Subject: MIDI & Debian?

From: "Richard G. Roberto" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:26:22 -0400 (EDT)

Hi!

Last night I installed kernel 2.0.12 and now I have sound!
Well, I can use auplay to play a .wav file anyway.  I have
no idea how to test the rest of my board's functionality.
Does anybody know of a digital audio package for Debian that
will let me record digital audio?  How about a MIDI package
that will let me at least play MIDI files?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Richard G. Roberto
[email-masked]
201-739-2886 - whippany, nj

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From: Nick Busigin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:14:53 -0500 (EST)

> that will let me at least play MIDI files?

Richard,

Take a look at the Linux Sound HOWTO document that can be found in
comp.os.linux.answers as well as other places.

Best regards,

                                     Nick

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Nick Busigin                                                [email-masked]
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From: "Richard G. Roberto" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 09:35:16 -0400 (EDT)

> comp.os.linux.answers as well as other places.
Nick,

Yes, I read the HOWTO and found it very informative.  It
does not, however, discuss testing MIDI capabilities.  Nor
does it discuss testing full duplex digital capabilities.  I
did find two somewhat useful programs however.  Jazz is a
free midi program for X that seemed to be on the right track
(no pun intended).  This confirmed my midi capability was
working, although my card can use FM and WaveTable systhesis
and it sounded like FM.  I'll have to check into that
further.  There is another free sequencer type program for X
that I found confusing and not generally useful, but someone
else may.  It's called Rosegarden.

There's a reference URL at:

http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/

This has many links to useful places for Linux sound!

One thing about that HOWTO, though.  I have a true MPU-401
capable card, so according to the HOWTO and the Readme.cards
in the kernel sources, I shouldn't have any problems
enabling this _and_ the audiotrix pro.  But the mpu-401
driver complains about a conflict.  Also, the 2.0.12 kernel
does not have these sound drivers available as modules!  I
think I'm going to recompile the kernel without the MPU-401
driver and see what happens.  I have a few other things to
do first, but I should get to this this weekend.  I may have
other news on MIDI/Sound stuff by then as well.  I'll gladly
share it with the list if it seems useful.

Thanks!

Richard G. Roberto
[email-masked]

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From: "Richard G. Roberto" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 09:48:21 -0400 (EDT)

> else may.  It's called Rosegarden.

After doing some more research, I found a nasty memory leak
in jazz :-(.  Too bad, I liked the interface!  I have gotten
a little used to Rosegarden and, although it lacks features,
it does play reliably.  I also found that it maintains
playing speed very well.  Other linux X-MIDI software seem
to slow down when you do anything in X! (like move a
window!)

> driver complains about a conflict.  Also, the 2.0.12 kernel

This still happens, but without the MPU-401 support, I don't
have MIDI capabilities.  It looks like the MPU-401 option is
required for MIDI device support with the audiotrix pro.
This is a funky card and I have lots of hoops to jump
through to get it to work corrctly under DOS/WIN too.  More
on that later ...

> does not have these sound drivers available as modules!  I

As near as I can tell, this stuff gets compiled into the
sound.o module and not the kernel.  Anybody know for sure?

> driver and see what happens.  I have a few other things to

As I said, I tried it without the MPU-401 part and no midi.
Strangely enough, I couldn't get the MPU-401 device to
initialize correctly, though.  I got the same conflict
message.  But then I used the USS/Linux driver demo to test
the board, it worked!  So I unloaded it and reloaded
sound.o, and bingo:  MPU-401 midi device listed in
/dev/sndstat!  Rosegarden seems to be able to use the wave
table blaster periodically as well!

> share it with the list if it seems useful.

I found the USS/Linux web site that has a handful of tools
on its web pages.  I was unable to access these tools so Dev
at USS/Linux emailed them to me!  He's a really nice guy
who's interested in free software.  He's using a hacked up
slackware distribution for his internal purposes and I
turned him on to Debian.  He said he'd consider upgrading,
but he has a lot of stuff to do first.  I'll keep on him!
He also said that he would give me the sources to his MIDI
apps so I could debianize them!  They currently don't work
with the USS/Lite sound.o module (at least they don't for
me), so I'll have to take a look at getting them to be more
generally useful, but they work pretty well.

They have the timing problem I mentioned above, which needs
to be worked out.  They also don't give per track options
for input/output device selection, which I need.  I'll stay
on top of this as much as I can, but I'm really behind in so
many things that it may take a while.  I'm getting ready to
move half way across the world in three weeks from now!

I think this is an area that needs more attention than I'm
currently capable of giving it, but I'm the one in need, so
I guess I get the job ...

Thanks!

Richard G. Roberto
[email-masked]