alsa + ymfpci: sound but no MIDI
Please forgive me if this is a bit off-topic, but I'm at the end of my
tether here, having gone through the alsa documentation on both my
system and on their website, and through whatever google has thrown at me.
I can't play midi through my Harmony 3ds724a soundcard (Yamaha ymf724
pci audio controller). Being suspicious of the sound driver included in
the kernel, I apt-got, compiled and installed alsa-source 0.9+0beta9-1
(latest, I think). The modules setup result in a jumble of modules being
loaded:
#lsmod
snd-seq-oss 25024 0 (autoclean)
snd-seq-midi-event 3192 0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 35948 2 (autoclean) [snd-seq-oss
snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-mixer-oss 8960 0 (autoclean)
snd-card-ymfpci 3264 0
snd-mpu401-uart 2832 0 [snd-card-ymfpci]
snd-rawmidi 11712 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-ymfpci 36288 0 [snd-card-ymfpci]
snd-pcm 46208 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-ac97-codec 22432 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-opl3 5664 0 [snd-card-ymfpci]
snd-timer 9344 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3]
snd-seq-device 4032 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-opl3]
snd-hwdep 3712 0 [snd-opl3]
snd 25800 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event
snd-seq snd-mixer-oss snd-card-ymfpci snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi
snd-ymfpci snd-pcm snd-ac97-codec snd-opl3 snd-timer snd-seq-device
snd-hwdep]
(...)
This looks OK to me, but only sound (.wav, .au) files get played, no
MIDI. The various programs I've tried (rosegarden, kmid, playmidi/sox)
all seem to agree on the unavailability of a soundcard, or on the lack
of a suitable device driver.
The contents of the file /proc/asound/sndstat is as follows:
--------------------
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v0.9.0beta9 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux snob 2.4.13vbc01 #1 Sat Oct 27 21:52:43 WEST 2001 i586
Config options: 0
Installed drivers:
Type 10: ALSA emulation
Card config:
Yamaha DS-XG PCI (YMF724) at 0xca926000, irq 11
Audio devices:
0: YMFPCI (DUPLEX)
Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Timers:
7: system timer
Mixers:
0: mixer00
--------------------
Why does it say "Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG"? Is this the cause
of the problem? If so, what config file should I tweak, and how? I've
been at this for over a month now, on and off, and I couldn't find the
least bit of info on this subject.
I'm a bit suspicious of alsaconf, since it seems to create only alsa
version 0.5 config files, but I might be wrong.
Another thing that worries me (probably unrelated?) is that the alsa
utilities (alsaconf, /etc/init.d/alsa, ...) cannot find alsactl,
although the binary is on the system and in the PATH.
If somebody out there has a similar sound setup, or some pointers for me
to go on a bit further, I'd REALLY like to hear from you.
If you need to look at the contents of the files in /etc/alsa/ I'd be
happy to post them.
Thanks.
--
Carlos Sousa
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