KDE no midi sound

[bad sector]

I click a midi file to open it with KMid which launches and starts
playing the piece but there is no sound. Under Settings, Midi-Setup I
show the default /opt/kde3/share/apps/kmid/maps/gm.map

If I try to open Parole on it I get "Failed to connect: Conection
refused". In fact NOT ONE of the offered (midi) menu apps work!

[Pulse is not installed, alsa is available & other KDE sound works]

Instead of all the useless eyecandy I'd really like to see things that
actually work in KDE :-(

[Aragorn]

On Wednesday 01 May 2013 05:44, bad sector conveyed the following to
comp.windows.x.kde...

Okay, I'm a bit out on a limb here as I don't know much about this
stuff, but a MIDI file is not actually an audio file. It's a file
containing information with which to drive a synthesizer in your sound
chip. This synthesizer would normally have a device speciale file
called /dev/dsp.

Now, again, I'm not an expert, but as I (mis)understand it, /dev/dsp
only gets created when you're using OSS sound drivers, not ALSA. Of
course, ALSA can emulate OSS, that I know. But maybe you should think
about installing PulseAudio nevertheless. It's supposed to make
everything more transparent towards the user.

Thusfar my €0.02. ;-)

--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net

[bad sector]

Been there b4, reinstalling pulse gets Parole to work alright but I
don't remember KMidi ever having worked at all. And then pulse causes me
all manner of problems when I try to use jack with rosegarden (which is
problematic enough as is). When I want to just click-in a simple midi
player (rosegarden can do that too) it's because I only need to hear
something for a few seconds and don't wanna go through the entire ritual
of launching and setting up this other host of apps consisting of
rosegarden, jack, qsynth and zynn. If jack can handle low latency the
what is it that it could not handle as well as pulse (if it were THE kde
default soundserver)?

[-= F =-]

bad sector wrote:

> When I want to just click-in a simple midi
> player (rosegarden can do that too) it's because I only need to hear
> something for a few seconds

Have you looked at:

http://timidity.sourceforge.net/

--- from the site ---
TiMidity++ is a software synthesizer. It can play MIDI files by converting
them into PCM waveform data; give it a MIDI data along with digital
instrument data files, then it synthesizes them in real-time, and plays. It
can not only play sounds, but also can save the generated waveforms into
hard disks as various audio file formats.

TiMidity++ is a free software, distributed under the terms of GNU general
public license.

Plays MIDI files without any external MIDI instruments at all
Various user interfaces: ncurses, gtk, Win32-GUI, and others


---
-= F =-
---
If linux and Windows were women, Windows would be a whore and linux would be
a lady that requires that you develop a relationship first.

[bad sector]

On 05/04/2013 12:47 AM, -= F =- wrote:
> bad sector wrote:
>
>> When I want to just click-in a simple midi
>> player (rosegarden can do that too) it's because I only need to hear
>> something for a few seconds
>
> Have you looked at:
>
> http://timidity.sourceforge.net/
>
> --- from the site ---
> TiMidity++ is a software synthesizer. It can play MIDI files by converting
> them into PCM waveform data; give it a MIDI data along with digital
> instrument data files, then it synthesizes them in real-time, and plays. It
> can not only play sounds, but also can save the generated waveforms into
> hard disks as various audio file formats.
>
> TiMidity++ is a free software, distributed under the terms of GNU general
> public license.
>
> Plays MIDI files without any external MIDI instruments at all
> Various user interfaces: ncurses, gtk, Win32-GUI, and others

Thanks, I appreciate the tim eyou took to paste. THAT'S the way to do it
at least as one option for all midiware. Sounds pretty good actually,
and it was already installed so I just put it in as the default midi
opening app. I can always get to the more sophisticated ones if I should
need to.

I wish the kde menu would at once be more selective and inclusive and
show everything that applies (by default for spineless lazy slime like
myself). In this case I was looking at options half of which had diddley
squat to do with midi and half of which just didn't work while one that
was perfectly suited for the modest need wasn't in the menu at all.

[-= F =-]

bad sector wrote:

> Sounds pretty good actually,
> and it was already installed so I just put it in as the default midi
> opening app. I can always get to the more sophisticated ones if I should
> need to.

I've never had much success getting MIDI to work under KDE or any distro of
Linux for that matter. I discovered that the Linux version of Doom (ZDoom,
actually) would use TIMIDITY to play the in-game MOD music, if it was
installed, so that I did and voila! I was good to go.

I have since tried unsuccessfully to use Timidity as the default "MIDI
mapper" for all things MIDI and... no go.

> I wish the kde menu would at once be more selective and inclusive and
> show everything that applies (by default for spineless lazy slime like
> myself). In this case I was looking at options half of which had diddley
> squat to do with midi and half of which just didn't work while one that
> was perfectly suited for the modest need wasn't in the menu at all.

Well, as I saw that you wanted to just do some quick listening and
thought... Timidity can handle that. And yea... it does sound pretty good
because it's really a wavetable MIDI player, mapping real WAV samples and
outputting that instead of sending instructions to an MPU401 chip on the
sound card and easier than trying to setup a hardware based wavetable for
simple listening needs.

Hope it goes well for ya! :)

--

[bad sector]

On 05/05/2013 12:35 AM, -= F =- wrote:

> Well, as I saw that you wanted to just do some quick listening and
> thought... Timidity can handle that. And yea... it does sound pretty good
> because it's really a wavetable MIDI player, mapping real WAV samples and
> outputting that instead of sending instructions to an MPU401 chip on the
> sound card and easier than trying to setup a hardware based wavetable for
> simple listening needs.
>
> Hope it goes well for ya! :)

thanks again

like your sig BTW

---
If linux and Windows were women, Windows would be a whore and linux
would be a lady that requires that you develop a relationship first.

no intent to plug windows, i knew a pilot once who said about his
Shorts-Skyvan that it was like a whore too; you like being in but don't
wanna be seen with it :)

[bad sector]

On 05/05/2013 12:35 AM, -= F =- wrote:
> bad sector wrote:
>
>> Sounds pretty good actually,
>> and it was already installed so I just put it in as the default midi
>> opening app. I can always get to the more sophisticated ones if I should
>> need to.
>
> I've never had much success getting MIDI to work under KDE or any distro of
> Linux for that matter. I discovered that the Linux version of Doom (ZDoom,
> actually) would use TIMIDITY to play the in-game MOD music, if it was
> installed, so that I did and voila! I was good to go.
>
> I have since tried unsuccessfully to use Timidity as the default "MIDI
> mapper" for all things MIDI and... no go.
>
>> I wish the kde menu would at once be more selective and inclusive and
>> show everything that applies (by default for spineless lazy slime like
>> myself). In this case I was looking at options half of which had diddley
>> squat to do with midi and half of which just didn't work while one that
>> was perfectly suited for the modest need wasn't in the menu at all.
>
> Well, as I saw that you wanted to just do some quick listening and
> thought... Timidity can handle that. And yea... it does sound pretty good
> because it's really a wavetable MIDI player, mapping real WAV samples and
> outputting that instead of sending instructions to an MPU401 chip on the
> sound card and easier than trying to setup a hardware based wavetable for
> simple listening needs.
>
> Hope it goes well for ya! :)
>

have you tried right click and then

Open with > "other" and "remember" in the other dialog?


A bit off topic

Does a midi file store the desired/intended instrument name? If yes then
proper playback should be simple enough.

I always wondered WHY oh WHY was it decided not to make midi files pure
text? It would be so easy to edit them!