Re: [LAU] [ANN] AZR3-JACK released

On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 06:08:21PM +0100, Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Sunday 30 December 2007 13:40, Edgar Aichinger wrote:
> > > > Wild stab in the dark: you have an old version of jackd that doesn't
> > > > support JACK MIDI, or doesn't support the particular version of the
> > > > JACK MIDI API that AZR3 requires?
> > > >
> > > > -ken
> > >
> > > Well OK. I just installed it on Fedora 8, and apart from having to
> > > install a few deps it has installed ok.
> > >
> > > Now I find that qjackctl's midi connect shows AZR3 to alsa_pcm on the
> > > audio tab, the midi tab shows nothing where my usb midi keyboard was on
> > > the output ports, but AZR3 on the input ports. Going to the Alsa tab, my
> > > usb midi keyboard is there, but no connection available to Azr3 on the
> > > input ports.
> >
> > But this has been discussed earlier in this thread, you need nedko's
> > a2jmidi to bridge ALSA MIDI ports to JACK MIDI, or use a more recent JACK
> > svn checkout and run jackd with -X seq.
>
> First. Apologies about the needless rant yesterday. I had already downloaded
> the a2midi file from Kens post, when I dl'd Azr3, but was frustrated, forgot
> that I'd downloaded the fix, and lost it a bit.
>
> How now do I use alsaseq2jackmidi.c so as to bridge ALSA MIDI ports to JACK
> MIDI?

Just compile it and run it. The comments in the source code gives the proper gcc invocation.
I have a 0.103 jackd that supports JACK MIDI, so I was able to compile it thusly (you probably would too):
        gcc -Wall -o alsaseq2jackmidi alsaseq2jackmidi.c -ljack -lasound

Then run it: ./alsaseq2jackmidi &

Now alsaseq2jackmidi will show up in your ALSA tab of QJackCtl. Hook your keyboard up to that. Then go to the MIDI tab and hook alsaseq2midi up to your AZR3 instance (Elven, I'd guess). You've created a wormhole between the two domains, and are routing your MIDI through it.

As was mentioned, there is a newer tool that Nedko came up with, which is more automatic and probably a lot better Also, -X invocation on recent jackd will do some of this for you too. I don't use them so I don't know.

> >
> > > I used to have an "Audio" tab, and a
> > > "Midi" tab, and it worked ok. Now for some reason or other some idiot has
> > > decided to add an Alsa tab, and everything is totally screwed up. I've
> > > got my keyboard on the Alsa tab, and AZR-3 on the midi tab, and no way it
> > > seems of connecting the keyboard to AZR3.
>
> Saying that though, all the stuff that was on the MIDI tab, is now on the ALSA
> one, and if I start ZynAddSubFX, Zyn shows up on the ALSA tab, so there is no
> problem in making the connection.

That's because it uses ALSA for MIDI and doesn't know JACK MIDI.

> >
> > Recent versions of qjackctl have it this way, the old MIDI tab has been
> > renamed to ALSA, and a new MIDI tab is there to show JACK MIDI ports.
>
> OK. I'm obviously not clued up enough about the "new" MIDI tab that is now
> showing JACK MIDI ports. Any links to learn more about JACK MIDI, and why it
> is an important addition.
>

I don't know if there are docs on it yet. I hacked up an FAQ on it for the jackit-dev list a while back; maybe check the archives.

At first I dismissed JACK MIDI as unnecessary NIH-ness, then I started doing some coding using the ALSA sequencer API, and, yecch, I'd really rather use JACK MIDI. Plus, i'd be great to have sample-accurate MIDI timing in sync with my audio! Now after discovering how arecord completely botches the timing, I have found yet another reason for using JACK MIDI.

-ken
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Received on Mon Dec 31 04:15:05 2007