[F8]: Getting MIDI player to work: HOW?

kwhiskerz kwhiskerz at gmail.com
Wed Jun 11 19:54:17 UTC 2008


I am using F9, but this worked in previous F's, too. I have a SoundBlaster 
card with midi, but you can use timidity and maybe kernel module snd-virmidi, 
too, I think, but I don't know how. Perhaps this will steer you in the right 
direction...

To show available midi ports, aplaymidi -l. To get these at boot, put into 
.bash_profile (not necessary in F9, as it seems to happen automatically - 
adjust for yours):
 export ALSA_OUTPUT_PORTS="17:0 17:1 17:2 17:3"

In F9, don't create /etc/modprobe.conf, as it is supposed to cause problems 
with pulseaudio (you need to use jack for midi, but I haven't needed to stop 
pulseaudio to run jack in F9). Install jack-audio-connection-kit, qjackctl, 
the gui, and pulseaudio-module-jack (don't know what this does or how to use 
it). qjackctl creates ~/.jackrc, but you can create it manually, with a line 
something like this:
 /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:0 -r48000 -p1024 -n2 -Xseq
I have set jack to run as a temporary server in qjackctl.

You need to load a sound font. If you have a Creative card, install awefx and 
the PCLite sound font. Load it with /bin/asfxload /path/to/PCLite.sf2 (you can 
set up qjackctl or rosegarden or possibly timidity to do this automatically, 
if you use them - qjackctl is best to manage these things). Start jack with 
qjackctl (click on play, I think it is - again, you can have it start jack on 
load of the program). If you don't have midi capability, you might need to use 
fluidsynth, which is a sound font synthesizer, but I don't know how to use it. 
It has a gui, qsynth.

qjackctl allows you to create input and output connections between application 
in-/outputs and the alsa midi in-/outputs in the connection section (I don't 
know what the patchbay is). When you start an application, it will appear in 
the connection window and you need to connect it to an alsa midi input to get 
sound.

Install vkeybd, the virtual keyboard, and run it, vkeybd --octave 5 --addr 
s17:3 (change for your address, or omit --addr and connect in qjackctl, I 
think - read the man for curiosities about the s before the address, sometimes 
it's needed, sometimes not). Test to see if you can make sounds.

To use Kmid, choose one of the 4 alsa ports and define the midi mapper, 
/usr/share/kde4/apps/kmid/maps/gm.map. Choose a .mid file to play (make sure 
jack is running). Sometimes nothing happens for a couple of seconds before the 
sound begins. I don't think you need to connect Kmid in qjackctl.

Once you get the keyboard going, you can try some synthesizers to modify the 
sound. Install zynaddsubfx or download and compile minicomputer or amsynth! 
:-)

I am not sure about making firefox play midi. Something tells me it used to 
just work (after installing a sound font, I think), but I haven't tried it for 
a while.

Hope this helps.
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