Kara-Moon Forum
March 28, 2024, 11:08:44 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: You can go back to the main site here: Kara-Moon site
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
Author Topic: Graphical frontend for MMA still around ?  (Read 8098 times)
falcon74
Jr. Member
*
Posts: 29


« on: December 03, 2019, 02:14:35 PM »

Hi,

Is there still some BIAB'esque graphical frontend for MMA around that still works reasonably well ? I tried LinuxBand, but I found that it needs JACK1 and conflicts with JACK2 -- as I understood from the information flashed by apt on my Ubuntu system.

cheers,
f74
Logged
sciurius
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 443



« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2019, 04:07:48 PM »

If it is a front-end to MMA, why does it need Jack? MMA plays using a configurable MIDI player (default Timidity++).
Logged
bvdp
Kara-Moon Master
****
Posts: 1436


WWW
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2019, 04:25:32 PM »

My understanding is that the program does (did?) require jack. I tried it once and offered some rejected suggestions. It does have a nice error checking feature, as I recall.

I use EMACS with mma-mode. My process is to edit a file, save it, play it using the -P option and repeat. I keep thinking that a gui would be nice ... but then I go back to emacs and wonder what the bit plus would be ... but, I'm a command line guy Smiley
Logged

My online life: http://www.mellowood.ca
falcon74
Jr. Member
*
Posts: 29


« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2019, 06:56:38 AM »

Thanks @sciurius and @bvdp. Could never manage to catchup with EMACS (used to be a VIM fanboy) as a developer. From the MMA site, I notice that there is a SciTE plugin as well, might try it out.

IMHO the advantages of GUI (over a syntax-highlighting / checking / pretty-printing text editor) are:
  • Visualize the bars for entire song
  • Visualize the repetitive sections
  • Visualize progress when playing/improvising
  • Benefit from classified drop-down list of style, groove etc.

MMA is a great piece of software. If it had a GUI and some tutorial youtube videos it could well be on it's way to be a strong BIAB challenger in the Linux world (perhaps it still is, but as a newbie there is a not-too-easy learning curve).
Logged
sciurius
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 443



« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2019, 12:37:03 PM »

I spent some time trying to get linuxband to run. Even when bypassing the jack part I get lost in lack of documentation and the config files.

One of the advantages of a GUI tool it that it can break the 'one measure per line' restriction. Often I would like to write song(part)s as

Code:
  1    Am   C    G   F
5   G   D7  E  E

to obtain 8 measures. (And no, multi-measure sequences are not a solution).
Logged
bvdp
Kara-Moon Master
****
Posts: 1436


WWW
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2019, 05:09:10 PM »

Splitting up a line into multiples might be a good use for Plugin. Not sure from my view of the advanages, but each to their own Smiley

The code for the existing GUIs seems to be in PD so it should not be a big deal to get it to run. I've tried lemma in the past and it worked okay, but doesn't seem to like newer versions.
Logged

My online life: http://www.mellowood.ca
bvdp
Kara-Moon Master
****
Posts: 1436


WWW
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2019, 06:37:36 PM »

Don't know what the changes are, or if this will help in the GUI front but there is a version of LinuxBand for Arch at

   https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linuxband

courtesy of Jens. I'll ask him if he needed to make any changes later today. Looking at the deps on that page, you guys might just be missing bit of jack?Huh
 
Logged

My online life: http://www.mellowood.ca
sciurius
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 443



« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2019, 12:39:53 PM »

Splitting up a line into multiples might be a good use for Plugin.

I'm sot sure how to do that with plugins. At least not elegantly.
Logged
bvdp
Kara-Moon Master
****
Posts: 1436


WWW
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2019, 11:31:41 PM »

Just got a note from my friend Jens and he says that LinuxBand works fine. But, you need to use python2. And, it works with both, JACK1 and JACK2.
Logged

My online life: http://www.mellowood.ca
falcon74
Jr. Member
*
Posts: 29


« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2019, 05:04:41 AM »

Just got a note from my friend Jens and he says that LinuxBand works fine. But, you need to use python2. And, it works with both, JACK1 and JACK2.

Good to hear. I suppose it still needs changes to the build files, right ? The autoconfig script is definitely looking for the JACK(1) dev packages.
In my case the dependency check failed.
Logged
bvdp
Kara-Moon Master
****
Posts: 1436


WWW
« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2019, 04:57:52 PM »

You also need jack.h and libjackd.so. Keep us informed, please. What is your platform?
Logged

My online life: http://www.mellowood.ca
jr
Newbie
*
Posts: 2


« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2019, 06:17:49 PM »

Hi everybody, this is Jens. It thought it might be better, if I reply myself.

The auto configure script is looking for any JACK implementation >= 0.102.  (The line in configure.ac is: PKG_CHECK_MODULES(JACK, jack >= 0.102.0)). This does not necessarily mean JACK1. As for me, I have only installed JACK2 on my ArchLinux PC and it does build fine with the original auto config file. I am not sure about the deb package and its dependencies, thought. But it does compile and run with JACK2, though.

Best regards
JR
Logged
falcon74
Jr. Member
*
Posts: 29


« Reply #12 on: December 07, 2019, 06:47:10 PM »

Much appreciated Jens. I will try to see if I can make progress then. Do not remember the exact error, but will retry.
Logged
falcon74
Jr. Member
*
Posts: 29


« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2019, 02:53:16 PM »

Progress. Have Linux Band GUI started up now after a little bit of struggle sorting out the dependencies. The Autocofigure scripts helps with the C library dependency checks, but it doesn't help with the dependency check of the required Python modules and libraries. Here is what I had to do on my Lubuntu 19.10 setup.

Code:
$ sudo apt-get install libjack-jackd2-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libsmf-dev
$ sudo apt-get install python-glade2
$ sudo apt-get install gtksourceview2

The challenge was to find the right Jack2 dev library and stumbling a step at a time with Python dependencies.

However, I hear nothing playing when I hit 'Play' button on Linux Band with the default song loaded (6 bars with Dm / G7 / CM7 /). I have checked that JACKd is running (through Qjackctl), and that Qsynth is started and connection from linuxband (midi-out) to qsynth (midi-in) is made, qsynth (stereo audio-out) is made with system stereo-playback in. In the Qsynth message window I can see the MIDI events as well, as follows:

Code:
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=00 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 0 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=01 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 1 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=02 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 2 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=03 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 3 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=04 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 4 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=05 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 5 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=06 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 6 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=07 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 7 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=08 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 8 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=09 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 9 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=10 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 10 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=11 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 11 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=12 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 12 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=13 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 13 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=14 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 14 120 0
Type=176 (0xb0) Chan=15 Key=120 (0x78) Val=000 (0x00).
fluidsynth: cc 15 120 0

The export to midi works fine (tried with fluidsynth). Will probably have to figure out what's up with Qsynth -- perhaps something not quite right with settings.
Logged
sciurius
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 443



« Reply #14 on: December 09, 2019, 06:44:22 PM »

I could get it to run but never to pass the initialization. It kept complaining about missing and/or invalid config files (that I did not have, of course).
Logged
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.1 seconds with 19 queries.