(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

you're right the only simple way to stoping music before ending is a gui but a gui necessary pop up and don t play in backgroung
so
test the ncurse gui ,reduce the "geometry coding" as you want, or do not use the command "-geometry 768x640" at all, to reduce the pop up effect
even prefer timidity -in to timidity int, less indication in screen (reducing popup)
and notice it automaticaly shut down at the end of midifile (no process open) if you do not prefer stopping it before end (using simple key Q or closing windows)
that is the way

Not exactly. That's why I was wondering about gtkdialog - if something could be created that would spawn timidity, and create a simple window with a button to kill the created timidity process.

Makoto wrote:Yes, but I wasn't looking for a full GUI. Just a simple way to stop the playback without having to keep pprocess open. I do prefer just playing the MIDI in the background without a GUI popping up.

Have you tried: (Though I think sometimes that might leave a note stuck turned on, not sure. I might be thinking of something else.)

You could make a script with that and then put an icon on the desktop for it, so you could just click it.

I did think of something like that, but I usually have another timidity process running that I'm not sure should go (is it part of the server setup?)... It's listed in pprocess as:

timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os -EFreverb=0

Wouldn't a killall end that process, too?

Yeah, that's the instance running as a server, and would be killed. But if you don't actually use it, it doesn't matter if you kill it. It isn't required for playing midis directly with timidity. You can stop it from being started on bootup by removing the executable bit on the file /etc/init.d/timidity_server (or just delete that file).

Ah, okay. I don't have to worry about ending all the processes, then. I'll give it a try.

one more time and last
So you want no gui but want stop anytime midi process...
powerfull ncurse gui can make it to you
using sort of code like this (always in set run action) you can reduce the gui, make it stealth, and anytime usable to stop midi ...
what else

I'll keep it in mind.
Right now, I'm using Pizzasgood's suggestion - I've got it bound to a button in my JWM taskbar. It's also helpful if I somehow accidentally manage to open more than one instance of timidity at a time. (Though I've only ever done it once - to test this. )

Instead of running timidity directly, you could have a script do Then if you click on a new midi while one is still playing, the old one would be stopped automatically.

...but if I do that, I won't be able to attempt the chorus version of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

I don't really have a problem with running multiple instances... the intentional instance I mentioned above is probably the only time I've ever really done it (or ever will). Maybe.

thx Pizzasgood good idea

Okay, I'm just curious - does anyone happen to know where to find any good, higher-quality soundfonts? TiMIDIty doesn't like my patches setup, for some reason, so I've been using soundfonts instead, for quite a while - except the 32MB soundfont I've been using either doesn't include everything, or doesn't sound that great, I'm not sure. Probably both.

Nothing too large, though. I've tried a Google search, and after a while, I came across some that might work - except they're all sfark-compressed, and I doubt I can decompress those under Linux, or that TiMIDIty or anything else will still recognize/use them in archived form.

Any use?

http://ocmnet.com/saxguru/Timidity.htm#sf2

http://freepats.zenvoid.org/

http://www.onicos.com/staff/iz/timidity/doc/eawpat.html

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=13928

http://www.personalcopy.com/home.htm

also

http://melodymachine.com/sfark.htm

Aitch

Dear Makoto,

The program sfark works perfectly fine under Wine, so install wine and sfark and you can unpack all such packed soundfonts. I do have some soundfonts - regular GM and orchestral - but they are too large for your purposes. My standard GM is 180 MB, and I load that by default in musescore. It sounds great, but you need RAM. There are some rather decent ones of about 32 MB floating around though...

With kind regards,
vovchik

About sfark - it's mostly that I was reluctant to download/compile/install any decompressors, since at best I was only going to use them maybe once or twice. I'll do it if I have to, though. I was just hoping for something I could easily download and test.

I have Wine installed, but I've been trying to cut down on the need to use it. Aitch's last link has what seems to be a compiled binary for a console decompressor, so I probably won't have to use a Windows version. Maybe I could even rig Peazip to use it...

Aitch: I've had the eawpatches set for years; it's just that TiMIDIty currently refuses to see it where I have it, for some reason. I switched to using soundfonts, so I haven't gotten around to trying to figure out why.
A few of those links are ones I saw while websearching, but as I was trying to find a few pages with soundfonts that didn't require me to un-sfark them...

vovchik: I'm willing to try other 32MB versions... but as I did already have one that didn't sound as good, I thought I'd try a larger font at first.
I figured the larger ones would require more RAM, even if I no longer have to worry about the RAM limit on my old SB card... but even wavetable playing can chew up a considerable amount of RAM? Maybe it's a good thing I didn't grab that 260MB soundfont I saw.

Makoto

Try using /usr/share/timidity/ for eawpatches

for timidity configuration select use eselect
I think....?


Aitch

I originally had it working using the method Pizzasgood suggested earlier in the topic - just symlink my existing patch directory to /usr/share/timidity/current, and make sure the timidity.cfg in the patch directory is correct (mine originally pointed to the Windows drive/directory setup).

I had the full up-to-date patch set with TiMIDIty++ on more than one computer, under Windows. So, I had a patch directory on this system's main drive, and one on the second drive, which came from a different system. I had Pizzasgood's version of TiMIDIty working with the 'original' patch set... but to make some extra room on the drive, I removed the directory from the main drive. The 'other' patch set didn't want to work, and I've discovered why - the symlink in /usr/share/timidity/ had disappeared. (Not the first time I've had symlinks disappear - had all my symlinks in usr/share/fonts disappear a while back, too. ) So, I've fixed that, and made sure the .cfg was correct, and now it works. I still want to try some soundfonts, though. The personalcopy site has a couple of gzipped soundfonts on its "Soundfonts for Linux" page, so I'll try to get around to testing those.

Just tested that Timidity PET from the beginning of this topic. works alright in wary 5.5.