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

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.