Re: [linux-audio-dev] alsa midi device name extension proposal.

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] alsa midi device name extension proposal.
From: Josh Green (jgreen_AT_users.sourceforge.net)
Date: Mon Apr 01 2002 - 20:13:29 EEST


On Sun, 2002-03-31 at 21:21, Juan Linietsky wrote:
> On 27 Mar 2002 14:42:17 -0700
>
> This is cool, althought i think the instrument/patch retrieving should be done via the alsa sequencer api, so it remains compatible with everything else. Still, i think a libsoundfont would also be great to add native support of soundfont loading in alsa (instead of using sfxload which needs OSS compatibility and is bound to OSS limitations).
>

I think libsoundfont might help in creating a standard for ALSA, for
sound font management. I have yet created a database type protocol for
synchronizing a sound font, though. When this has been done, an ALSA API
could then be programmed that might be compatible with it. I don't think
I, or anyone else, would want a library dependency for ALSA though, so
it should of course reside in ALSA lib.

> > Of course a simpler protocol could be used that would just allow
> > querying preset names and current control values of a MIDI channel. This
> > might fit more in line with what you are talking about. I would still
> > like to see something like this brought about as it would help with
> > communication between Swami (was Smurf) and MIDI sequencers.
> >
>
> Yes that would be great. Actually, if you have some time (and I dont have much either) we could work on these aditions to the alsa api.
>

Yes, I have time :) Plenty of it actually. Its just really how I want to
use it. These extensions are important to me though, so I would like to
help implement it. Perhaps we should bring up this discussion on the
ALSA list to get their input?

>
> I think it should definitively default to
> -querying a controller name list from a device
> -query default controllers from a patch
>

I don't quite understand the second item. Query default controllers from
a patch? What values would be retrieved? Do you mean default values for
the controllers? How would you see this being used?

Just to clarify as well, when you speak of controllers we're talking
just MIDI custom controllers right?

> At least for now, in a future, when the above is working, it could be expanded to work with other kind of setups...
>

Sounds like a good plan.

>
> This sucks because of the existence of QT and GTK ;) As much as i'd rather to use GTK, which is also way more popular than QT, the poor KDE users wont like using some alien-looking widgetset!
>

I wasn't saying to use GTK directly, more of just modeled after it.

>
> regards
>
> Juan Linietsky

So what next? It seems like perhaps we should bring this up on the ALSA
list to see what they think of the idea before we proceed any further.
We can then start defining the ALSA sequencer data stream API and alsa
lib API, providing someone on the ALSA list doesn't just do it for us :)
Cheers!
        Josh Green


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