[LAU] Cannot play fuildsynth sounds from Alesis Control Pad

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Tuesday, April 20, 2010, lanas wrote:
> Le Lundi, 19 Avril 2010 18:45:34 +0200,
>
> Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas <pedro.lopez.cabanillas at gmail.com> a écrit :
> > On Monday, April 19, 2010, you wrote:
> >>  The pads from a M-Audio Axiom 25 keyboard works fine with Qsynth.
> >>
> > >   Why is this so ? Why does the Control Pad plays so so well with
> > > Hydrogen but barely can emit a sound when connected to Qsynth/using
> > > fluidsynth ?  It'd be real nice to be able to use drumsticks in
> > > playing some soundfonts !
> >
> > Looks like this is the same, similar, or related to this ticket:
> > http://fluidsynth.resonance.org/trac/ticket/55
>
> It really does.
>
> > There have been some changes in FluidSynth 1.1.1 for this issue, but
> > the reporter did not answer the request to verify the changes, so
> > maybe the problem is still there. Which FluidSynth version are you
> > using?
>
> # fluidsynth --version
> FluidSynth version 1.1.1
>
> I would like to try the setting in the bug report, 

You need to start FluidSynth 1.1.1 with a command line like:

fluidsynth -a alsa -m alsa_seq -p fluidsynth \
  -o synth.min-note-length=10 \
  SoundFont.sf2

10 is the default value for the note duration.

> but oddly 
> enough I haven't found where the config file, for neither fluidsynth or
> qsynth.  Usually on Linux/UNIX systems it's either /etc or the home
> directory in a . directory or file.  Can I simply create one in /etc ?
> What would be the format ?

The "config file" is a simple text file containing FluidSynth shell commands, 
like the ones you can type into its own internal shell, for instance router 
commands. See "man fluidsynth" for more information. You can provide a config 
file in several ways...

a) per session, in the command line:
fluidsynth -f mycommands

b) per user account, in a file named '.fluidsynth' at the user's home:
$HOME/.fluidsynth
	
c) a system wide file:
/etc/fluidsynth.conf

But the setting 'synth.min-note-length' (and others like 'synth.sample-rate' 
as well) must be given in the command line, not in a command file, because 
they need to be known when the synth is created, and the command files are 
parsed and executed later.

> I'm willing to try any new version or patches.  I've compiled
> fluidsynth for this system, so I can apply patches if needed.  I would
> like to get into the code but I simply do not have the time.

I would like to help fixing this issue, but I don't have an "Alesis Control 
Pad" and I can't reproduce the problem.

Maybe you can provide the means to reproduce it. For instance, recording a 
small amount of events from the pad into a standard MIDI file, and testing  
this MIDI file against FluidSynth and other synths. If the recorded MIDI file 
produces the same results with FluidSynth as a live playing session, then 
please attach this file to the ticket 55 or send it by mail to me or to the 
fluidsynth mailing list.

You can record a standard MIDI file with 'arecordmidi' (from ALSA utils) or  
with KMidimon. To play back the recorded file, there is 'aplaymidi' (also 
from ALSA utils) or KMidimon.

Regards,
Pedro