
Getting (Linux) ALSA midi support and MIDI networking working with Hatari
=========================================================================

If you don't have a real MIDI sequencer, you can use the MIDI synthesizer
of your sound card (if available) or use a software synthetizer.

For (Debian) package names and links to software referenced in this
text, see end of the text. Most of the distros should have in their
repositories packages at least for some of them though.

Contents:
- Using a soundcard with built-in MIDI synthesis capability 
- Making MIDI soft-synthetizer to work with ALSA
- Using FluidSynth instead of Timidity
- Other software synthetizers
- Making it all to work with Hatari
- MIDI and networking
- Software
- Additional documentation


Using a soundcard with built-in MIDI synthesis capability 
---------------------------------------------------------

If your soundcard is capable of playing MIDI sound (i.e. you can play a .mid
file with the "aplaymidi" command using the appropriate port), you can use this
synthesis device for Hatari, too. However, you still might have to install and
connect a virtual midi device, so that Hatari can access it through a
/dev/snd/midiC*D* device file (see instructions below).

Please note that you might also have to load instrument patches into your sound
card first, for example with the program "sfxload" for AWE64 based sound cards,
or with the program "sbiload" for OPL3 based sound cards.


Making MIDI soft-synthetizer to work with ALSA
-----------------------------------------------

Make Timidity into an ALSA output device with:
  timidity -Os -iA
(-O: output=alsa, -i: interface=alsa)

To make it use less CPU and be more responsive, use:
  timidity -Os -iA -B2,8 -EFreverb=0 -EFchorus=0
(-B: 2,8=set small buffers, -EFx=0: disable effects)

Make vkeybd (virtual midi keyboard app) into an ALSA input device with:
  vkeybd
Or  use the newer & nicer looking "Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard":
  vmpk

View the resulting (software) ALSA input and output devices:
  aconnect -i -o

Then connect the vkeybd output port to the timidity input port with:
  aconnect <vkeybd port> <timidity port>
Or use one of the GUI programs for this like kaconnect, aconnectgui etc.

Now you can use the virtual midi keyboard for testing the sound
synthesis.


Finally you can test how well midi files are played.
Check which ALSA port Timidity provides:
  aplaymidi -l

And use that port for playing a midi file:
  aplaymidi -p <port, e.g. 129:0> test.mid
(or use 'pmidi')

Note: Remember that you need to re-connect the (virtual) device
ports each time you restart them.


Using FluidSynth instead of Timidity
------------------------------------

Instead of Timidity, you also use other soft-synthetizers,
like FluidSynth:
  fluidsynth --audio-driver=alsa --midi-driver=alsa_seq soundfont.sf2

You could play a bit with other options to get more performance,
sound volume etc:
  --reverb=no --chorus=no -o synth.polyphony=16 --gain=0.6

And if you don't like the FluidSynth shell, use:
  --no-shell --server

Qsynth provides a GUI for above:
  qsynth <soundfont>

Note: FluidSynth v1.0.7a in older (obsolete) Linux distros has buffer
overruns, but they're fixed in v1.0.8 or newer that are in the current
Linux distros.


Other software synthetizers
---------------------------

Of the other soft-synthetizers, I like also Horgand organ emulator
as it has pretty good organ sound, but it needs Jack connection kit
(+ e.g. qjackctl) for sound to work properly (not have sound underruns).


Making it all to work with Hatari
---------------------------------

Hatari requires midi hardware devices to work, it doesn't support
ALSA directly.  To get the software synth ALSA devices to appear
as HW midi devices, run following as *root*:
  modprobe snd-virmidi

When you list your ALSA output devices with:
  aconnect -o
You should see in addition to the soft-synth also 4 virtual hardware
devices.

Then connect (with aconnect or one of the GUIs) the first virtual
HW port to the same soft-synth port where you connected the virtual
midi keyboard.

Check which number was assigned by ALSA to the new virtual midi card:
  cat /proc/asound/cards

And give to Hatari the corresponding ALSA midi device.  In my case
VirMidi was Card 1 and as the port used above was first one, I give
Hatari the following midi device:
  hatari --midi-out /dev/snd/midiC1D0

(For the virtual midi keyboard, give same device with --midi-in option.)

Note: In older (obsolete) Linux distros SDL_mixer may take exclusive
access to the PCM (sound) device, but as the soft synthetizer is
already connected to it, one may need to use --nosound option to get
MIDI sound working. In recent distros this shouldn't anymore be
a problem thanks to Pulseaudio.


MIDI and networking
-------------------

If you direct the MIDI data to stdout, you can use just ssh to
forward the MIDI output over network:
  hatari --midi-in "" --midi-out /dev/stdout --log /dev/stderr |\
    ssh user@remote.site "cat>/dev/snd/midiC1D0"

(Note that logging is re-directed to stderr so that it doesn't
mess the MIDI output to standard output and --midi-in is set
empty in case you don't have MIDI input device locally.)


MIDI-networking two Hatari emulators can be most easily done with socat.

MIDI networking over normal TCP/IP network:
  @remote.site:
    socat -b1 PTY,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/midi1 TCP4-LISTEN:33333 &
    hatari --midi-in /tmp/midi1 --midi-out /tmp/midi1 &
  @local.site:
    socat -b1 PTY,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/midi2 TCP4:remote.site:33333 &
    hatari --midi-in /tmp/midi2 --midi-out /tmp/midi2 &

Buffer size (-b) is set to one just in case (by default socat buffer
size is 8K, but all the MIDI communication is done byte at the time).

You may need to open a hole into your firewall for the given port
(here 33333).  Usually there's a hole for the www-traffic in firewalls,
but the port for that (80) is below 1000, so if you use "www" as
the port, most likely you need to run "socat" as root.  To test this
with a single machine, use "localhost" as the "remote.site".

Local MIDI network:
  socat -b1 PTY,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/midi1 PTY,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/midi2 &
  hatari --midi-in /tmp/midi1 --midi-out /tmp/midi1 &
  hatari --midi-in /tmp/midi2 --midi-out /tmp/midi2 &

If you don't have "socat" installed, local-midi-ring.sh script shows how
to join several (local) Hatari emulators into a MIDI ring using fifos.


Software
--------

In Debian, the tools mentioned above come from following packages:
- alsa-utils (aconnect, aplaymidi)
- alsa-tools (sbiload)
- awesfx (sfxload)
- pmidi
- vkeybd
- vmpk
- aconnectgui
- qsynth
- fluidsynth
- fluid-soundfont-* (soundfonts)
- timidity
- horgand
- qjackctl
- socat
See http://packages.debian.org/ for more details on them.

Below are upstream links to some of these tools.

Vkeybd:
  http://alsa.opensrc.org/Vkeybd

Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard (vmpk):
  http://vmpk.sourceforge.net/

Patch (ALSA connecting) utilities:
  http://alsa.opensrc.org/AlsaMidiPatchbays    

FluidSynth:
  http://www.iiwu.org/fluidsynth/

Horgand:
  http://horgand.berlios.de/

Soundfonts:
  http://alsa.opensrc.org/SoundFontHandling

List of some soft-synthetizers:
  http://alsa.opensrc.org/SoftSynths

Kaconnect:
  http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/

QjackCtl:
  http://qjackctl.sourceforge.net/

socat:
  http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/

MidiMaze:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Maze


Additional documentation
------------------------

ALSA midi overview:
  http://alsa.opensrc.org/AlsaMidiOverview

How to set up soundcards with hardware MIDI synthesis capability (AWE & OPL3):
  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Midi/HardwareSynthesisSetup

Virtual midi hardware setup:
  http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/MIDI-HOWTO-10.html

Timidity Howto:
  http://lau.linuxaudio.org/TiMidity-howto.html

Midi with ALSA (old):
  http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/September2002/article259.shtml

Midi on Linux:
  http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7773

MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi
