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baslinux - Re: [BL] /dev/sequencer and external midi problem Re: ltmodem, member contributions pages and misc.

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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] /dev/sequencer and external midi problem Re: ltmodem, member contributions pages and misc.
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 04:30:39 +0000 (UTC)

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Samual Acorn wrote:

On 26/06/06, sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Samual Acorn wrote:

sindi you're not going to believe this....

try this; 'playmidi -e -D0 midifile.mid'

Using playmidi-2.4 for libc6 or 2.5 for libc5:

Playmidi -e and -a play AWE.

same here


Playmidi -D0 or -D1 or -D2 (no -e) play as FM synth.

same here

I bet you loaded your modules in the same order I did, with sb first and opl3 and awe_wave following them.

On David's suggestion, I loaded sb last, which indeed made it D0.
playmidi -e file.mid - played to external midi, as did -e -D0.
The default external device appears to be D0.


Playmidi -e -D0 and -D1 play nothing.

-D0 played nothing (nothing is connected to the midi port) -D1 played
to the AWE (see the device listing)

Playmidi -e -D2 plays to the piano
So my external device is -D2.

Playmidi -4 = opl3

opl3 in four operator mode....

Playmidi -a = awe

playmidis version of awe .. .. best to use -e to send data to the
driver rather than let playmidi try to interpret it... that way sysex
messages are sent properly....

What is sysex?



apparently when you specify an external device to play to you also
need to tell it to play to that external device.... figured specifing
a device would be common sense that i wanted it to play to that
device.... IMHO if the programmer wanted to take that confusing route
it would have been nice if he would have put it in the manual... but
the '-D' option isnt even -in- the manual... ugh...
It is mentioned in QuickStart, but -e is probably not.

According to the man page, external is supposed to be default 'as
distributed'.

according to the man page a lot of things should work the way they dont.....

It worked as default if the external device was loaded LAST (D0).

if you load the SBlives soundfont (the one included with the lives
driver) the awe will sound just as good as most GM/GS keyboards....
the files name is 'ct2mgm.sf2' and is around 2.1MB...

I can't load 2.1MB into an AWE64, which has only 512K RAM.

The SB32 has mpu401 disabled. It is a cheapie card and I don't see any way to enable it. I enabled gameport with CTCM.

In my two best computers I have an AWE32 SB and and AWE32 Vibra with real jumpers which I will test for working midi port and maybe switch with the AWE64. The Vibra does not need CTCM and I could therefore bypass DOS startup files.


I will attempt this again after putting Rosegarden on the music computer
It does not work with Xvesa unless I bypass startup files (himem.sys
interferes with Xvesa - illegal instruction - even when running DOS 7.1),
and in BL3 the S3 server (and a Trio32 or 64 card, or svga server with S3
or trident) displays black text on black background (in Opera, anyway)).

boot with syslinux or lilo.... please.... quit booting linux from dos...
I use DOS on all my computers. There are more interesting things to learn than lilo and isapnp, such as mousekeys.


boot bl3 with syslinux and use isapnp

I wasted a lot of time with isapnp. It is an art.


I tried another computer with SB32 card (and working Xvesa with himem.sys)
but mpu401 is disabled (maybe by jumper, have to open it up and look).
SB16 diagnose says so, and none of the mpu addresses work with sb.o

the mpu401 can be disabled with a jumper.... look for total hardware
99 on the web... it will show you the location if you cant find it on
the card...

Only one jumper on the SB32, not mpu, I forget what it does. Cheap version of AWE32. What is missing from the Vibra, will it play to external midi?

should be there when you load the sound modules... if not you can try;
cat /dev/sndstat

I tried that too, and it did not work. I already made the device.
More soon. It got late.

if -that- file doesnt exsist then try making it;
mknod /dev/sndstat c 14 16
then try 'cat'ing it again....

in that list -- in 'midi devices' "0: Soundblaster 16" is the external
midi port....

Or in my case apparently 2 is the external port. What sets it?

when sb.o and uart401.o is loaded i would assume.... (uart401.o
should load when sb.o loads)

I insmod it first, before sb.




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