www.pegasos.org

Linux, BSD, Unix etc. - Alsa, SB-Live

Ron - Oct 08, 2005 - 13:12
Post subject: Alsa, SB-Live

Has anyone here got midi working;
on Pegasos, with a sound card
with debian, or, for that matter any Linux distribution???

I have a PegasosII with an SB-Live card. I wanted that card for it's midi-capabilities. I use midi a lot (on the wife's Wintel), and manage a web-site for a choir with lots of midis for practice; so I neeed to be able to run midi-files.

The first problem after installing alsa is that programs complain that they can't find things like /dev/sequencer.
Running ....alsa-base/snddevices, seems to fix that problem. At least I got a ton of new entries in /dev and /dev/snd
However, now the midi players ran without complaining, but without a sound.
May be, I thought, one has to load the sound-font on every start-up, so I tried;
-- sfxload /etc/midi/CT4MGM.SF2
at which sfxload retorted,
-- No AWE synth device is found

I found some advice that seemed to be almost up-to-date (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/364572), and took some of what seemed to be relevant;
pegian:/home/ron/Music# modprobe snd-seq-midi
pegian:/home/ron/Music# modprobe snd-emu10k1-synth
pegian:/home/ron/Music# modprobe snd-emux-synth

Now sfxload seemed to do it's thing. But still no midi sound. And this time no wav, mp3 or ogv either.

Running alsaconf fixed that last problem.

I've been a bit long winded. but do any of you have any suggestions as to what I might have been doing wrong or misunderstood? Or is it a problem with powerpc-Debian?

Vanliga Halsningar

dholm - Oct 08, 2005 - 13:26
Post subject: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

ChrisWhite of Gentoo fame had the Pegasos (II) running with MIDI at some convention in the US. You should talk to him about that as he seems to have an interest in those sorts of things, and he found the Pegasos to be a great platform for that purpose. You can usually find him on irc.freenode.net in #Gentoo-ppc

gunne - Oct 08, 2005 - 13:26
Post subject: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

Hi Ron,

Can you please post a link to some site containing MIDI-files for downloading ?

Edit,

Found a site.

Ron - Oct 08, 2005 - 13:52
Post subject: Re: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

gunne wrote:

Hi Ron,

Can you please post a link to some site containing MIDI-files for downloading ?

My first impulse was to lead you to the site I manage, but it's members only, and there are legal issues...
Also, many of them may not sound all that good. They are only intended for practice...
You can find midi-files all over the place. When most people had telephone-modems they were almost the only option. They often sound quite bad...
These files you can have, 'cause they are my (choir) arrangements based on traditional songs
http://www.utoroa.com/Filer/Midi/2crows_SATB.mid
http://www.utoroa.com/Filer/Midi/Michael.mid

gunne - Oct 08, 2005 - 14:12
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

Hi Ron,

I found this site: http://www.mididb.com/

And I would like to be interested in knowing more about this things. So if you find more information on this subject, for instance in Linux, I would be interested to know.

I also would like to know whats the benefit is in using a Soundblaster Live soundcard for this purpose instead of the Pegasos onboard audio, if there is any ?

Why I wonder this, is that we do sell a Midi interface that amongst other computers suites also the Pegasos, and it is delivered including the MorphOS software Bars'n Pipes, which is said to be known as one of the best programs for manipulating and editing midi files and to work with midi music instruments.

On the Pegasos this equipment is aimed to be used together with the Pegasos onboard audio.

The Bars'n Pipes website is to find here: http://www.alfred-j-faust.de/indexeng.html

There is also other information, also about MIDI, on the website.

And I rember I played a little with it on the Amiga several years ago, maybe 10 years ago or something. Smile

Ron - Oct 08, 2005 - 16:08
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

I'm no expert, more a struggling newbe. Confused

A sound-card like the SB-Live uses sound-banks with a much higher fidelity than those on normal computer mother-boards. That, I assume, is the difference. Also, the SB-Live (and Audiology?) can be loaded with different "sound-fonts". I know that this made a huge difference when I put a Soundblaster card in the wife's PC...

As far as I know, a midi-interface, is a device for communication with keyboards and musical instruments. That's not what I need...

All I want is to click on a file and listen to it. music

Midi on SB-Live should work in Linux. The drives are in the kernal, alsa supports the card, and the programs to play the files are common. (Kmid even runs through the text of my songs when it can find dev/sequencer, no sound though). Unfortunately most of the information about making it work that I have managed to find on the web seems to have been a bit out of date or relevant to other distributions. I've seen that other people have had similar problems...

I have also played with midi on the Amiga. There was a great program called (Octa)med that could output midi files. That wasn't 10 years ago, but it seems like 20. Wink

Trizt - Oct 08, 2005 - 18:24
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

Not sure about the current status of the ALSA driver emu10k1, but it used to be that the MIDI wasn't supported with the driver and the same was true for the open source driver from Creative, but you should be able to find a bit information about the driver and what it supports on the alsa-project home page. You can always use timidity to play midi files, of course it won't be as good as using the midi features on a SB Live card.

gunne - Oct 08, 2005 - 20:32
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Alsa, SB-Live

Ron,

Well, ok Im not sure either, thats why I'm asking, as people tends to pop up speaking about how good a Soundblaster is compared with the Pegasos onboard audio.

The audio chip used in Pegasos is Sigmatel STAC9766T.

You can read about this chip at the manufacturers website here: http://www.sigmatel.com/products/stac9766pb.htm

Product sheet is here: http://www.sigmatel.com/documents/stac9766pb-4-0.pdf

At least it offers 20bit full duplex stereo and SigmaTel SS3D Surround, digital output, and there is also a MIDI connector on the Pegasos motherboard.

Yes, the MIDI Interface is aimed for communicating with external MIDI equipments and instruments.

I have not tried yet to play any MIDI files with any software, but probably Timidity as Trizt suggest should work to use in Linux.

Here is a list of Linux software I did find when looking around: http://linux-sound.org/midi.html

I will ask kicko again Smile

when I meet him. He is a musician and uses this kind of software each and everyday...

And I leave this with MIDI features for now, to them who knows better about this things.. Wink

Will give it a try little later, and see if i can play some MIDI files in Linux.

Ron - Oct 08, 2005 - 21:11
Post subject:

A lot of the information of a later date that I have seen, like the link I mentioned in the o p, seem to imply that it should work. I think I read somewhere that Midi runs in Debian "out of the box".

I could try Timidity, though it seems a shame when should I have the resources on the sound-card (it's the reason that I thought I needed the sound-card), and I suspect that it uses a lot more cpu-time.

I just had a look at alsa-project.org and realized it might be a matter of permissions. I might try doing it all again tomorrow, though I realy ought to try and spend some time on some other stuff...

gunne - Oct 09, 2005 - 08:21
Post subject:

I tried KMid and Timidity. Timidity did work playing MIDI files with, I couldn't get KMid to work for some reason (no sound).

Yes, I know it works playing this kind of files 'out of the box' as to say with Windows and Internet Explorer by clicking on a such file in IE, and the Media player will start and play the sound through the sound card. At least it works this way in some Windows versions.

When you find a way you like in Linux, you probably have to configure Mozilla, Opera or Firefox (or what you use) to start the application when you click on a link containing a such link. Some applications may also allow to draw and drop files/links in its window. KMid is supposed to work this way I think.

I myself mainly use Ibrowse in MorphOS for browsing the net, and I have configured its mimetypes to start certains applications on certains occations, like for stream-mp3 for instance. The updated OpenURL did help a lot here, in making it easier to get working.

PS. I must say when trying som MIDI files now, it sounded little 'old-sounded' or how to say Smile

. I played some Beatles tunes. Smile

Sorry, I couldn't be of much more help here.

dholm - Oct 09, 2005 - 08:36
Post subject:

Mr Jeremy, I suggest you talk to ChrisWhite, he really is an expert on this subject. If you are unable to get a hold of him via IRC you can probably find him at forums.gentoo.org. I'm sure he will help you, as a fellow MIDI affecionado, even though you are running Debian.

ironfist - Oct 09, 2005 - 08:40
Post subject:

What was this topic about? Windows or Linux?..

Ron - Oct 09, 2005 - 11:08
Post subject:

ironfist wrote:

What was this topic about? Windows or Linux?..

Just a minute...
linux = True
windows = False
answer = (windows or linux)
...
Yes!

dholm - Oct 09, 2005 - 11:09
Post subject:

Lol

Windows xor Linux?

gunne - Oct 09, 2005 - 16:06
Post subject:

Hi,

When you are discussions around Linux or Windows I keep on using MorphOS Wink

Anyway, for coming back to topic, I gave it some more tries in Linux. I compiled libmid which is supposed to work as a plug-in to xmms for playing MIDI-files. xmms is a quite nice multimedia player btw.

However it did not work. Could only make it to result in crap sound so far. Maybe it can be a benefit here with a SB Live, as it contains some synthesizer effects and 48 MIDI channels as what I understand. A benefit with SB Live could also be if the jack sound server works to use with this card, as some Linux Audio software rely on this server.

dholm - Oct 09, 2005 - 16:41
Post subject:

JACK has nothing to do with MIDI. It's a (very) low latency sound daemon. MIDI channels determine the number of hardware links the MIDI controller can establish. This has nothing do with playing back MIDI synthesized by the sound card.
Few to no applications strictly depend on JACK.

gunne - Oct 09, 2005 - 18:49
Post subject:

dholm,

Sure, you are right. But there is Audio software in Linux thats based on/or uses the Jack Sound server. One application seems to be Rosegarden for instance.

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/tour/integration

dholm - Oct 09, 2005 - 19:09
Post subject:

Yep. JACK support is optional though:

Code:

DEPEND="arts? ( || ( kde-base/kdemultimedia-arts kde-base/kdemultimedia ) )
!arts? ( media-libs/alsa-lib
jack? ( media-sound/jack-audio-connection-kit )
>=media-libs/ladspa-sdk-1.0
>=media-libs/ladspa-cmt-1.14 )"

JACK is useful if you are looking for a low latency solution, if not you might find it lacking in features in comparison with, for instance, arts.

Anyway, I don't really see low latency as the solution to the original problem statement in this thread.

gunne - Oct 10, 2005 - 21:26
Post subject:

dholm,

You are right again, as always ! Smile

But I did also look a little bit longer and more far, then just for the possibility to click on a link to a certain sound filetype in a browser and having it automatically being played in some media player.

This could for instance, when it comes to this particular MIDI filetype be made through the libmid (xmms-midi) plug in to xmms. However I could not make it work in a good way by now.

There seems to be solutions, as you can find out here for instance.

Link: http://www.xmms.org/plugins.php?details=42

As the Pegasos onboard audio chip doesn't seem to contain a synthesizer, this is probably the reason for no audio. This also as I when doing little more searching did find people around posting on this issue having laptops for instance with the same/similar sound chip and also mentioning the same problem.

So from this I for now make the conclusion that Ron is right in his thoughts and concerning Soundblaster.

But I will come back later again, when having more meet on the legs as to say, concerning this issue. Smile