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#1 2008-09-30 11:45:38

Surgat_
Member
Registered: 2007-08-08
Posts: 317

Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

Hello there.

I am a bass player and therefore I use GTick from [extra] as a metronome and TuxGuitar from [community] as GuitarPro tablature reader. I have a problem with (at least) this two programs: when I try to start the metronome or to play a tablature, I get error messages if any sound is playing, no matter if it is Amarok playing music, or TuxGuitar playing a tablature.

For non-musicians, a GuitarPro tablature is a transcription of a song which can be played through MIDI at the same time as you can see the partiture, or the notes played on an image of a guitar neck or a keyboard.

This happens every time I want to play some MIDI from this two apps: if I have a tablature open with TuxGuitar I can't play another tablature on another instance of TuxGuitar, or even start GTick to play alone with the metronome. I have to close TuxGuitar and start GTick, or open the other tablature in the same instance of TuxGuitar, which is annoying when, for example, trying to compare two tablatures of the same song.

This makes me think that my system can't play any MIDI when some other sound is playing, but I don't know any other MIDI apps to try. Any ideas on how to setup multiple MIDI playing? I've read on the Wiki [1] that it was necessary to enable dmix some time ago to allow multiple programs play sound at once, but this is not necessary since ALSA 1.0.9rc2, and I have alsa-lib 1.0.17a-1.

Thank you in advance.
Bye!

[1] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/All … ing_system.

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#2 2008-10-01 01:47:53

somedrew
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2007-05-14
Posts: 140

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

Are tuxguitar and GTick both using alsa?

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#3 2008-10-01 09:56:57

Surgat_
Member
Registered: 2007-08-08
Posts: 317

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

I suppose so, since I don't have OSS installed. Both programs are based on OSS but are ALSA compatible. ALSA plugin is enabled on TuxGuitar, and GTick's output device is /dev/dsp.

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#4 2008-10-01 11:01:50

brebs
Member
Registered: 2007-04-03
Posts: 3,742

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

Surgat_ wrote:

/dev/dsp.

That's OSS, not ALSA sad

I don't have OSS installed.

You'll have ALSA's *emulation* of OSS installed. Which does not software-mix.

Answer to next question: Rewrite gtick so it can use ALSA. Or rewrite ALSA so it software-mixes OSS.

That "ALSA-compatible" phrase is pure nonsense - it either uses ALSA or it doesn't.

Last edited by brebs (2008-10-01 11:02:54)

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#5 2008-10-01 11:37:14

Surgat_
Member
Registered: 2007-08-08
Posts: 317

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

ALSA compatible is what the package description says: http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/gtick/  Which device should I use to make GTick use ALSA instead of OSS? Anyway, I'll take a look at GTick's PKGBUILD to see if I can do something...

On TuxGuitar I can't find any option to set the output device. Under Sound Preferences I can only choose the MIDI Sequencer, and with both "Real Time Sequencer" and "TuxGuitar Sequencer" I get a "MIDI system is unavailable" error when I try to play if Amarok is also playing.

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#6 2008-10-01 20:07:39

Surgat_
Member
Registered: 2007-08-08
Posts: 317

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

I've been playing with GTick's PKGBUILD with no success, and also tried installing soundmixer from AUR, which should have enabled mixing in ALSA and OSS, but it didn't do the trick. Any other ideas? What does "rewrite ALSA so it software-mixes OSS" mean?

Thank you again.

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#7 2008-10-01 20:37:06

brebs
Member
Registered: 2007-04-03
Posts: 3,742

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

Surgat_ wrote:

What does "rewrite ALSA so it software-mixes OSS" mean?

It means, "do some horrendously geeky stuff which only a very small proportion of the population have the knowledge, competence, ability and free time to do for no pay."

You're looking for an easy solution. There is no easy solution.

It's the app that says "ALSA-compatible", and it's the app that I'm criticizing for that statement. Not you.

Welcome to the ridiculous world of Linux audio - see jungle and my recommendation. This is what free software produces - an unholy mess of conflicting, contradicting and overlapping standards.

Last edited by brebs (2008-10-01 21:04:34)

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#8 2008-10-01 20:52:41

Surgat_
Member
Registered: 2007-08-08
Posts: 317

Re: Can't play MIDI the same time as any other sound.

Understood. It's no really so annoying because when I play with the metronome I don't use TuxGuitar, but I still have to close one app to use another and take care of no opening two instances of TuxGuitar.

Thank you.

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