[PlanetCCRMA] midi

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> Hi, I'm very new to Linux, I have RH9 and i use Alsa with the 
> 2.4.20-18.1caps kernal. I used apt to install everything from planet ccrma. 
> I have a P4 1.9 and a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.  I have 2 main problems:
> 1. I cannot hear midi. I can play black a file and get level on the midi 
> meters but I get no sound.  I tried all the settings in the alsamixer, then 
> I checked for something like the 401 synth that comes up in windows, but had 
> no luck. Also, none of the midi applications show a midi synth present or 
> addable.

There are some options for midi synthesis if you don't have an outboard
synth. First, if your card has an internal synth you have to load a
soundfont into it to be able to use it. I have no experience doing that
so I can't help. Most probably your card does not have an internal synth
(snd-cs46xx). Otherwise you have software synths you can run, options
available include fluidsynth and timidity. 

> 2. Jack will not load.  I did not install the optomized kernal or the low 
> latency patch because of my inexpierence.  So maybe that is it.  If I have 
> to install the patch will i need to also reinstall alsa/my sound apps?

Your kernel and drivers are fine (if you have 2.4.20-18.1.caps)

> Anyway, Here is my jack error:
> $ jackd -d alsa -d hw:0
> jackd 0.72.4
> Copyright 2001-2003 Paul Davis and others.
> jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
> This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
> under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
> 
> JACK compiled with System V SHM support
> loading driver ..
> creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|2|48000|nomon|swmeter|rt
> open
> ALSA: cannot set period size to 1024 frames for capture
> ALSA: cannot configure capture channel
> starting engine
> engine driver not set; cannot start
> cannot start main JACK thread
> jack main caught signal 15
> received signal 11 during shutdown (ignored)

In this case the capture (recording) part of the soundcard is not happy
with the default of 1024 frames. 

> -----try #2-------------------
> $ jackd -v -d alsa -d cs46xx -p512
> jackd 0.72.4
> Copyright 2001-2003 Paul Davis and others.
> jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
> This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
> under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
> 
> JACK compiled with System V SHM support
> running with uid=0 and euid=0, will not try to use capabilites
> 2539 waiting for signals
> loading driver ..
> new client: alsa_pcm, id = 1 type 1 @ 0x8056678 fd = -1
> creating alsa driver ... cs46xx|cs46xx|512|2|48000|nomon|swmeter|rt
> ALSA lib pcm.c:1906:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cs46xx
> jackd: pcm.c:687: snd_pcm_nonblock: Assertion `pcm' failed.
> received signal 6 during shutdown (ignored)

And here you are specifying an alsa device that does not exist. You
could try:

jackd -v -d alsa -d hw:0 -p512

Or lower values like 256 or 128. You may also want to try more periods
per buffer, use the "-n" option for that, for example "-n 3" will use
three periods per buffer. You could also try playback only to see if
that part runs fine:

jackd -v -d alsa -d hw:0 -pxxx -nyyy -P

See "man jackd" for more options...
-- Fernando