MIDI and ALSA: no ports at all!

bartkl · 11-12-2008, 06:08 AM

Hi,

I'm trying to get MIDI to work on ALSA, using pmidi or any other player but it won't do.
I don't seem to have MIDI support. See:

Code:

bart@bart-desktop:~/Desktop$ amidi -l
Dir Device    Name
cannot determine device number: Inappropriate ioctl for device

Also:

Code:

bart@bart-desktop:~/Desktop$ pmidi -l
 Port     Client name                       Port name
 14:0     Midi Through                      Midi Through Port-0

How can I add output ports for MIDI? Most people who experience problems don't seem to be experiencing this one. My sound driver, finally, is:

Code:

bart@bart-desktop:~/Desktop$ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xfa100000 irq 22

Hopefully someone can help me out. Thanks.

bartkl · 11-12-2008, 06:23 AM

Ok, I at least managed to get rid of the first error. I'm not too sure if it's correct the way I've done though.
I edited /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base. The following line was commented out:

Code:

#install snd-seq /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-seq && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq-midi ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq-oss ; : ; }

I removed the "#" so and reloaded ALSA (sudo /usr/sbin/alsa reload).
Important note though: a few lines above this one is the line:

Code:

# Workaround at bug #499695

So perhaps it's commented out for a good reason?

Now, the result of amidi -l is:

Code:

bart@bart-desktop:~/Desktop$ amidi -l
Dir Device    Name

Still not good, but I THINK it's better than an error. Or am I wrong? Anyways, can't get MIDI to work

cladisch · 11-19-2008, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bartkl

How can I add output ports for MIDI?

Buy some hardware that does MIDI. (Your motherboard device does not.)

If you just want to play .mid files, you can use a software synthesizer like Timidity or fluidsynth.

bartkl · 11-22-2008, 06:25 AM

Thanks, I never realised ALSA doesn't have a software sequencer like Windows does.