Re: Sound advice sought

[Stas Sergeev <stssppnn@yahoo.com>]

Hello.

Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> By trial & error -- because I know practically nothing
> about midi.
But there is a sound-usage.txt that
describes the ways of getting midi to
work, among other things.
The midid program is not properly
documented there, but "midid --help"
can fill the gap sometimes.

> I have not yet found a
> *game* that can make midi music in this way.
They all can (almost). Just set them
to General Midi or MPU-401. Or to MT-32
and use the -m option for midid. Or "Sound
Canvas" with the same option to midid,
etc.

> In the above commands, '3' can be any number it seems; but it must
> be the same in both commands.
True. This is a TCP port number which
is used for communication between midid
and timidity.

> -- is this the 'right' way? Or is there a simpler way?
There are other ways, see sound-usage.txt.
They may (and usually do) work better.
However in case you stuck with OSS and
without the HW synth, this might be the
only way for you to get midi. Also midid
allows you to record the music to a .mid
files.

> -- is there a correct value for the 'magic number' (3 in the
> example above)?
7777 is a default for midid, but basically
any number above 1024 is OK. Using ports
below 1024 requires root and is not
recommended.

> -- the sound is a bit weird: a bit too slow, and the tempo is
> somehow "wobbly" (the notes don?t seem to arrive
> always exactly at the correct time).
Try renicing timidity for a higher priority.
Sometimes that helps.

> Also, if I stop gsplay, there is some 'afterburst' of
> music (a few notes). Is this normal?
You have to upgrade to the daily snapshot of
TiMidity++, or from CVS to avoid some of the
weirdness, although some problems are still
there. Also try playing around with the -o
option of midid.