Bug#1017960: libdrumstick 2.7.1-1 causes vmpk to stop making sound
Hi!
I'm the upstream developer of both libdrumstick and vmpk.
> The expected behaviour is that pressing a piano key results in sound
output. No sound is produced.
You are correct. Anyone installing vmpk should be able to trigger sounds at
once, without needing to search/download/configure soundfonts or other
complex tweaks. Congratulations for pointing the bug report to the right
target as well. In the past many people has complained to me about defects
in the distribution/packaging, like not producing sound at once.
> I can see "FluidSynth output" in the PulseAudio mixer (pavucontrol) when
vmpk is running
> MIDI Output "Information: Using PulseAudio driver\nError:
> fluid_sfloader_load(): Failed to open '': File does not exist.\nError:
Unable to open file ''\nError: ipatch_file_open() failed with error: 'No
such file or directory'\nError: Failed to load SoundFont \"\""
When the default output is missing, the program picks the next best option,
which is FluidSynth. But this synth requires that the user configure a
soundfont file and some other parameters before producing sound.
That is why the drumstick-rt backend "SonivoxEAS" was included in 2016
(v1.1.0). This synth is very straightforward, not needing external
soundfont files and using embedded samples instead, so it is suitable for
vmpk and other projects. The synth was ported from the Android AOSP
repository, including the sources inside the drumstick source repository
and tarballs for simplicity, which is against Debian and other
distributions best practices and policies.
Last month I've released drumstick v2.7.0 removing the Sonivox sources from
the drumstick repository and tarballs, but linking to the shared external
library instead, which is published at GitHub:
https://github.com/pedrolcl/sonivox
and some Linux distros have already picked it, but not Debian:
https://repology.org/project/sonivox/versions.
The sonivox dependency is optional, but in v2.7.1 the packager must opt-out
explicitly or the build system complains with an error message. And it has
taken place: https://salsa.debian.org/multimedia-team/libdrumstick/-/
commit/68ab93c0d4603db88d73728068d7876bcb3f1fef
Your workaround is correct: downgrade drumstick to v2.6.1 to restore the
expected functionality. Other alternatives:
* The deb-multimedia repo (https://deb-multimedia.org/) has full/correct
packages for drumstick, sonivox and vmpk among others.
* My AppImage from SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vmpk/
files/vmpk/0.8.7/
* FlatPak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.sourceforge.VMPK
In a few days I will publish a new VMPK v0.8.8 with some fixes, and it will
loudly complain at startup when the default output backend is missing.
Regards,
Pedro
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