[linux-audio-user] Re: ANN: bristol 0.9.5-60

I just wanted to followup on a previous message, since I had reported
inability to get Bristol to respond to MIDI events, or to cooperate with
JACK on my system ...

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006, I wrote:

> I tried "-jack" (JACK running on interface 2,0), but every time I
> tried to play a note Bristol silently exited.

Figured this out first: I had JACK set to 44.1KHz, for a project I'm
working on. Changed it to 48KHz, and it's fine. I'll have to see
if there's some way to programmatically _check_ the sample rate that
JACK is set to, and use that in a script to start Bristol with (using
appropriate sample-rate options), I think, so that I'll be able to give
myself a simple menu of Bristol emulations to choose from. :-)

If I can make it suitably elegant, I'll submit that as a patch to the
startBristol script, but I'll know more whether what I do is worth
considering for than once I've done it. Worst case, at least on my
system where I use Qjackctl, it looks like I can just look for jackd in
a process listing and use its "-r" argument to determine the sample
rate.

>> It should respond to a MIDI keyboard to allow you to play notes,
>
> Right. No luck yet. I would certainly appreciate ideas of where I
> should be looking.

Figured this out as well: I needed to manually add a MIDI input
connector to JACK for Bristol, and "connect" the hardware MIDI device to
it, then _activate_ that new setup. Now I'm able to use Bristol with my
MIDI keyboards (haven't tried yet with the guitar-to-MIDI converter, but
I expect that will work as well, though the converter generates a lot of
pitch-bend information.

>> but a the moment it will not link its controls to MIDI Continuous
>> Controllers.

Right. No response to pitch-bend or mod-wheels, it seems. Those are
the two I consider most important, though I realize that once you solve
the general case, these will easily fall into place. My MIDI keyboards
are (classic?) synths in their own rights (an ESQ1 and a DW8000), so I'm
not looking to assign banks of 8 knobs and sliders to various
parameters, but the ability to use the pitch-bend and mod controls on
Bristol from the keyboards would be fantastic. Also, program-change
commands, if that isn't already inplemented (I haven't actually tried, I
admit).

> I'm not very picky: I'd like to be able to play the keyboard and
> have Bristol produce the sound, ...

I'm very happy to report this now works for me! :-) :-) :-)

Thank you VERY much, for all the work you do on this, Nick!

-- 
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Sylvain Robitaille                              syl@email-addr-hidden
Major in Electroacoustic Studies                  Concordia University
Faculty of Fine Arts / Music Department       Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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