Re: [fluid-dev] ALSA Raw connection (Re: Reading input from a MIDI device)

[David Henningsson]

On 01/03/2014 11:13 PM, Vesa Paatero wrote:
> Hi, back in discussion, sorry about the delay...
> 
> 28.12.2013 09:48, David Henningsson wrote:
>> On 12/26/2013 11:37 PM, Vesa Paatero wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>> The easiest way is to use the alsa rawmidi driver. Find the card
>>>>> name by
>>>>> looking at the /proc/asound/cards file - find the row corresponding to
>>>>> the right sound card, and the label within brackets.
>>>>> In my case it's "Piano", so then the options I need to add are:
>>>>>
>>>>> " -m alsa_raw -o midi.alsa.device=hw:Piano"
>>>>>
>>>>> (of course in your case replace "Piano" with your card name)
>>>>>
>>>> Thanks for these hints, David. Raw MIDI without any mixer activity by
>>>> CPU sounds like a good choice to minimize latency.
>>> I tried the ALSA raw option but it seems that "aconnect" can only be
>>> used to connect the MIDI input device to FluidSynth when "-m alsa_seq"
>>> is given to FluidSynth because only then a suitable connection entry
>>> shown by "aconnect -lio" is created.
>>>
>>> So, when using alsa_raw, what is the recommended way to connect a MIDI
>>> input device?
>> You shouldn't use aconnect at all in this scenario. Just let fluidsynth
>> read the raw ALSA input directly.
> 
> But... how? 

Forget about aconnect, qjackctl etc. If all you want is FluidSynth
reading input directly from the keyboard, just specify to use the ALSA
raw midi driver type, and the device to read from. And the way to do
that on the command line is what I said earlier: add " -m alsa_raw -o
midi.alsa.device=hw:<card name>", where <card name> is replaced with
your card name.

> OK, let's "think aloud":  I have the MIDI device that sends
> data. ALSA seems to connect to it automatically because the device
> becomes visible to "aconnect -lio". So I just need need to figure out
> the connection from ALSA to FluidSynth.. or should I say that I need
> to tell FluidSynth where to look for the MIDI data to be forwarded
> to the sound card. I guess I still have to specify the avenue of input
> by the command line somehow but I haven't found anything appro-
> priate.