I'm relatively new to the linux world, finally installing the Mandrake 9.1 distro on my box at home, and I've managed to to get everything up and running as I'd like thus far with the exception of midi playback.

Here's the issue, and I'll try to explain this as well as I can without being able to give the specific error or what I've done so far to correct it (because I'm connectionless from home and I'm posting this from a computer lab):

On midi playback, using the kmidi program or the ZSNES emulator, the midi files play, but they are missing alot of the sound. The error in kmidi's dialogue mentions something about "so-and-so patchset not found", or a similar statement. The same sound patches are also the ones that seem to be missing from ZSNES as well.

I've looked on various sites and search engines about this particular problem and I've yet to find anything that clearly lays out what I need to do. I currently have OSS drivers installed and they are functioning properly as far as I can tell. I tested for something else (soundcore I think, or some kind of module for sound) and it was installed and running as well. So I'm really at a loss as to what steps I need to take next to fix my problem.

I am using an ISA Creative Soundblaster AWE32 as my soundcard which I configured using sndconfig.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

I guess that model has support to opl3 (has a chip for midi) . You can try to activate it for better performance, probably kmidi is not using it.

# modprobe opl3 io=(port of the midi)

Usuallythe port is 0x388, but you may check it with lspci -vv ...

What you need is a patch set. Go to rpmfind.net and find timidity instruments. After you have download it, run konsole and open Midnight Commander in the session menu. Go to the timidity instruments and copy the files to a directory. Then log in as root and copy or move all the instruments to the patch directory of kmidi. Configure timidity.cfg for the patches. There are example cfg files on timidity site.

IMO, Timidity is better than kmidi.

Electro: As it turns out, I already had Timidity installed. However, when I run it nothing really a happens... the window begins to open and then just closes. Kmidi no longer can even open a file either... pretty much leaving me with nothing to playback midi's with.

vladkrack: I tried the load the opl3 module but that module didn't exist. *shrug*

On a good note, somewhere along the line my ZSNES midi playback seems to be operating successfully. I'll continue to tinker around with both of the other programs and see what I can do.

Thanks both of you.