Arch Linux

BeholdMyGlory

Member

Registered: 2008-08-30

Posts: 93

HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

When I used ALSA, I used to run timidity++ as a daemon, and use that in TuxGuitar, since TuxGuitars builtin Java Sound Synthesizer is slow and out of sync. But timidity will not run as a daemon with OSS, so instead I had to use fluidsynth. But this was not too easy to do.
I did a bit of searching, but didn't find anything very helpful, so now after getting it working I'll document it here in case it's of any use to others.

So, make sure you have TuxGuitar installed, and lets begin.
You'll need the tuxguitar-fluidsynth plugin, which I unfortunately only found as a debian package(might not have search hard enough, though).
You can download the .deb from here:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sou … fluidsynth

You'll need the libtuxguitar-fluidsynth-jni.so, and tuxguitar-fluidsynth.jar from the debian package. You can use deb2targz from [community] if you want it as a tar.gz, so you can just extract the files with tar xvzf <file>.
Place the libtuxguitar-fluidsynth-jni.so in /usr/share/tuxguitar/lib/, and the tuxguitar-fluidsynth.jar in /usr/share/tuxguitar/share/plugins/.

Make sure you have a soundfont. I used fluidr3 in AUR.
Now open TuxGuitar, and go to Tools>Plugins, select FluidSynth output plugin, and choose Configure. Click Add, and locate your soundfont (in my case /usr/share/soundfonts/fluidr3/FluidR3GM.SF2).
If you go to Tools>Settings>Sound, you should now be able to select "TG Fluidsynth [FluidR3GM]" as MIDI Port.

My problem now, was that I couldn't get any sound, even though I had fluidsynth installed. What I had to do, was comile fluidsynth with --disable-alsa-support option.

I did it through ABS (If you don't have abs installed, install abs with pacman, and run abs as root to sync).
Since you shouldn't build as root, I copied the PKGBUILD to a folder in my home directory:

cp -r /var/abs/extra/fluidsynth ~/abs

Then edit the PKGBUILD in ~/abs/fluidsynth (if that's where you copied it), and add --disable-alsa-support after ./configure. My build() looked like this:

build() {
  cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-$origver
  ./configure --prefix=/usr \
              --enable-ladspa --disable-alsa-support
  make || return 1
  make prefix=$startdir/pkg/usr install
}

Now run makepkg, and then as root pacman -U <package>.pkg.tar.gz, and you should be ready to go!

bobdob

Member

Registered: 2008-06-13

Posts: 138

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

Hey, thanks for this. I have been looking for something like this for a while now.

I have made a pkgbuild for the tuxguitar-fluidsynth plugin.

pkgname=tuxguitar-fluidsynth
pkgver=1.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Use Tuxguitar along this plugin if your audio system is configured for fluidsynth as MIDI expander"
arch=('x86_64')
if [ "$CARCH" = "x86_64" ]; then
  _arch=amd64
else
  _arch=i386
fi
url="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/tuxguitar-fluidsynth"
license=('GPL')
makedpends=('deb2targz')
depends=('tuxguitar' 'fluidsynth')
provides=('tuxguitar-fluidsynth')
source=(http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/tuxguitar/${pkgname}_$pkgver.dak-1_${_arch}.deb)
if [ "$CARCH" = "x86_64" ]; then
  md5sums=(2dfae589140692c7c6e9d84e53427ce0)
else
  md5sums=(d671f1f04051fcdb38586f1109f0f2e8)
fi

build() {
  cd $startdir/src
  deb2targz ${pkgname}_$pkgver.dak-1_${_arch}.deb
  tar zxf ${pkgname}_$pkgver.dak-1_${_arch}.tar.gz

  install -Dm644 $startdir/src/usr/lib/jni/libtuxguitar-fluidsynth-jni.so $startdir/pkg/usr/share/tuxguitar/lib/libtuxguitar-fluidsynth-jni.so
  install -Dm644 $startdir/src/usr/share/tuxguitar/plugins/tuxguitar-fluidsynth.jar $startdir/pkg/usr/share/tuxguitar/share/plugins/tuxguitar-fluidsynth.jar
}

evr

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

Registered: 2009-01-23

Posts: 554

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

i just found this, and wanted to say thanks.  I just switched to oss a couple weeks ago and this has been my only real problem with it.  So anyway thanks for showing me how to fix it

ljshap

Member

From: Ossining, NY

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 160

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to say thanks as well.  I had the same problems getting tuxguitar to work with oss which works better for me than alsa. 

Thanks Again!

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Live Free or Die !

Berticus

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 731

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

I installed fluidsynth-oss from AUR, used bobdob's PKGBUILD, and fluidr3 from AUR. However, when I try to configure the plugin, I get the following error:

Could not initialize class
org.herac.tuxguitar.player.impl.midiport.fluidsynth.MidiSynth

I also tried installing it via abs as suggested, but the same thing happened. Any ideas?

punkrockguy318

Member

From: New Jersey

Registered: 2004-02-15

Posts: 711

Website

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

sweet !  this worked for me !

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If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.   1 Corinthians 13:2

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: HOWTO: MIDI + OSS + TuxGuitar

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … Bumping.27

Please don't bump old threads, email the OP if you must. Closing.

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