25 Jul
2003
25 Jul
'03
3:33 p.m.
Daniel,
A quick response:
1) Check out Rosegarden. It's a very nice MIDI environment. Or go with
Jazzware, although I think development on that has ceased.
2) Upgrade to a newer version of Alsa if you're going to do this at all.
3) If you're new to Linux, consider one of the prepackaged environments that
supports a specific distribution. If you're interested in Redhat, then go
the PlanetCCRMA site for most everything you need. For other distributions
others here will give you guidance.
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
4) Don't be totally sure you can't use your existing samples. If they are
Sound Font based, there are Sound Font tools under Linux. Two favs are Swami
and Fluid Synth.
5) Lots of good soft synths coming along here, and the price is right, at
least monetarily. Try our amSynth and ZynAddSubFx as your more standard user
interface models, and then things like Spiral Synth Modular and many others
for you're more daring endeavors. ;-)
6) If you like MIDI, stick with MIDI. Trackers are fun. Some of the Windows
ones will run under Wine, should you want to mess with a mixed environment a
bit, but that's quite challenging.
Good luck,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: linux-audio-user-admin(a)music.columbia.edu
[mailto:linux-audio-user-admin@music.columbia.edu]On Behalf Of Daniel
Klein
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 9:48 AM
To: linux-audio-user(a)music.columbia.edu
Subject: [linux-audio-user] MIDI and Linux
Hello all,
I am completely certain that what I am about to ask has been
asked a million
times. But I am also rather tired of searching for answers for
these things,
and I've been looking around on and off for something like a
year. This list
is my best shot so far, so please excuse my ignorance and my
laziness to keep
looking all by myself. Next to this mail I have another question, but I
decided to put that into its own mail to reduce confusion.
Quick description of what I WANT to do:
Compose music on my Linux system, playback MIDI files.
What I HAVE done in the past:
I've composed midis in windows for pretty much as long as I can remember.
Starting on an AdLib card, I have never bought myself any other
hardware than
soundcards. I composed in MIDI only, using JazzWare
(www.jazzware.com), which
I would be able to get for Linux as well of course.
What I HAVE in my computer right now is a Terratec DMXFire 1024.
I assume I
will not be able to use the samples on that card according to
what I've read
so far. I would *like* to keep composing in MIDI format, since I
know that
pretty well by now. I realize I will probably need a software synth or
something like that and need to get myself patches from
somewhere, and I have
found a number of pages online, but have been totally unable to find some
sort of VERY basic FAQ.
So exactly what do I need.. is MIDI the way to go at all still or
should I
consider learning some other format (probably using some tracker like
software.. a finnish friend of mine exclusively uses Impulse
Tracker on his
win box)? What Software Synth (if that is the name of the thing I
will need)
will I need, what can you recommend? It would of course be best
for all if
someone could just point me to a general FAQ and tell me to read
the fabulous
manual.
Right now I'm also running ALSA 0.5.. there is some version of
esound on my
computer as well. Things are rather confused, but my other mail
will be on
that topic.
Thank you in advance for your patience and more importantly, your answers.
Daniel