TiMidity on Raspbian Linux 4.4.26-v7+ with HiFiBerry Digi+ HAT

[Steven van Pelt]

I'm currently using a fully updated RetroPie 4.0 image (running Raspbian with Linux 4.4.26-v7+ kernel) on a RPi3 with HiFiBerry Digi+ HAT. Everything works flawlessly, except that RetroPie/Raspbian doesn't have native MIDI support. I've therefore installed TiMidity++ 2.13.2-40.2 (using "apt-get install timidity" and "apt-get install fluid-soundfont-gm") and tried to configure it as an ALSA sequencer client. However, this isn't working.

When I start TiMidity as a service/daemon using "timidity -iA" or simply try to use it in standalone modus pointing it to a MIDI file like this "timidity /home/pi/RetroPie/bj.mid", I get:

jack_client_new: deprecated
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
Couldn't open output device

I've setup asound.conf as instructed by HiFiBerry, so when I list the devices using "aplay -l" I get this:

* List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices *
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_digi], device 0: HifiBerry Digi HiFi wm8804-spdif-0 []
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

My asound config looks like this:

pcm.!default {
type hw card 0
}
ctl.!default {
type hw card 0
}

When listing the MIDI devices using "aplaymidi -l" they seem to be configured correctly:

Port Client name Port name
14:0 Midi Through Midi Through Port-0
128:0 TiMidity TiMidity port 0
128:1 TiMidity TiMidity port 1
128:2 TiMidity TiMidity port 2
128:3 TiMidity TiMidity port 3

Of course a reinstall (using sudo apt-get install --reinstall timidity) didn't make any difference, so I really don't know where to start solving this issue.

ANY help is much appreciated, as I really want to start enjoying MIDI sound on my Raspberry. :)