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GalacticArachnid

Member

Registered: 2009-01-02

Posts: 155

Website

Midi interface

So I got myself an old GR33,

I want to plug that baby into my laptop to backup patches/edit them and do various other ... stuff...

I was thinking of getting a midi interface box, there are quite a few on ebay. Any advice? I see some very cheap MIDI to USB ones, and some interesting MIDI->firewire ones too.

Will a midi->usb system work on linux?

Last edited by GalacticArachnid (2010-02-19 13:13:11)

owain

Member

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 260

Re: Midi interface

I'm not in any way an expert, but nobody else seems to be biting, so I'll offer my two cents.

ALSA supports USB MIDI out-of-the-box, and it should be the case that your hardware will be recognised correctly when you plug it in.  That's not a promise that some random cheap which relies on Windows-based firmware will work, of course, but in general you should be OK.  As I understand it, Firewire is far more problematic (or at least limiting in terms of applications), and unless you've got a specific reason to use it, don't.

GalacticArachnid

Member

Registered: 2009-01-02

Posts: 155

Website

Re: Midi interface

Ahh, thanks

I was just curious about firewire and sort of wanted a use for that port on my system ;P but I don't have a solid reason to use it otherwise.

hmmm, apparently all M-Audio devices work on *nix? Ill see if I can get a low end one...

Thanks!

papounet

Member

Registered: 2009-06-14

Posts: 22

Re: Midi interface

Hi

I recently bought a very cheap MIDI-to-USB adapter (approx. 8€) and it worked great.

As owain pointed out alsa supports it out of the box. It should be recognized as device check:

amidi -l

You need alsa-utils installed.

Then to upload Sysex files to your device:

amidi -p hw:1 -s file.syx

where the -p switch corresponds to your output of amidi -l.

You can  do all the other stuff too, like connect your controller to fluidsynth etc with aconnect. Just do

aconnect -i -o

to see all possibilities (you can even connect multiple inputs to multiple outputs). I'm just learning all this as I type:)

HTH