[PlanetCCRMA] a2jmidi

[lenb_99 at yahoo.com]

--- On Mon, 7/13/09, Len <lenb_99 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Len <lenb_99 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [PlanetCCRMA] a2jmidi
> To: planetccrma at ccrma.Stanford.EDU
> Date: Monday, July 13, 2009, 11:55 PM
> 
> > > On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Len
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Has anyone used the a2jmidi application? It
> is a
> > > daemon that exposes legacy ALSA midi sequencer
> > applications
> > > in the jack midi subsystem.  Since, for
> example,
> > ffado uses
> > > jack midi, it would seem to be a nice way to
> connect
> > your
> > > firewire midi hardware to alsa midi applications
> like
> > > hexter, whysynth, etc.  Just wondering since
> a2jmidi
> > has to
> > > be compiled from source.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > 
> > > Jack has a built in ALSA2JACK bridge. You can
> start
> > jackd
> > > with the
> > > "-Xseq" flag to invoke it.
> > > Or if you are using qjackctl, go to
> > > Setup-->Settings Tab-->MIDI Driver
> > > This shall be set to "seq". Then restart your
> jackd.
> > > 
> > > Do we really need an extra application for a
> built-in
> > > feature? Maybe
> > > I'm missing something.
> > > 
> > > Orcan
> > > 
> > 
> > I didn't realize Jack had that capability.  That
> would
> > make an extra app unnecessary, for sure.  Thanks for
> > the info.
> > 
> 
> Hmm.  Actually, that doesn't seem to work.  The
> option doesn't appear to be available when using firewire
> (ffado).
> 

So, what happens is that my hardware midi ports are only available under the (jack) MIDI tab in qjackctl, but ALSA midi clients are only accessible under the ALSA midi tab.  There is a MIDI THRU under the ALSA tab, but I still can't see a way to connect the hardware midi (JACK midi) to ALSA midi clients.  What am I missing?

Here's what the ffado site has to say (this was the reason for my original post).

Q: Why doesn't MIDI work?

A: FFADO uses jack-midi, not ALSA midi. Therefore it only works with jack-midi enabled applications. You can use a 'bridge' application named a2jmidi to translate between the two systems. More details can be found here.