Graphical frontend for MMA still around ?

[jr]

@falcon74: Maybe a stupid question: did you load a proper soundfont into fluidsynth/QSynth?

[falcon74]

Hi @jr,

Once you know where the default sound-font or the additional downloaded soundfonts are, all you need to do after starting up Qsynth is to click on the 'Setup' button, and on the pop-up you'd see a tab called 'Soundfonts'. Click it and the hit the button labelled 'Open', now use the file-browser popup to navigate to the directory where your soundfonts are, select one and hit OK. You should be good to go.

cheers,
f74

[falcon74]

Linuxband - fully working !! Yay !

Had to do a bit of MIDI connection troubleshooting and reading of how MIDI routing works between JACK and ALSA, a2jmidi as a bridge tool and use of MIDI passthrough ports. Finally got it working. What really helped with the MIDI event monitoring function of Qsynth (enable it and see the Message window).

In Qjackctl, both of these connections work:

Option-1):
(a) MIDI-connection: linuxband-player.midi_out <--> a2j.FLUID Synth (PID)[xxx] (playback)...
(b) ALSA-connection: None

Option-2):
(a) MIDI-connection: linuxband-player.midi_out <--> a2j.MIDI Through [ZZ] (playback): MIDI Through Port-0
(b) XX: MIDI Through.0:Midi Through Port-0 <-->  YY: FLUID Synth (PID). 0: Synth Input port (PID:0)

Also, there seems to be something about the order of application startup, and perhaps a reboot after installing a2jmidid software that seems to have solved some of the routing and startup-order issues. Here is what did work for me (but other order of operations might be fine too):
- Reboot (I hope this is a one-time thing, after installing a2jmidid)
- JACK2d auto-started
- QJackCtl (no connections made)
- QSynth (Setup> MIDI > alsa_seq as the MIDI-driver & Enable-MIDI-input checkbox 'on')
- Linuxband (reconnect to JACK enabled and explicitly reconnected)
- QJackCtl to setup the connections explained above (option-1 or option-2)

Hopefully, others find this useful. Note that, I am using Lubuntu 19.10 but I think that the instructions should work well on any Ubuntu variant (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc.).

[sciurius]

This is as far as I get:

Code:

% linuxband
(linuxband:2913): libglade-WARNING **: 11:57:54.814: could not find a parent that handles internal children for `vbox'
11:57:54 INFO save_config Saving configuration to '/home/jv/.linuxband/linuxband.rc'
11:57:54 ERROR __load_grooves_from_cache Unable to load grooves from cache '/home/jv/.linuxband/grooves.cache'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/linuxband/linuxband/mma/grooves.py", line 142, in __load_grooves_from_cache
    infile = file(fname, 'r')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/jv/.linuxband/grooves.cache'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/linuxband", line 77, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/linuxband", line 67, in main
    Gui()
  File "/usr/share/linuxband/linuxband/gui/gui.py", line 512, in __init__
    grooves.load_grooves(True)
  File "/usr/share/linuxband/linuxband/mma/grooves.py", line 41, in load_grooves
    self.__grooves_model, grooves_list = self.__load_grooves()
  File "/usr/share/linuxband/linuxband/mma/grooves.py", line 90, in __load_grooves
    self.__do_load_grooves(grooves_list, self.__config.get_mma_grooves_path())
  File "/usr/share/linuxband/linuxband/mma/grooves.py", line 115, in __do_load_grooves
    grooves_list.append([gname, doc, gdesc, author, time, full_name])
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'doc' referenced before assignment

[sciurius]

In Qjackctl, both of these connections work:

Option-1):
Option-2):

Do you know you can start TiMidity++ as a MIDI server? Just connect midi_out of the linuxband_player to one of the inputs of TiMidity++ and you're ready to go.
(Unless you want to play with Qsynth, that is...)

[sciurius]

I use EMACS with mma-mode. My process is to edit a file, save it, play it using the -P option and repeat.

Emacs' MMA mode has a built in facility to play your current file: C-c C-p (mma-play).

Attached is a version of Emacs' MMA mode that I have enhanced with a preview command, C-c C-v (mma-preview). To use it, insert a line

Code:

/**** End Preamble ****/

in your file, at the end of the settings and definitions, i.e. just before the chords start.

Then you can select an arbitrary part of the chords and stuff and have just that part played using MMA. Of course, you need to select something that is playable .

[bvdp]

Nice to see mma.el getting some of the love and attention it deserves!

[sciurius]

I've put my fork of mma-el on GitHub: https://github.com/sciurius/mma-mode .