22 Aug
2007
22 Aug
'07
10:19 a.m.
I'm now at the point where I can play midi files, and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No MIDI input will
be available.
No matter what settings I try, it always fails. The only useful message
I ever got was for alsa_raw, when it said that the device didn't exist.
For some reason I have /dev/snd/midiC1D0, but not /dev/snd/midiC0D0. So
I temporarily symlinked them, but that didn't help- it wasn't
complaining about a missing device any more, but it still couldn't
create the midi driver and still wouldn't tell me why not.
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi events are routed
around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have plugged
in), but there is a delay in playing anything sent to fluidsynth or
timidity- about half a second or so. I've tried running fluidsynth with
nice -9, but that just makes everything else less responsive and doesn't
really decrease the delay at all. Any suggestions? If I was to buy a
decent sound card with a hardware synth would this fix it? Would I be
able to load enough soundfonts into it? What about a pcmcia/cardbus
version for my laptop?
Thanks
Simon
22 Aug
22 Aug
10:33 a.m.
On Wed, 22 Aug, 2007 at 01:22PM +0100, Simon Williams spake thus:
I'm now at the point where I can play midi files,
and I have a midi keyboard
connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No MIDI input will be
available.
No matter what settings I try, it always fails. The only useful message I
ever got was for alsa_raw, when it said that the device didn't exist. For
some reason I have /dev/snd/midiC1D0, but not /dev/snd/midiC0D0. So I
temporarily symlinked them, but that didn't help- it wasn't complaining
about a missing device any more, but it still couldn't create the midi
driver and still wouldn't tell me why not.
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi events are routed
around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have plugged in),
but there is a delay in playing anything sent to fluidsynth or timidity-
about half a second or so. I've tried running fluidsynth with nice -9, but
that just makes everything else less responsive and doesn't really decrease
the delay at all. Any suggestions? If I was to buy a decent sound card with
a hardware synth would this fix it? Would I be able to load enough
soundfonts into it? What about a pcmcia/cardbus version for my laptop?
This doesn't really answer your question, but if it works, you
might not care...
ZynAddSubFX - http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/
When I first found it, I lost two whole days to just sitting making
noises.
James
Thanks
Simon
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/linux-audio-user
1:31 p.m.
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:33:59 +0100
james(a)dis-dot-dat.net wrote:
This doesn't really answer your question, but if it works, you
might not care...
ZynAddSubFX - http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/
When I first found it, I lost two whole days to just sitting making
noises.
James
... and then you found out where the speakers go :)
Seriously, it is THE softsynth as far as I'm concerned - just wish
there was serious development going on ;/
--
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
1:09 p.m.
On Wed, 2007-22-08 at 13:22 +0100, Simon Williams wrote:
I'm now at the point where I can play midi files,
and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No MIDI input will
be available.
No matter what settings I try, it always fails. The only useful message
I ever got was for alsa_raw, when it said that the device didn't exist.
For some reason I have /dev/snd/midiC1D0, but not /dev/snd/midiC0D0. So
I temporarily symlinked them, but that didn't help- it wasn't
complaining about a missing device any more, but it still couldn't
create the midi driver and still wouldn't tell me why not.
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi events are routed
around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have plugged
in), but there is a delay in playing anything sent to fluidsynth or
timidity- about half a second or so.
Use a smaller (audio) buffer size.
-DR-
6:48 p.m.
Dave Robillard wrote:
On Wed, 2007-22-08 at 13:22 +0100, Simon Williams
wrote:
Adding the '-a jack' option to fluidsynth fixed it. I also added '-r
48000' to get the periods to match which probably helped.
Now that I know I can play midi in realtime, how do I start doing
interesting things with it? Sure I've got fluidsynth, but my current
keyboard only has 8 instrument buttons, and fluidsynth isn't much good
for changing the instrument on the fly.
So far I have 2 options:
1. Use the selectors on my keyboard to get whatever the first 8
instruments are in my soundfont.
2. Use another program to pick the instrument- but so far I haven't
found anything that will let me pick a selection of instruments- I can
only pick one and then the selectors on my keyboard don't do anything.
Also, I would love to be able to mix together two or more instruments-
and be able to specify the range, volume and fading of each one.
As an example, so that I could have something like:
1. Piano sound- for everything except the last octave
2. Bass guitar- Mainly on lower half of the keyboard, fades out towards
the middle
3. Flute or something- just on the last octave
Also, when I get my hands on a decent midi controller keyboard I want to
be able to use the extra buttons, knobs and sliders to control the
mixing above, and things like auto drum accompaniment and other synth
effects, but as yet I haven't seen any software which will let me do this.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Simon
I'm now at the point where I can play midi
files, and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No MIDI input will
be available.
No matter what settings I try, it always fails. The only useful message
I ever got was for alsa_raw, when it said that the device didn't exist.
For some reason I have /dev/snd/midiC1D0, but not /dev/snd/midiC0D0. So
I temporarily symlinked them, but that didn't help- it wasn't
complaining about a missing device any more, but it still couldn't
create the midi driver and still wouldn't tell me why not.
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi events are routed
around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have plugged
in), but there is a delay in playing anything sent to fluidsynth or
timidity- about half a second or so.
Use a smaller (audio) buffer size. 
9:29 p.m.
Simon Williams wrote:
Dave Robillard wrote:
have you read qsynth's homepage? `qsynth -a jack` would do the
same trick, and guess what? you just need to do it once alas qsynth
command line options "tries" to be as equivalent to fluidsynth's
however semantics might get in between and just probably something
starts to get persistent and thus not quite scriptable-wise at least as
far as fluidsynth is
maybe you did not get it noticed: `fluidsynth` and `qsynth` are both
front-ends to libfluidsynth.so (.dll in win32 port) the former is the
original shell command-line implementation, the later is just my qt gui
clone almost 4 years old already without any major design changes if I
may stand correct ;)
On Wed, 2007-22-08 at 13:22 +0100, Simon Williams
wrote:
Adding the '-a jack' option to fluidsynth fixed it. I also added '-r
48000' to get the periods to match which probably helped.
I'm now at the point where I can play midi
files, and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works
fine. However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No MIDI input
will be available.
No matter what settings I try, it always fails. The only useful
message I ever got was for alsa_raw, when it said that the device
didn't exist. For some reason I have /dev/snd/midiC1D0, but not
/dev/snd/midiC0D0. So I temporarily symlinked them, but that didn't
help- it wasn't complaining about a missing device any more, but it
still couldn't create the midi driver and still wouldn't tell me why
not.
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi events are
routed around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have
plugged in), but there is a delay in playing anything sent to
fluidsynth or timidity- about half a second or so.
Use a smaller (audio) buffer size. Now that I know I can play midi in realtime, how do I
start doing
interesting things with it? Sure I've got fluidsynth, but my current
keyboard only has 8 instrument buttons, and fluidsynth isn't much good
for changing the instrument on the fly.
fluidsynth and qsynth both CAN change instruments on the fly
hint: having a real midi controller might help perhaps? one that would
send actual program-change (PC#) midi messages
its just the way fluidsynth/qsynth works
furthermore, each soundfont instrument is assignable to any of the
standard 16 midi channels you may find qsynth way far more manageable
in doing this kind of mapping than doing some hell of a "geeky" shell
scripting for fluidsynth but that's your choice of course :)
So far I have 2 options:
1. Use the selectors on my keyboard to get whatever the first 8
instruments are in my soundfont.
get over it: your 2 options are really 1) change your keyboard selectors
to send the proper midi #PCs or 2) you're stuck with what you have
please, do not take it as a fluidsynth/qsynth shortcoming there must be
some way for you to set which (knob) sets which instrument on your
keyboard controller whatever (is that a toy-keyboard? oops couldn't
hold that one :)~
2. Use another program to pick the instrument- but so
far I haven't
found anything that will let me pick a selection of instruments- I can
only pick one and then the selectors on my keyboard don't do anything.
ah now that should explain something ... ;)
Also, I would love to be able to mix together two or
more instruments-
and be able to specify the range, volume and fading of each one.
As an example, so that I could have something like:
1. Piano sound- for everything except the last octave
2. Bass guitar- Mainly on lower half of the keyboard, fades out towards
the middle
3. Flute or something- just on the last octave
Also, when I get my hands on a decent midi controller keyboard I want to
be able to use the extra buttons, knobs and sliders to control the
mixing above, and things like auto drum accompaniment and other synth
effects, but as yet I haven't seen any software which will let me do this.
actually those are features not rightly addressable to fluidsynth/qsynth
which as any other softsynth just reads incoming MIDI messages and
renders respective synthesized voice sounds
what you're after is some kind of MIDI patch librarian utility or else
specific to your hardware
please again notice that given the business (as in the busy sense of the
word) nature of most of the LADs you'll might be disappointed if you
don't volunteer yourself to give a real hand ... truth is you might be
out of luck if nobody else uses that same iron ...
Any suggestions?
if anything of what i've just said didn't make you think (aye!) please
let us know more about the details and figures on what you have
(hardware, brands, models, etc) and what you're trying to do (if not
already)
cheers
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc(a)rncbc.org
23 Aug
23 Aug
3:38 p.m.
Also, I would love to be able to mix together two or more instruments-
and be able to specify the range, volume and fading of each one.
As an example, so that I could have something like:
1. Piano sound- for everything except the last octave
2. Bass guitar- Mainly on lower half of the keyboard, fades out
towards the middle
3. Flute or something- just on the last octave
Maybe have a look at QMidiRoute.
http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/
I attached a .qmr file I once made for having an instrument on the lower
keys fading out towards the middle.
d.
1 1
<54
0 0
0 0 0
0 54 0
0 127 0 127
0 0
0
55
0 0
0 0 0
55 55 0
0 127 0 117
0 0
0
56
0 0
0 0 0
56 56 0
0 127 0 95
0 0
0
57
0 0
0 0 0
57 57 0
0 127 0 60
0 0
0
58
0 0
0 0 0
58 58 0
0 127 0 55
0 0
0
59
0 0
0 0 0
59 59 0
0 127 0 50
0 0
0
60
0 0
0 0 0
60 60 0
0 127 0 38
0 0
0
61
0 0
0 0 0
61 61 0
0 127 0 28
0 0
0
62
0 0
0 0 0
62 62 0
0 127 0 18
0 0
0
63
0 0
0 0 0
63 63 0
0 127 0 11
0 0
0
64
0 0
0 0 0
64 64 0
0 127 0 6
0 0
0
65
0 0
0 0 0
65 65 0
0 127 0 4
0 0
0
66
0 0
0 0 0
66 66 0
0 127 0 2
0 0
0
67
0 0
0 0 0
67 67 0
0 127 0 1
0 0
0
10:12 p.m.
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Hash: SHA1
On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 07:38:05PM +0200, David Adler wrote:
The tarball I downloaded of qmidiroute-0.2.1.tar.bz2, has no configure, no scons, no
Makefile.
It does have a "make_qmidiroute" file (and the README doesn't inform the
user to use "make -f make_qtmidiroute").
Also, the make_qmidiroute file appears to expect to find moc in /usr/lib/qt3/bin, but on
my system (Debian Sid) the moc stuff is /usr/bin/moc (and /usr/bin/moc-qt3).
Looks like an interesting program but I don't want to arse with the makefile stuff
right now. If someone has a patch to make it compile on Debian Sid then I'll be glad
to try it.
- -ken
Also, I would love to be able to mix together two or more instruments-
and be able to specify the range, volume and fading of each one.
As an example, so that I could have something like:
1. Piano sound- for everything except the last octave
2. Bass guitar- Mainly on lower half of the keyboard, fades out
towards the middle
3. Flute or something- just on the last octave
Maybe have a look at QMidiRoute.
http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/
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24 Aug
24 Aug
11:32 a.m.
Ken Restivo wrote:
The tarball I downloaded of qmidiroute-0.2.1.tar.bz2,
has no configure, no scons, no Makefile.
It does have a "make_qmidiroute" file (and the README doesn't inform the
user to use "make -f make_qtmidiroute").
I gave up on this before even learning about the -f option (thanks!),
and used the ubuntu package.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/sound/qmidiroute
It installs and runs well here on debian lenny.
regards
d.
11:42 a.m.
David Adler wrote:
Ken Restivo wrote:
Btw, there's also midirgui :
http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/soudfontcombi/midirgui.html
Though I don't know if it will do everything you want. I'd love to see
its filtering enhanced, it's already a nice framework for a MIDI event
processor.
Best,
dp
The tarball I downloaded of
qmidiroute-0.2.1.tar.bz2, has no
configure, no scons, no Makefile.
It does have a "make_qmidiroute" file (and the README doesn't inform
the user to use "make -f make_qtmidiroute").
I gave up on this before even learning about the -f option (thanks!),
and used the ubuntu package.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/sound/qmidiroute
It installs and runs well here on debian lenny.
5:12 p.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 03:31:50PM +0200, David Adler wrote:
Ken Restivo wrote:
Yes it does! Thanks!
Turns out the paths I were looking for were pretty simple, and right there in the Ubuntu
diff:
- --- qmidiroute-0.2.1/make_qmidiroute 2004-09-21 09:38:55.000000000 -0400
+++ qmidiroute-0.2.1-patched/make_qmidiroute 2006-02-14 05:47:55.000000000 -0500
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
- -QT_BASE_DIR=/usr/lib/qt3
+QT_BASE_DIR=/usr/
QT_LIB_DIR=$(QT_BASE_DIR)/lib
QT_BIN_DIR=$(QT_BASE_DIR)/bin
- -QT_INCLUDE_DIR=$(QT_BASE_DIR)/include
+QT_INCLUDE_DIR=$(QT_BASE_DIR)/include/qt3
X11_LIB_DIR=/usr/X11R6/lib
X11_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/X11R6/include
But it's much nicer to have a proper deb package. Thanks again!
- -ken
The tarball I downloaded of
qmidiroute-0.2.1.tar.bz2, has no configure, no
scons, no Makefile.
It does have a "make_qmidiroute" file (and the README doesn't inform the
user to use "make -f make_qtmidiroute").
I gave up on this before even learning about the -f option (thanks!),
and used the ubuntu package.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/sound/qmidiroute
It installs and runs well here on debian lenny.
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22 Aug
22 Aug
1:36 p.m.
On Wednesday 22 August 2007 14:22:41 Simon Williams wrote:
I'm now at the point where I can play midi files,
and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
What soundcard do you use? Do you use jack? If so, what settings do you use?
6:21 p.m.
Matthias Schönborn wrote:
On Wednesday 22 August 2007 14:22:41 Simon Williams
wrote:
nforce (on an asus mobo).
I'm now at the point where I can play midi
files, and I have a midi
keyboard connected and can play sounds to and from that.
Timidity is rubbish, frankly, so I'm using fluidsynth, which works fine.
However, for some reason I can't get qsynth to work.
What soundcard do you use? Do you use jack?
Qsynth won't start without
it.
If so, what settings do you use?
SERVER_PARAMS="-s -d alsa"
DRIVER_PARAMS="-d hw:0 -p 1024"
That's all I could find- and even those are the defaults. I'm running it
with qjackctl.
With the default setting (alsa_seq), qsynth gives this:
21:14:04.045 Qsynth1: Creating synthesizer engine...
21:14:05.078 Qsynth1: Creating audio driver (jack)...
21:14:05.144 Qsynth1: Creating MIDI router (alsa_seq)...
21:14:05.150 Qsynth1: Creating MIDI driver (alsa_seq)...
21:14:05.153 Qsynth1: Failed to create the MIDI driver (alsa_seq). No
MIDI input will be available.
JACK tmpdir identified as [/tmp]
fluidsynth: warning: Couldn't set high priority scheduling for the MIDI
input
fluidsynth: warning: Couldn't set high priority scheduling for the MIDI
input
fluidsynth: panic: Couldn't create the midi thread.
Changing the setting to alsa_raw or oss makes little difference to these
errors. My usual rant when dealing with linux sound issues is about the
total lack of any meaningful errors when something doesn't work.
I get the impression that qsynth has a major bug- I've posts on other
mailing lists from people with similar problems- fluidsynth works fine,
but qsynth is broken. If anyone can shed some light on this that would
be great.
Thanks
Simon
23 Aug
23 Aug
8:10 a.m.
Simon Williams wrote:
Also, both fluidsynth and timidity are too slow. Midi
events are routed
around instantly (tested with vkeybd and the keyboard I have plugged
in), but there is a delay in playing anything sent to fluidsynth or
timidity- about half a second or so.
I use fluidsynth with my Intel-based laptop (no hardware synth at all)
and don't have any such playing delay. Of course, I'm not running
Timidity at the same time - perhaps that's the problem?
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
6376
days inactive
6378
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
13 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Dave Phillips -
Dave Robillard -
david -
David Adler -
Folderol -
james＠dis-dot-dat.net -
Ken Restivo -
Matthias Schönborn -
Rui Nuno Capela -
Simon Williams