in the background
  --existingsequencer       Attach to a running sequencer process, if found

Arguments:
  File                      file to open

> The thing is: both sequencers list my
> soundcard as the MIDI out where the music is being routed to,
> but they don't specify wether that is actually a synth or an
> external connection. Any tips?
>
> 3. Last thing I suspect is maybe the synth is getting the
> messages and generating the sounds and it's just me failing to
> turn it up? I've tried a couple of "soundcard mixers"
> including the ALSA mixer, another (similar) one (can't
> remember name), plus the built-in "MIDI mixer" each sequencer
> has; no joy. The thing I find a bit suspicious is that the
> soundcard mixers don't have a synth slide. They have slides
> for mic in, aux, wave and several others (all of them are now
> selected just in case) but not for the internal synth. 

With my soundcard and both QAmix and alsamixer, the volume of
synth play is controled by both the "pcm" and the "music" 
sliders.  In QAmix both are on the Playback tab.

Hope this helps,
Marv