setting up fluidsynth the Linux sound generator

[Louis B.]

How do I hear the sound on Linux (Ubuntu)?

To hear the sound Piano Booster needs a MIDI sound generator, there are two different General Midi sound generators avalable on Linux, 'fluidsynth' and 'timidty'. To install fluidsynth you must install the following packages 'fluidsynth' 'fluid-soundfont-gm' and 'fluid-soundfont-gs' using your favourite package manager. To start the fluidsynth sound generator type the following on the command line.

fluidsynth -C0 -R0 -r22050 -l -o midi.alsa_seq.id=fs /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GS.sf2

If you have a fast machine then you can leave out the flags ' -C0 -R0 -s 22050' which turn off the reverbe and chorus an reduce the sample rate.

I have had some luck using qsyth to control fluidsyth but again I had to turn of reverbe and chorus and reduce the sample rate

Also see these instructions from Dan in another thread.

In addition to that I had to edit /etc/libao.conf to read

default_driver=pulse

Then reboot or you can just restart ALSA with

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

The package names for the GM soundfonts under Ubuntu are fluid-soundfont-gm and fluid-soundfont-gs so if you don't have an external hardware MIDI synth such as a keyboard with MIDI IN you can get all the apps required for a softsynth under Ubuntu with the command:

sudo apt-get install fluidsynth fluid-soundfont-gm fluid-soundfont-gs

then I could start fluidsynth using a command like:

fluidsynth -s -i /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GS.sf2

You will then have a softsynth option available named something like 'Synth input Port (23566)' under the the MIDI ouput device drop-down when you start Pianobooster.

[OwenW]

OK, I've followed these instructions above.  However there may be a problem with 0.6.1 beta as it behaves differently to 0.5.1.

In 0.5.1 I see the 'Synth Input port (8580:0)' in the drop down but its not there in 0.6.1.  The drop down only has 'None' and 'Midi through:0'.

My version of 0.6.1 beta was taken off trunk yesterday or day before.

Bug?

[Louis B.]

Please start fluidsynth before pb and then retest. (it only checks the midi list when the  midi dialog is first opened) thanks.

[CRP]

That's funny, the behaviour on Mac OSX (pb v0.6.1) is different. If I start pianobooster the output device is empty, then I start SimpleSynth and go to the Midi Setup dialog, and SimpleSynth appears in the dropdown box...

[OwenW]

The plot thickens.  

My problem was 'no midi out' in drop down for 0.6.1 beta...

It's definitely not an issue of starting fluidsynth first - but I think I've worked out what it is.

I added some debug printf's to MidiDevice.cpp and can see that rtmidi just isn't returning the fluidsynth port.  I noticed that Louis moved from 1.0.7 to 1.0.8 of rtmidi somewhere between 0.5.1 and 0.6.1, so I rolled back to the previous version of rtmidi and recompiled.  Boom, I have midi out!  My c is poor so I can't see what the problem is, doing a diff between 1.0.7 and 1.0.8 - it does look as if RtMidiIn and RtMidiOut now take a string arg to constructor called 'clientName'.  This could be the problem.

(Thanks Louis for fixing the timing marks, they now appear to the right).

[OwenW]

Hmm,

I've tried swapping from fluidsynth to timidity softsynth.  And 0.6.1 finds timidity midi out for both 1.0.7 and 1.0.8 of rtmidi.

I think I'll stick with timidity for the time being.

BTW, I use this to start timidity:
timidity -iA -Os -EFreverb=0 -B2,8 --realtime-priority=4 -N=5 --sequencer-ports=1 &

Owen

[Louis B.]

Hi All,

I have just updated the PB FAQ page with important information on running with low latency delay see:

http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/faq.html#how-do-i-hear-the-sound-on-linux-ubuntu