Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Pizzasgood]

TiMidity++-2.13.0.pet
eawpatches.pet <-- optional higher quality sound patches (37 MB decompressed)

TiMidity++ is a softsynth. It takes in a MIDI file, then uses a sound font or sound patch to transform it into normal audio. You can use it to convert MIDI files directly into the WAV format, or you can use it to play the file through the speakers. Another things it can do (the most useful IMHO) is run as a daemon to give you an Alsa port for MIDI playback. This lets all those other audio programs that normally play MIDI files through a port to use Timidity instead. In my case, I use it to let me play MIDI files from Audacious (using the Amidi-plug plugin). I believe it should also work with Rosegarden (a sequencer). The aplaymidi program can also use it. Basically it mimics what would happen if you had and properly configured a soundcard which is MIDI capible. This uses more CPU power than letting the card do it though. Not a huge amount - modern PCs should handle it fine - but if you're also doing some heavy lifting in other programs it could probably get pretty choppy (renicing it to a higher priority should help).

Note: When I compiled this, I didn't enable any interactive interfaces except for ncurses. If playing files with Timidity directly, you can either use it with no interface:

[zigbert]

This is really great!!! Only half the size of the official version. Thank you Pizzagood!

If you want to use a sf2 soundfont, is all very simple. Add the soundfont to /usr/share/timidity/timidity.cfg. In my attached example of timidity.cfg, The fluidR3_GM is first loaded, then the additions for GS - fluidR3_GS. Then, to get the best piano, the steinberg soundfont will override piano sounds from fluidR3.

[bill]

Thanks Pizzasgood and Zigbert for addressing these midi problems I have been saddled with for several weeks.Obviously I am not the only newbie who didn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his arse when it came to getting sound from Rosegarden ,timidity ,Qtractor and several others.Seems I read where another newbie quoted said "I have completely given up trying to get a decent home studio operational in Linux" I suppose he went back to brandx.I can't say I have done as you suggested yet but at least now I have some directions to try.Thanks,bill

[bill]

Hi men,In a preliminary foray in trying to understand how to use your gracious information ,I typed this in on the console.

#chmod 755 /etc/init.d/timidity_server and I get this in return:

# chmod 755 /etc/init.d/timidity_server
chmod: cannot access `/etc/init.d/timidity_server': No such file or directory

My question is ,What creates "timidity_server" is this just a open named file or directory ? and how do I create it ?

thanks,bill

[Pizzasgood]

It should come with the package I uploaded, which is also the only way to get that particular script since I wrote it myself. Also, it should already be executable, so you won't need to chmod it unless you change it to non-executable. The only step you should have to do manually after installing is:

[bill]

Thanks alot Pizzasgood.Your above post has clarified some questions I had and also opened some other questions I have "Like exactly ,how do you want a application to work (me) I can't recall brandX ever allowing me to do setups as I wish they would work,and this "new choices" is something very foreign to my thinking. I realize of course there are many things I am required to learn and understand but with the help of more experienced users ,the answers are out there.thanks again for your time and effort.cheers,bill

[ravensrest]

Thanks a lot, pizzasgood. Your Timidity++ works fine, just wish I could find a plug-in for gxine. No luck there after massive searching.

One of the other things Timidity is great at is converting *.mid files to *.wav files. Simply use the command:


timidity input.mid -Ow -o output.wav


Of course substitute the correct full path and filenames for input.mid and output.wav.

If you want to do a whole directory full of midis, save this handy batch processor (I called it midi_batch) to that directory and run it from the command line:


#!/bin/sh
# For batch file conversion
# Find all files in a directory (-f for files, -d for directories to list)
# echo the file name
# use Timidity to convert from midi to flac (or wav)

for i in *
do
if [ -f $i ]
then
z=$i.wav
echo $i
echo $z
timidity $i -Ow -o $z
fi
done
exit 0


I did not write this: copied it from an anonymous posting on yoten.blogspot.com, but it works just fine!

BS

[NickelZ]

Thank you for the "Timidity pet" Pizzasgood. It works well. I have used the file manager to browse to /usr/bin and dragged the timidity icon to the jwm desktop. Now I can drag and drop a midi file from my midi file directory and it instantly plays the file. I also changed the icon to one of my choice with a right click on the new desktop icon and changed the icon with a further drag and drop (as per the instruction balloon that popped up)

Regards,
Asus Eee PC user with puppy 4.20 "And loving it"

[Pizzasgood]

If you want to just click a .mid file to play it, you could right-click a .mid file, go to "file -> set run action", and set it to this:

[NickelZ]

Thanks again pizzasgood. I have done that as well now to.

[charlie6]

Hi Pizzasgood,
Many thanks for timidity++-2.13.pet!
I installed it with PetGet, "all dependecies installed", restart the PC and got a menu entry under Multimedia.
Clicking on it got...nothing happening..?
Re-reading your post a saw:

[vovchik]

Dear charlie,

This is my version of Timidity that has a gui. Unpack and copy it into /usr/bin (first rename Pizzasgood's version timidity-org). Open a terminal and type timidity -ig. It should come up (GTK gui). Mine looks for config info in /etc and in /usr/share/timidity (timidity.cfg). To get timidity into your menu system, unpack the timidity desktop file and copy it into /usr/share/applications. Then, in a terminal, run fixmenus. After restarting your x server, timidity should appear in your multimedia menu as Timidity++. Good luck.

Hope this works for you....

With kind regards,
vovchik

[zigbert]

Is the gui depending on tk?

[vovchik]

Dear Sigmund,

This version supports a number of interfaces:

[zigbert]

Thanks
Funny, - it won't start without libtk even though I'm not using the tk-gui