Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

[Josh Lehan]

Hello.

Newbie question: I'm wondering about sending untimed MIDI data to the
ALSA sequencer subsystem.

The application would be for a "beep"-like program, from the command
line, that instead of making beeps, would play MIDI instruments to make
better-sounding beeps.

I have TiMidity hooked up into ALSA, as a softsynth, and it works just
fine for playing MIDI data sent to it by ALSA.

The "aplaymidi" command works for .MID files, and the "vkeybd" program
works for simulating a keyboard and sending in untimed MIDI data.  The
"aseqview" program also works great for watching the notes being played,
as they go by.  So, my MIDI software stack appears to be in order.  I
don't have a hardware synthesizer hooked up at the moment (my Kawai K1
is showing its age, and a few keys are broken).

I also looked at "amidi", which features a -S option to send in untimed
MIDI bytes, but unfortunately, that addresses an entirely different
namespace.  Evidently, it only speaks to "RawMIDI" devices, of which
TiMidity is not.

So, I can't generate untimed MIDI data on my own.  I was thinking of
writing a small "midibeep" program that would do this, similar to what
vkeybd does, but without requiring any user interaction.

Does such a program already exist?

Thanks!

Josh

Re: Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:13:23 -0800,
Josh Lehan wrote:
> 
> Hello.
> 
> Newbie question: I'm wondering about sending untimed MIDI data to the
> ALSA sequencer subsystem.
> 
> The application would be for a "beep"-like program, from the command
> line, that instead of making beeps, would play MIDI instruments to make
> better-sounding beeps.
> 
> I have TiMidity hooked up into ALSA, as a softsynth, and it works just
> fine for playing MIDI data sent to it by ALSA.
> 
> The "aplaymidi" command works for .MID files, and the "vkeybd" program
> works for simulating a keyboard and sending in untimed MIDI data.  The
> "aseqview" program also works great for watching the notes being played,
> as they go by.  So, my MIDI software stack appears to be in order.  I
> don't have a hardware synthesizer hooked up at the moment (my Kawai K1
> is showing its age, and a few keys are broken).
> 
> I also looked at "amidi", which features a -S option to send in untimed
> MIDI bytes, but unfortunately, that addresses an entirely different
> namespace.  Evidently, it only speaks to "RawMIDI" devices, of which
> TiMidity is not.
> 
> So, I can't generate untimed MIDI data on my own.  I was thinking of
> writing a small "midibeep" program that would do this, similar to what
> vkeybd does, but without requiring any user interaction.
> 
> Does such a program already exist?

I don't know of such thing, too.
It'd be nice to have in alsa-utils.


Takashi

Re: Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

[Josh Lehan]

Takashi Iwai wrote:
> At Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:13:23 -0800,
> Josh Lehan wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> Newbie question: I'm wondering about sending untimed MIDI data to the
>> ALSA sequencer subsystem.
>>
>> The application would be for a "beep"-like program, from the command
>> line, that instead of making beeps, would play MIDI instruments to make
>> better-sounding beeps.
>>
>> Does such a program already exist?
> 
> I don't know of such thing, too.
> It'd be nice to have in alsa-utils.

Thanks for the suggestion!

A few days ago, I started writing a program to do just this.  It is
coming along nicely.  When it's finished, I'll post a link to it here,
for your review.

Josh

Re: Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

[Clemens Ladisch]

Josh Lehan wrote:
> I also looked at "amidi", which features a -S option to send in untimed
> MIDI bytes, but unfortunately, that addresses an entirely different
> namespace.  Evidently, it only speaks to "RawMIDI" devices, of which
> TiMidity is not.

Try the snd-virmidi driver.  It is intended to make sequencer ports
available as OSS midi devices, but you also get RawMIDI ports for free.


HTH
Clemens

Re: Newbie question: Sending untimed MIDI data to ALSA seq

[Josh Lehan]

Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> Josh Lehan wrote:
>> I also looked at "amidi", which features a -S option to send in untimed
>> MIDI bytes, but unfortunately, that addresses an entirely different
>> namespace.  Evidently, it only speaks to "RawMIDI" devices, of which
>> TiMidity is not.
> 
> Try the snd-virmidi driver.  It is intended to make sequencer ports
> available as OSS midi devices, but you also get RawMIDI ports for free.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I looked into that kernel driver, but it's
not a full solution to the problem.  I have an idea for writing a little
ALSA program (in userspace) that will accept arbitrary bytes as input,
and feed it into the ALSA stack, so I'll work on that.  If I am
successful in getting that done, then it will be a really clean solution
to this problem.

Josh