Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Ron Clarke wrote:

> Hi Sindi,

> > On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, Ron Clarke wrote:
> > > > http://sound.condorow.net/midi.html - midi sequencers, players, about 2
> > > > pages worth.
> > >
> > >   Yes, I already have this bookmarked. Quite a few I have downloaded and/or 
> > > tried to compile.
> >
> > Did you get anything to work at all?
>
>    Only Timidity.

>    I couldn't get Jazz to compile. I think I got Brahms to configure, 
> but I have failed to find a way to compile it. I did get RoseGarden to 
> compile on SW9.1, but it is not fully functional even there.

Would you like help compiling one or more of these?  (Not from me, but 
maybe Steven or Stephen or David).  Which would you find most useful?
Which one looks simplest (smallest source code, fewest subdirectories)?

I was reading about Lilypond, a music typesetter (used to make sheet music 
files), and some midi sequencers (used to make midi files, right?).

>    There have been others, but I have forgotten which ones - that didn't 
> compile or the binaries didn't work.

Most of the time that I try to compile I have to give up too, or get a LOT 
of help.  I was really amazed to be able to compile three little midi 
playing or soundbank loading programs for AWE.

>   I am not interested in tracker-type applications, so I haven't 
> bothered with those, and I do not have a MIDI add-on keyboard.

Is that were you see a bouncing ball?  A friend has a Roland piano which 
actually does display the score as it plays the notes, with a bouncing 
ball over the note begin played.

 >
> Regards,
>        Ron


More on midi.  I cannot find any way to initialize my SB AWE midi cards 
with isapnp.  When I try (pnpdump -rc > /etc/isapnp.conf, isapnpconf 
/etc/isapnp) I get some suggested settings but when I insmod sb and 
awe_wave the latter gets stuck, I have to do Ctrl-C, and it has found no 
RAM (0K RAM).

If I first initialize in DOS (which appears to be finding 5MB of RAM), 
then awe_wav finds 512K of RAM and everything works.

The synthgm.sbk that I load is 34K.  I will read up on how to load 
several banks at once, or some larger bank that sounds better if possible. 
Midi piano and organ music sound okay but an orchestra played on my card 
sounds like a joke.

I notice that the AWE64 does not sound good at high volumes either and 
will look for some way to bypass the amplifier (a jumper, I hope).


I have lynx.cfg set to download and immediately play midi files:

SUFFIX:.mid:audio/x-midi
SUFFIX:.midi:audio/x-midi
VIEWER:audio/x-midi:drvmidi %s

This means that anything labelled audio/x-midi and/or ending in .mid or 
.midi is fed straight to drvmidi as the player.

I have zgv similarly set up to view .jpg or .jpeg, and will add play to 
'view' .wav files.  Links has something similar which Steven set up with 
xli as the viewer for .jpg files, which can be used as a model.

For those without awe cards, use playmidi with the switch for FM synthesis 
(-f?).

This does not work to download and play .mp3 files via modem, at least not 
those coded at 128K, because that is much faster than the modem 
connection.

This is fun!  (More so than failing at compilation).

My matrox video card, even though I did NOT boot with the vesafb kernel, 
is using not svgalib but VESA to display links2.

Sindi