[fluid-dev] Re: fluidsynth on mac OS X

[Ebrahim Mayat]

Hi Josh

Playing back MIDI files is very easy on a Mac: with Apple's QuickTime 
application using the the on-board QuickTimeMusic Synthesizer. I could 
also use eMagic Logic for this and if I need to edit the MIDI File.

> > The other reason I compiled fluidsynth was to be able to play back
> > Soundfont files using MIDI keyboard triggering. How does one do this?
> I imagine that MidiShare needs to route your MIDI keyboard to
> FluidSynth. I'm not sure how this is done though since I have never 
> used
> MidiShare. Perhaps there is some documentation somewhere that could 
> help
> you.

The reason for this is that even though there is no problem for 
fluidsynth to become a client in Jack, there is no MIDI driver for 
fluidsynth (previously known as msSynthDriver) in the present version 
of MidiShare (1.87). So, fluidsynth cannot act as a MIDI source.  
(MidiShare did have this capability for iiwusynth.)

According to my recent correspondence with Stéphane Letz, he and his 
colleagues are actively developing this driver under CVS.

Ideally, I would like to use fluidsynth in a live or quasi-live setting 
using a laptop.

> > Anyway, I'd like to compile SWAMI also. So this would be my immediate
> > next project.
>
> Provided you have Fink and GTK 1.2 this shouldn't be too hard.

Yes, I do.
> > Josh, thanks again for the help and encouragement. If you would like
> > the binary and the dynamic libs, I'd be happy to put them on my .Mac
> > site for downloading.
>
> Ideally it would be nice to set things up so FluidSynth can be easily
> packaged for Fink. It seems like Jack is probably the best solution
> right now for audio output, but that would mean that Jack should also 
> be
> part of Fink. As I mentioned before, I do have access to an OS X 
> machine
> on the SourceForge compile farm. I'll look into Fink packages and the
> like, although I'm sure I could use some assistance in this area.

I could send you my configure script and Makefile. I'd also be glad to 
help you out in other ways; just let me know. In the meantime, you 
could checkout

<http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/porting/index.php>

I am also looking into how I could use fluidsynth as a pure sound 
source as opposed to a source of MIDI data. Perhaps, you could save me 
some time and give me a few pointers on this.

This is what I get:
> ebrahimm% fluidsynth 
> /Users/ebrahimm/Desktop/sf2demos/VintageDreamsWaves-v2.sf2
> fluidsynth: warning: Ignoring sample SineWave: can't use ROM samples
> fluidsynth: debug: Using 'coreaudio' audio driver
>
> JAS: DeviceGetPropertyInfo unkown request:'bbvs'
> fluidsynth: debug: sampleRate 44100
> fluidsynth: debug: mFormatFlags 0000002B
> fluidsynth: debug: mBytesPerPacket 4
> fluidsynth: debug: mFramesPerPacket 1
> fluidsynth: debug: mChannelsPerFrame 1
> fluidsynth: debug: mBytesPerFrame 4
> fluidsynth: debug: mBitsPerChannel 32
> fluidsynth: debug: Using 'midishare' midi driver
>
> *** malloc_zone_calloc[1369]: arguments too large: 4,2423534936
> *** malloc[1369]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x66f000; 
> This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an 
> allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see 
> tools to help debug
> *** malloc[1369]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x73c000; 
> This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an 
> allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see 
> tools to help debug
> *** malloc[1369]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x74d000; 
> This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an 
> allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see 
> tools to help debug
> *** malloc[1369]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x7e9000; 
> This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an 
> allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see 
> tools to help debug
> fluidsynth version 1.0.3
> Copyright (C) 2000-2002 Peter Hanappe and others.
> FLUID Synth comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
> under certain conditions; see the COPYING file for details.
> SoundFont(R) is a registered trademark of E-mu Systems, Inc.
>
> Type 'help' to get information on the shell commands.
>
> Segmentation fault

Alternatively, if I try

> % fluidsynth
> (snip)
> > load /path/to/VintageDreamsWaves-v2.sf2
> fluidsynth: warning: Ignoring sample SineWave: can't use ROM samples
> loaded SoundFont has ID 0
> >

This seems to work. Now, what commands can I use to produce some sound?

All the best.
Ebrahim