Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 19:59, Jason Clouse wrote:
> > 2. What does ALSA NOT do that you wish it would?
>
> MIDI:
> 1) Alsa does not name MIDI devices in a way that makes sense to
> composers. Alsa should be able to display a marketing name for a MIDI
> device. It should be able to name ports on these devices. (Port 1 Out or
> MIDI A In) so that they match the language on the physical device.
This is difficult to do when the driver doesn't know these names.
(The USB MIDI spec defines port names, but they're optional, and no
device ever sets them, of course.)
I think we need some little userspace utility that allows to change
client/port names. It would have a device database and user-specific
configuration, so it would be possible to set a port's name to that of
the external device, too.
(I've added this to my TODO list (which doesn't mean anything).)
> I expect that there is probably some smart .asoundrc trick I could
> play to create virtual MIDI devices with names I like, but I don't
> know how to do it.
This works for rawmidi ports only:
rawmidi.my_port {
type hw
card 3
device 0
subdevice 2
}
So you could use "my_port" instead of "hw:3,0,2".
Unfortunately, no program (expect amidi) actually uses rawmidi ports.
(It seems nobody yet has complained that "hw:X" is a meaningless name
for a MIDI port. :-)
> I just think that many composer types will not like 72:4 and 80:0.
This is why every GUI shows the client/ports names, too. :-)
In command-line programs like aconnect, you can use (a prefix of) the
client name instead of the client number, and the default port number
is 0 (i.e., ":0" can be omitted). This doesn't work with pmidi
because pmidi explicitly checks that you give it two numbers --
apparently, not everybody knows about useful functions like
snd_seq_parse_address().
> 3) I have undocumented low-level 'concerns' about the timing accuracy of
> MIDI under Linux, but it's not so bad as to warrant 'worry' or a bug
> report. Just concerns that there is more jitter in my Linux MIDI created
> audio than on my Windows boxes.
What timer are you using for the sequencer? The default system timer
on 2.4.x has a resolution of 100 Hz. I'm using the timer on my ymfpci
card with 1000 Hz. (Yeah, completetely undocumented, that one, like
the RTC timer. (TODO: FAQ #15))
Regards,
Clemens
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