Re: [Rosegarden-user] Rosegarden Installation problems in Ubuntu 8.04

[D. M. M. <mic...@ro...>]

On Friday 01 August 2008, nnnn wrote:

>    1. Now, ROSEGARDEN is able to play MIDI files, only if started
>       without Jack Control. However, some instruments (e.g. synth
>       strings) do not play.
>
>    2. If started with Jack Control, MIDI files do not play.

My guess is that when JACK is running, it's barring TiMidity from 
communicating with your audio hardware, and thus you get no sound from 
TiMidity.  I'm not quite sure how that mechanism actually works, because if 
TiMidity is already running, I would expect it to prevent JACK from having 
the hardware, not the other way around.

Anyway, the solution is probably to get JACK started first, and then start 
TiMidity in JACK output mode.

I think Ubuntu actually runs TiMidity as a pseudo daemon, so you'll probably 
want to stop it like a daemon with something like:

  sudo /etc/init.d/timidity stop

Then start QJackCtl (JACK Control) and start the JACK server.  Then run 
TiMidity by hand with something like:

  timidity -iA -Oj

Now try Rosegarden again, and see if that brought about any improvement.

As far as some instruments, like "synth strings" not playing, that is probably 
due to a deficiency in TiMidity's default "Freepats" patch set.  It, well, 
sounds like crap, and there are several instruments missing.  TiMidity is 
supposed to be able to use .sf2 soundfonts in addition to ancient GUS-format 
patches, but I don't know anyone who has ever actually managed to get that to 
work in real life.  As such, after you get over this initial hurdle, I'd 
suggest moving on to try your luck with QSynth, and the Fluid Soundfont 
package Ubuntu now provides.  We can get into those details after we see how 
you fare with these initial steps.
-- 
D. Michael McIntyre