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
|
|
« 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
|
|
« 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
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
« 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 to obtain 8 measures. (And no, multi-measure sequences are not a solution).
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
bvdp
|
|
« 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 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
|
|
|
|
bvdp
|
|
« 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/linuxbandcourtesy 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?
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
sciurius
|
|
« 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
|
|
« 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
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
« 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
|
|
|
|
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. $ 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: 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
|
|
« 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
|
|
|
|
|