On Wed, May 18, 2005 at 09:25:28PM -0500, Jim Hall wrote: > Replies are inline. > > Jim > > Nicos Gollan wrote: > >On Saturday May 14 2005 05:02, Jim Hall wrote: > > > >>A user needs MIDI to work in Firefox. I installed > >>kernel-image-2.6.8-686, then ALSA. Ran alsaconf. Everything seemed fine, > >>but no MIDI in Firefox. Can't find a plugin. Is there any way to make > >>Firefox recognize and use ALSA? > > > > > >Can you play MIDI files with pmidi? You'll have to do some setup work > >before you hear any sound unless you have a hardware synth attached to the > >soundcard. > **************************** > How would I know if there is a "synth" attached to the soundcard? > **************************** Your soundcard documentation ought to tell you if it includes hardware for MIDI synthesis. Most soundcards require software to do the job. > >This did help me to get MIDI working: > >http://houghi.org/user/ch19s09.html > > > >The article seems to change locations every now and then, I've had at > >least three locations go invalid over time. Searching for "ALSA and MIDI" > >on Google usually does the trick, the page title should be "19.9. ALSA and > >MIDI". > **************************** > Thank you for the reference. I've read it. However, it refers to KDE. > This system is using the Debian default, Gnome. Since I have no idea > what the Gnome equivalents are, it doesn't help me much. :) > **************************** Neither KDE nor Gnome includes a MIDI synth, as far as I know, so the basic procedure ought to be the same for both. > >If you're interested in better MIDI quality than most consumer soundcards > >can handle, I recommend you have a loot at timidity which can also be used > >as a synth for ALSA: > >http://timidity.sourceforge.net/ > **************************** > I've looked up timidity in the package lists. Other info I've found > seems to indicate it's resource heavy. So, it would be a last resort. > Frankly, as long as the sound is halfway reasonable (meaning it doesn't > grate on the senses), I don't care about quality. > **************************** An alternative to timidity is fluidsynth. You'll need *something* to act as a MIDI synth to get any MIDI sound at all unless your sound hardware is capable of it. Timidity does use more resources than fluidsynth, but it's a MIDI player as well as a synthesizer. I've found that it's much easier to configure than fluidsynth. > >Sets of MIDI patches can be found all over the net. I use the Titanic > >Soundfont, but that's too big for most cards and needs quite some CPU > >power. There are smaller ones that can be loaded with sfxload, but don't > >expect too much (Creative usually ship an 8MB Soundfont on their driver > >discs). > **************************** > I have no idea what you're talking about here. > **************************** A patchset or soundfont provide the sound samples for the hardware or software synth to use. Google ought to explain this. Once you have MIDI configured, you shouldn't need to do anything special in Firefox to play files from the Web. No plug-ins are needed; you just use the MIDI player you have installed. On my system, with timidity and a patchset, if I click on a link to a MIDI file, all I have to do is pick a default application for .mid files and then it "just works". The EAW patchset sounds pretty good and isn't too big compared with some soundfonts. You can get it here: http://www.fbriere.net/debian/misc/ -- PJR :-)
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature