"Charlie Grosvenor" <charlie@thegrosvenors.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
Hi
I have given up with the soundblaster 128. What i want to do is use
music software like NoteEdit and brahms, and plug in a midi keyboard into my
soundcard and create midi files, when use the software to edit them. The
trouble is i am not sure what sound cards linux supports for doing this. I
cannot get it to work with my soundblaster 128 so i have decided to purchase
another card. Can anybody recommed one that midi input is supported under
linux?
Thankyou
Charlie
Hi Charlie!I have had the same problem... trying to get MIDI to work on a SB128 for over 2 years. I finally gave up and got an old SB-64 AWE card that is working for me here. You should still be able to find these on the re-seller market or at Computer "flea" shops.
MIDI support was never very popular in Linux, and it seems to be fading into the dustbin of history. Any of the original Sound Blaster cards up through the SB-64 AWE are well supported for MIDI, though. The SB64-AWE probably represents the "pinicle" of MIDI support because of the support for the "AWE" funciton(s) and the use of Soundfonts (??) instead of FM synthesis IMHO. The sound out of a SB-64 card is as good as out of my SB128. I don't know about MIDI support for any of the "modern" sound cards, and there doesn't seem to be too much documentation around. Even the "Commercial" sound support suites like the one from 4-Front provide only limited (but better) capability than the built-in drivers in the Linux kernel, IMHO. I haven't tried the stuff in ALSA yet.
Getting MIDI support going in Debian isn't all that easy... especially using the Sound Fonts and the more recent cards that use PnP on the ISA bus. I would recommend getting the HOWTO on the subject at the Linux Documentation Project, and studying it. Give me a shout via E-Mail if you have problems & maybe I can help you out.
Cheers, -Don Spoon-