[Alsa-user] harddisk sampler

2004-03-15 Thread Hawkeye Parker
Title: harddisk sampler






hi all,

i'm fairly new to linux/alsa, and i've been just trying to get my bearings amid the staggering amount of software.

i'd like to use linux as a harddisk sampler, and here is the essential functionality i'd like:

-ability to "compose" with samples, in the same way that you'd use a sequencer to work with synthesized sounds.  i.e., be able to arrange samples into tracks or channels, and specify when (rhythm) and at what pitch the samples play.

-some sort of mixer to mix things down so i can record it.

-ablility to add software effects to the above tracks.


essentially, what i'm looking for is some way to reproduce the ~nature~ of Sonic Foundry's Acid for Windows.  i don't really *want* Acid, or even one specific piece of software, but just some way to use samples in a similar sort of way.

one thought i've had is to use fluidsynth/swami to build soundfonts of the samples i want to use, and then drive those samples with MusE.  MusE supports LADSPA, so i would have per/track access to LADSPA plugins on top of the samples.  right??

building the soundfonts will take time, though, and i wonder if there isn't a more direct way to accomplish the same thing.  i've looked at Simsam (sampler) as well, and the occured to me that i could run multiple instances of Simsam through multiple jack-racks, but this is obviously a kludge, and there must be a better way (?)

i'm also considering diving into TerminatorX -- it looks very promising . . .

any suggestions?

thanks in advance,

hawkeye parker





RE: [Alsa-user] sblive: gameport, midi devices, midi ports, gmidimon

2004-02-21 Thread Hawkeye Parker
Title: RE: [Alsa-user] sblive:  gameport, midi devices, midi ports, gmidimon






Clemens, you are so correct, it is almost frightening.

Thankyou once again.

hawkeye


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Clemens Ladisch
Sent:   Fri 2/20/2004 3:54 AM
To: Hawkeye Parker
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:    Re: [Alsa-user] sblive:  gameport, midi devices, midi ports, gmidimon
Hawkeye Parker wrote:
> problem:  get midi in/out (externally) of my sblive.
>
> pmidi -l shows that i have UART
>
> 72:0 Rawmidi 1 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (U    EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
>
> question:  is this the game port?

Yes.

> i'd thought to use pmidi to send events to the UART port (72:0),
> like:
>
> pmidi -p72:0 somefile.mid
>
> and then monitor the corresponding device (/dev/snd/midiC1D0??)
> with gmidimon. but ... i've tried monitoring all of the possible
> devices, and gmidimon displays nothing.

The data you play with pmidi is sent to the output port.  gmidimon
reads the data that arrives at the input port.

Either use a MIDI cable to connect the MIDI Out and MIDI In connectors
of your gameport/MIDI cable, or connect pins 12 and 15 of the gameport
with a wire:

  8 1
---
\ o o o o o o o o /
 \ o o o o o o o /
  -|-|---
 15| | 9
   \_/


HTH
Clemens










[Alsa-user] sblive: gameport, midi devices, midi ports, gmidimon

2004-02-19 Thread Hawkeye Parker
Title: sblive:  gameport, midi devices, midi ports, gmidimon






hi,

problem:  get midi in/out (externally) of my sblive.

in the past, i've used the midi/game port for external midi. lspci shows that it's there:

00:0d.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Creative Labs Gameport Joystick
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
    I/O ports at 7000 [size=8]
    Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

pmidi -l shows that i have UART

72:0 Rawmidi 1 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (U    EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)

question:  is this the game port?  if so, how do you know? if not, what is it?

assuming it's the game port (big assumption), i wanted to see if i can monitor midi events to/from it.  i've got a running copy of gmidimon, which is supposed to monitor midi events according to "midi input" which it lists by device, e.g:

/dev/snd/midiC1D0
/dev/snd/midiC1D1
/dev/snd/midiC1D2

cat /proc/asound/devices lists three "raw midi" devices which i believe correspond to those available in gmidimon:

40: [1- 0]: raw midi
41: [1- 1]: raw midi
42: [1- 2]: raw midi

i'd thought to use pmidi to send events to the UART port (72:0), like:

pmidi -p72:0 somefile.mid

and then monitor the corresponding device (/dev/snd/midiC1D0??) with gmidimon. but a) i'm not sure which *device* UART corresponds to (if it does at all), and b) i've tried monitoring all of the possible devices, and gmidimon displays nothing.

the larger question is: how to troubleshoot and get my midi/game port working if possible?

the smaller question is: how do i know which midi *ports* correspond to which midi *devices* (if they actually correspond at all).


many thanks in advance if you even get *through* this post. sheesh.


hawkeye parker







RE: [Alsa-user] emu10k1 midi failing. why?

2004-02-19 Thread Hawkeye Parker
Title: RE: [Alsa-user] emu10k1 midi failing. why?






clemens,

many thanks for your reply.  indeed, a 0 volume mixer control ("Music") was the culprate.  your advice to check /proc/asound/card/wavetableD was *very* helpful in determining that the soundfount was actually being correctly installed.  if you can believe it, i just hadn't actually stumbled on the alsa wiki pages, which obviously hold much gold.

anyhow, i (and every newbie out there) truly thank you for your dogged attention to the list.

hawkeye


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Clemens Ladisch
Sent:   Wed 2/18/2004 12:21 AM
To: Hawkeye Parker
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:    Re: [Alsa-user] emu10k1 midi failing. why?
Hawkeye Parker wrote:
> i'm trying to understand why and how my midi playback capabilities
> are failing under ALSA.  i'm trying to use my soundBlaster Live!
> (EMU10K1) midi synth, but i hear nothing.

> is there any way to tell *what* isn't working?

lsmod tells us the modules are loaded.
"pmidi -l" tells us the MIDI ports are there.

How did you run sfxload?  Does it output any error message?
Did you play to one of the wavetable ports? (The MPU-401 is the
external port.)
Did you unmute and raise the volume of all relevant mixer controls?

Please look into the file /proc/asound/card?/wavetableD? to see if
sfxload worked (it should say something about memory and instruments).
Additionally, some instrument/samples should be locked while playing.

> the "Details" page for this card on the Alsa site states:
>
> - MIDI on SB live drive not working properly.

This relates to the second external MIDI port, not to the wavetable
synthesizer.


HTH
Clemens












[Alsa-user] emu10k1 midi failing. why?

2004-02-17 Thread Hawkeye Parker
Title: emu10k1 midi failing. why?






hi all

i'm trying to understand why and how my midi playback capabilities are failing under ALSA.  i'm trying to use my soundBlaster Live! (EMU10K1) midi synth, but i hear nothing.  the "Details" page for this card on the Alsa site states:

- MIDI on SB live drive not working properly.

(http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/doc-php/template.php?company=Creative+Labs&card=Soundblaster+Live&chip=EMU10K1&module=emu10k1)

i'm trying to figure out just *what* isn't working properly.  there is a user note on that same page explaining how to add sound fonts with sfxload, but i tried this and it doesn't seem to have made a difference.  it looks to me as though everything is configured "properly":  pcm audio works for both of my cards, and there are a number of (correct?) entries for the various midi modules.  midi aware applications (pmidi, alsa-patch-bay, rosegarden) all seem to recognize the synth, e.g.:

$pmidi -l
 Port Client name   Port name
 72:0 Rawmidi 1 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (U    EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)
 73:0 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 0
 73:1 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 1
 73:2 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 2
 73:3 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 3

when i actually try to play a midi file, though, no sound.  is there any way to tell *what* isn't working?  lsmod,  modules.conf, and .asoundrc follow.  thanks,
hawkeye parker


$lsmod
Module  Size  Used by    Not tainted
snd-seq-oss    35264   0  (autoclean)
snd-seq-midi    5280   0  (autoclean)
snd-pcm-oss    44452   0  (autoclean)
snd-mixer-oss  16176   0  (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-emu10k1-synth   5884   0
snd-emux-synth 35292   0  [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul   7212   0  [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-virmidi 5144   0  [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-midi-event  6304   0  [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi]
snd-seq    49712   2  [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-emux-synth snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-emu10k1    87092   0  [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-util-mem    3112   0  [snd-emux-synth snd-emu10k1]
snd-hwdep   7104   0  [snd-emu10k1]
snd-ice1712    51532   0
snd-pcm    87456   0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-emu10k1 snd-ice1712]
snd-page-alloc  9908   0  [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm]
snd-timer  21124   0  [snd-seq snd-pcm]
snd-cs8427  9160   0  [snd-ice1712]
snd-i2c 4660   0  [snd-ice1712 snd-cs8427]
snd-ice17xx-ak4xxx  2588   0  [snd-ice1712]
snd-ac97-codec 59116   0  [snd-emu10k1 snd-ice1712]
snd-mpu401-uart 5520   0  [snd-ice1712]
snd-rawmidi    19744   0  [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi snd-emu10k1 snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device  6268   0  [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-emu10k1-synth snd-emux-synth snd-seq snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi]
snd-ak4xxx-adda 5524   0  [snd-ice1712 snd-ice17xx-ak4xxx]
snd    47812   0  [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-emux-synth snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-emu10k1 snd-util-mem snd-hwdep snd-ice1712 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-cs8427 snd-i2c snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ak4xxx-adda]
soundcore   6692  13  [snd]



$cat /etc/modules.conf
alias eth0 ne2k-pci
alias scsi_hostadapter advansys
alias usb-controller usb-uhci
 
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# delta66
alias snd-card-0 snd-ice1712
# sb live
alias snd-card-1 snd-emu10k1
# module options should go here
 
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
 
# card #0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
 
# card #1
alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-1-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-1-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss
 
#--- Keep modules from being autocleaned
add options -k snd-card-0
add options -k snd-card-1



$cat .asoundrc
# delta 66
pcm.ice1712 {
type hw
card 0
}
 
ctl.ice1712 {
type hw
card 0
}
 
# sb live
pcm.emu10k1 {
type hw
card 1
}
 
ctl.emu10k1 {
type hw
card 1
}