[linux-audio-dev] pyseq - MIDI routing with Python and ALSA

[Peter Brinkmann]

Hi Tim,
> >In the meantime, I've put together a little MIDI routing module for
> >Python and ALSA. I'm tentatively calling it pyseq, and you can find
> >it at
> >    http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~brinkman/software/pyseq.tgz
> >if you're interested. I'm using ctypes to expose the snd_seq_event
> >struct and ALSA functions to Python.
> 
> Ah, an interesting little piece of code. There seems to be a memory
> leak in startMidiLoop() -- the pfds are never free()'d.
Nope, that's not a leak, as you already pointed out in your followup.

> I've been busy too in the meantime and added snd_seq_* support to the
> nam successor. Announcement following sometime soon.
Cool. I'm looking forward to seeing the new version.

> >[...] The solution I have in mind is to have Python map MIDI
> >control events to X events, which would, in theory anyway, let me
> >add MIDI controls to almost any GUI. I have a hunch that this idea
> >may not fly in practice, but I'm having fun thinking about it.
> 
> Python won't fly supersonic anyway; so as long as you're not expecting
> sub-millisecond latency from your MIDI -> X signal path I don't see
> why it shouldn't work. However, binding to certain widgets might prove
> hard if they don't come with their own X Window ID.
That's one of the reasons why I think it may not work. My main concern
is that any such tool would require a lot of calibration, and it be
rather sensitive to any changes in the target GUIs.

> Unless, of course, you want to control non-music applications, whose
> authors will likely show little favour for OSC-enabling patches.
Well, at the very least I'd like to keep the option of creatively
misusing MIDI events (how about a game of Pong, with paddles controlled
by MIDI sliders;).
    Peter