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The output thing

Hi Rui,
Thanks for Qsynth. I could never use FluidSynth without the interface, not in a thousand years... That being said there is one last obstacle to overcome: getting sound out of it... I use it under UbuntuStudio 10.10. I pretty much manage to get everything working (eventually), Hydrogen, Ardour, Rakarrak, Guitarix, Zynaddsubfx. And I did get sound out of Qsynth with VMPK (virtual keyboard), and it is sooooooo nice, but as soon as I plug in my M-Audio Keyrig49, the thing goes silent.

I've tweaked the settings in Qjackctl (tried with Jack and without), and then in Qsynth, but whatever I do, it refuses to give in. The little green light lits up when I play the keys, so it knows there is a bloody keyboard out there, but to no avail. I see Qsynth in Qjackctl in the right window (inputs) under the Alsa tab, but it is absent from the left window (outputs).

I am banging my head against the wall, again and again (but not giving up). I'M pretty sure it's not a big problem, just a little something that can't put my finger on, so any suggestion from you would be more than welcome.

Cheers

Pierre,
Quebec City (CAN)

Forums: 
rncbc's picture

  1. make sure you have the jack server up and running, you might use qjackctl for just that.
  2. make sure you're using the "jack" audio driver (cf. Setup.../Audio) and the "alsa_seq" midi driver (cf. Setup.../MIDI).
  3. open and load a soundfont file (*.sf2) into qsynth (cf. Setup.../Soundfonts) and restart qsynth engine.
  4. then connect your keyboard midi output to qsynth midi input under qjackctl alsa connections.
  5. switch to qjackctl audio tab and connect qsynth audio output to your system playback outputs, if not already.
  6. you can opt to always show the output peak level meters (cf. Options...)
  7. now play the midi keyboard, check the midi signal on input (flashing green lights) and audio peak levels on output.

hth.
cheers

OK Tried that. At first it said it lost the connection to Jack when I attempted to change the setup on Qsynth, and chose Jack under the audio tab, but finally it did connect. Here is the reading I got, after trying patchage:

loading driver ..
apparent rate = 44100
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|256|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
control device hw:0
configuring for 44100Hz, period = 256 frames (5.8 ms), buffer = 2 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for playback
20:51:57.720 JACK connection change.
20:51:57.721 Server configuration saved to "/home/pedrobtu/.jackdrc".
20:51:57.722 Statistics reset.
20:51:57.767 Client activated.
20:51:57.770 Buffer size change (256).
20:52:02.188 JACK connection graph change.
20:52:02.203 XRUN callback (1).
subgraph starting at qsynth timed out (subgraph_wait_fd=9, status = 0, state = Triggered, pollret = 0 revents = 0x0)
bad status (-1) for client qsynth handling event (type = 8)
**** alsa_pcm: xrun of at least 1.125 msecs
20:52:02.205 ALSA connection graph change.
20:52:02.373 ALSA connection change
(and a few more of those as i played with patchage)

I was still faced with the same situation: I see a Qsynth input in Patchage, but no output, I wonder is it because of my Jack settings? Everything is set to default (interface, input and output devices, in and out channels, audio = duplex and the driver is set to alsa).
Jack works with all my other applications, I also tried my hand at Rosegarden yesterday, seems to work there too.

I just know it's some stupid little detail, but which one?

And by the way, here are the settings that worked with VMPK:
In Qsynth:
MIDI tab: Enable MIDI Input box checked
ALSA Sequencer Client ID: Qsynth1
Audio tab: Audio driver: alsa
Soundfonts tab: SFID 1; Name /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2; Offset 0

In VMPK: -->Edit -->Connections: "Enable Thru on MIDI Output" checked
Input MIDI Connection
Output MIDI Connection FLUID Synth (Qsynth1):0

Thanks again for the advice, and for the software(s)...

Pierre

rncbc's picture

you might also try increasing the jackd client timeout value (-t)... (see qjackctl/Setup.../Settings)

fluidsynth takes a bit of time to setup and load a soundfont, specially if it's a big one.

hth.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will chek it out. Also I'll try and get it working with VMPK first, with jack running, as I've done before, then plugging the M-Audio Keyboard and rerouting everything to replace VMPK as input by the real keyboard, thru patchage.

Theoretically speaking, that should work. : )

P.A.

PS Qtractor is a beauty. Really polished interface. Is it easier to use than Rosegarden?

rncbc's picture

Qtractor is a beauty. Really polished interface. Is it easier to use than Rosegarden?
you tell me :)

OK, will spare you some details. First surprise, I got the thing working, but not with Qtractor, with Rosegarden... Oops. Played with that a little bit, as soon as I tried Qtractor, output was gone. Basically, as soon as I started Qjackctl it went mute. Tried various configurations over the last few days - I can be quite persistent... : ) -And finally, out of the blue, Bingo! sound coming out of Qsynth with Jack with keyboard input. Well f*&?* me!

As I thought it was a stupid little thing. I had tried setting up with jack as audio driver before, following your instructions, with no result. But over time I realised that making changes to the settings while jack was still running, would make Qsynth freeze, and I would force quit, or would open system monitor to end process. What I think happened is that before I realised that problem I have tried various configurations, unaware that Qsynth was basically hanging in the background, brain-dead. So nothing would work, anyway. Finally, I tried one more time with jack as audio driver, with nothing frozen backstage, and everything worked as it is supposed to. Took me 6 days from start to finish, but it's done. Now on with Qtractor.
Which brings me to one last question: How do I get the nice shiny black theme???? Is it patent pending or something? : )

Thanks

rncbc's picture

How do I get the nice shiny black theme????
it's "wonton soup" color scheme which comes in kde4 since i don't remember when :)

i'll give away you these basic color hints:

background = #3c4048
text = #d2def0
window background = #494e58
window text = #b6c1d0
button background = #525863
button text = #d2def0
selection background = #78889c
selection text = #d1e1f4

hth.

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