[linux-audio-user] Midi Woes

[Giuseppe Zompatori]

Hi Clemens,

try those 3 commands as root from a sheel:

"rmmod snd-mpu401 snd-mpu401_uart"

"modprobe mpu_port pnp=1"

Make sure no appliction is using the midi port before entering the
above commands.

then type this command:

"cat /proc/interrupts /proc/ioports |grep MPU"

The last command should output dma and IRQ addresses of your mpu interface.

That's what it outputs in my case:

cat /proc/interrupts /proc/ioports | grep MPU
  5:         14    IO-APIC-edge  MPU401 UART
0330-0331 : MPU401 UART

The MPU is sitting at dma is 5 on IRQ 0x330. And those are the very
same values I have the MPU401 setup in my bios.

Not that it matters, it should work already, as in:

$~/ pmidi -l
 Port     Client name                       Port name
 14:0    Midi Through                     Midi Through Port-0
 20:0    MPU-401 UART                  MPU-401 UART MIDI

The problem in my case is it doesn't work...
Onboard MPU401 has never worked too well for me in the latest kernels,
tested on a an asus nforce2 based MB and on an ASRock "el-cheapo"
SIS7012 based MB, both of them using the intel8x0 sound module.

It doesn't work in that if I try playing a midi file the kernel
complains on syslog about weird erros.
That kinda worked with the older alsa versions that still had the
"mpu_port" parameter for the onboard sound module.
The midi port worked for some random amount of time untill it
completely locked my box. I tested this under various distros.
I am thinking about buying an extrenal/USB midi box, I am stuck
without midi right now.

Hopefully you'll be luckier than I was.

Cheers,

-gzed

2006/11/10, Chip VanDan <chip.vandan at gmail.com>:
> Well there was nothing about gameports or MIDI ports in the BIOS
> except that they were "enabled" so I'm not sure how else to find the
> physical address of the port.  Perhaps I just need to put more
> research time into finding a module to enable it in the OS, but if
> it's not a serial port then what is it?
>
> > The serial ports have nothing to do with MIDI.
> > The MIDI port should be listed under "gameport" or "MIDI" or "MPU-401".
>
>
>
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