[LAU] beginning audio setup: sblive midi not working

[Nigel Henry]

On Sunday 03 June 2007 19:26, Hein Zelle wrote:
> Hello Nigel,
>
> > Ok. Does the usb midi keyboard otherwise work. For example, can you use
> > it with ZynAddSubFx. You need to just connect the keyboard to ZynAddSubFx
> > in qjackctl's midi connections if your using Etch or Lenny.
>
> It works, if I connect it the first sequencer port of timidity it
> plays beautifully.

Yes it would do, because TiMidity uses it's own GUS patches/soundfonts, but 
the midi keyboard is not directly accessing the wavetable synth of the 
soundcard.

To just check out the keyboard, you would only need to connect the keyboard to 
ZynAddSubFx in the midi connections, and the audio connections are already 
made as default for ZynaddSubFx to alsa pcm.
>
> > If you are using KDE, you can use Kmid to check out if the midi is
> > working. I've attached a file, if you don't have any midi ones.
>
> The keyboard works with this setup (connected to timidity):
snip
> > aplaymidi -p 65:0 robert_miles_-_children.mid
>
> works with 129:0  (timitidy), dead silence with 16:0, 17:0, 17:1, 17:2
> and 17:3.
>
> It almost HAS to be something really stupid.  Does the sound font
> matter?  I've tried both 8mbgmsfx.sf2  (I got that off internet, as I
> don't have the sblive cd, and the friend who gave the card to me lost
> it) and PC51f.sf2  (also from internet).  Is it possible I'm using the
> wrong soundfont?  asfxload doesn't show any errors, and
> /proc/asound/card0/wavetableD1 seems to indicate that the font is
> loaded correctly.
>
> Perhaps a mixer issue I'm not seeing?  The "Synth" channel is full open.
>
> Thanks for your input,
>        Hein Zelle

It's possible that the soundfonts you got off the Internet are not behaving 
well. You really need a GM soundfont. I'll try and send you mine offlist, as 
the list has a bandwidth limit.

Do you have a webserver that I could upload the soundfont to? I don't and am 
not sure if I can send 8MB by e-mail, but I'll try.

Nigel.