Any way to play a midi file?

Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Any way to play a midi file?
started by: jeffo

Posted by jeffo on Jan. 07 2006,05:48

I need help getting DSL to play midi files. Couldn't find info anywhere.

Thanks A Million!

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Jan. 07 2006,07:41

XMMS would be the one, don't know if the DSL version has MIDI built-in, think you need the xmms-midi plug-in. If MIDI isn't in there, don't know if you need to compile xmms-midi, whether it's a simple download, or what. Sorry for not being much help, but might give you a starting point.

Posted by jeffo on Jan. 07 2006,15:02

Quote (RoGuE_StreaK @ Jan. 07 2006,02:41)

XMMS doesn't have it or the plugin installed on DSL. Already looked into that and couldn't get anywhere.

Thanks anyway.

Posted by Grim on Jan. 09 2006,06:44

apt-get install playmidi

If that doesn't float your boat, try looking through the apps @ < http://linux-sound.org/one-page.html#midi >

Just out of curiosity, why in the hell would you want to play midi anyway?

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Jan. 09 2006,07:58

I for one would use it for synth/sampler control, if it supports hardware output. MIDI has received a bad name from the cheesy online and ringtone stuff, but it's very powerful when using good hardware!

Posted by Grim on Jan. 09 2006,09:18

Hey Rogue,

Yeah, I get that. For serious midi work, there's RoseGarden and TiMidity++. I think Muse is supposed to be good too.

But, if you're running DSL, I'm kinda doubting that you're gonna be doing high-end audio editing. I could be wrong, what do I know.

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Jan. 09 2006,09:25

DSL could be useful to convert an old laptop into a portable MIDI sequencer?

Posted by Ploppy on Jan. 21 2006,20:31

I have been searching all around and couldnt find any MIDI Software that runs on DSL , though the OSS supports the MPU401(midi) Interface. A lot of people have
MIDI keyboards and would like to use it together with the PC , not only to make
own music but also to store memory data of older synths etc.
The hole MIDI/Sequencer thing is the only reason why I have to keep Windows beside my Linux Installation , all the Sequencers for Linux have bad timing and a
even worse user interface, Rosegarden might be good , but produces nothing but errors on my Suse Distro.
Sometimes I wish somebody would sell commercial software for musicians running Linux , in this case I think the opensource idea didnt work.....
Anybody successfull running midi stuff on dsl ? Please tell me

Posted by cyberoidx on Jan. 22 2006,01:55

I second that.

Actually fact is, midi is more about your sound card than linux. It took me an year to figure out how to play midi on my windows!!!!!!
Even if the program works, alsa might not be config'd properly , etc...

Last thng you can do is convert midi to wav.

Posted by jls legalize on Jan. 22 2006,15:35

try musix live distro

Posted by marvintode on Jan. 23 2006,14:28

For those looking for support for musicians using Linux try Studio To Go from Fervent Software (http://www.ferventsoftware.com). It's a LiveCD based on Knoppix with a kernel tweaked for audio use. It costs 60 GBP, but well worth it if you're serious about MIDI or digital audio running on Linux. It should work with any MIDI-compliant hardware. I've successfully used it with my Yamaha DGX-205 keyboard; I was easily able to set up Rosegarden to take MIDI inputs from the keyboard.

Posted by jls legalize on Jan. 26 2006,01:56

after

Code Sample

apt-get install playmidi

I typed

Code Sample

playmidi <midifile>

and I got this error:
open /dev/sequencer: no such device

Posted by Ploppy on Jan. 27 2006,12:54

Me again , I was wrong earlier , the JAZZ Sequencer(available at www.jazzware.com as gnu license) does work on DSL ,only thing I had to do was editing the config file from ALSA to OSS , so at least I am able to play midi files over a midi-synth.

Posted by jls legalize on Jan. 27 2006,14:23

since u got jazz working, can u make a .dsl or a .uci?

Me too I installed jazz and changed the jazz.cfg from alsa to oss but I got this error:
/dev/sequencer2 or /dev/music: No such file or directory

legalize cannabis

Posted by Ploppy on Jan. 30 2006,18:14

Me again

, the thing made me curious , so I tried timidity. Aynone else having troubble compiling source under dsl ? I get error messages like "no hosttype specified" , yes so what host type may I need ?Silly stuff , I just wanted to run a simple program. I searched and searched for a binary and finally found one at ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/pupget_packages-1 (, yes I just borrowed a puppy package :laugh:

)
The files have to be moved manually from the extracting folder, then in EMELFM go to the directory where your midifiles are , type "timidity "+ yourmidifile.mid , and I think it sounds pretty good .The program does actually nothing but playing , no edit screen or gui around , I am curious if anybody got timidity++ running ? I am also thankfull for any tip how to make those src files compile on my system , got gcc already , so what else would be recommended ?
Thanks a lot

Posted by Ploppy on Jan. 30 2006,18:22

Sorry jls legalize ,I didnt read your post before I wrote , I have exactly the same problem on my notebook with an older
soundcard , seems it just depends on the compatibility of the soundcard ,since the old device couldnt be configured with ALSA neither (no drivers found). Since I am a Linux newbie please dont ask me to make any dsl packages ,this would be ending up in chaos :laugh:

Posted by humpty on Mar. 03 2006,20:23

timidity is available in the testing area.

Posted by Zucca on April 23 2007,15:00

That was the only one I got working. =)

To install it from testing area:

Code Sample

mydsl-load timidity.dsl testing

Posted by humpty on April 24 2007,01:00

a .uci version will be out soon. it will be configured for low cpu usage.

(is there any interest out there for a 12mb version using eawpats samples?)

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on April 24 2007,04:13

Hm.. it seems that freepats has sort of taken over eawpats... (freepats.opensrc.org).
Though I don't have many midi's that I regularly listen to, quality packs are always welcome, at least, for me (I seem to only recall using Windows specific ones).