Re: rosegarden

["Herman Robak" <herman@skolelinux.no>]

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:53:03 +0100, Nigel Barker <tech@hiroshima-is.ac.jp> wrote:

> 2010/1/24 Herman Robak <herman@skolelinux.no>:
> > On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:46:12 +0100, Nigel Barker <tech@hiroshima-is.ac.jp>
> > wrote:
> >
> > What kind of sound?  WAV or MIDI?  Live sequencing or playing a score?
> > What kind of output?  Jack or ALSA?  A soft synthesizer, or a MIDI device?
>
> Jack is running and showing rosegraden connected to sound system

Aha.  Directly, and not via a soft-synthesizer, like qsynth?
Rosegarden has no built-in synthesizer.  If you don't have a hardware
synthesizer on your sound card (most modern cards have not) then sending
data to /dev/sequencer or Jack's equivalents will be fruitless.
Granted, this "silent failure" is not very usable.

Rosegarden can use a plugin (dssi-something) to "render" MIDI into
PCM data that can go to a sound device.  Or you can "patch in" a soft
synthesizer with Jack.  Fortunately, Jack was designed for patching
and plugging, and qjackctl makes the task fairly easy to figure out.

Start qjackctl, qsynth and Rosegarden, in that order, and see if they
bond automagically.  If they don't, I'm pretty sure you can deduce
which nodes in qjackctl need to be strung together, and how.

Oh, and qsynth needs a soundfont.  It won't be installed automatically.
I suggest fluid-soundfont-gm.  It won't load automatically, either;
you have to locate it with qsynth's file dialog.
(Raffaella was right, it wouldn't fly)


> I tried to create a track in rosegarden using the score editor. when I
> clicked play I saw the volume level flashing.

A volume level inside Rosegarden's GUI, I take it?


> I imported a hydrogen drum track (which I could hear in hydrogen),and the same thing happened.

Evidently Rosegarden knows what to do with the track, but the output
bits go straight out the fan opening.  Don't worry, they are invisible
and non-toxic.

Install qsynth and fluid-soundfont-gm, start qsynth after qjackctl,
in qsynth load the sound font file /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2,
start Rosegarden.  That should work.

*phew*

--
Herman Robak