Couple Jams

Yeah I haven't been posting much because of some family health issues, but I have been playing quite a bit, it helps me cope with the stress a little I think.  Decided to make a quick recording and throw it up here, ended up with two of them actually.  Nothing fancy but they show a little improvement on my part I think.

Blues Jam
Jazzy Jam

I notice from my stats page that I have a lot of Linux users coming here, probably because I linked to a blog page of mine from a forum. 

I'm still using the set up with jack, Rosegarden, and Audacity, with LinuxSampler and JackRack producing the sound and applying the effects.  Works pretty well, except there is no easy way to save all the settings in everything in a coordinated fashion.  In other words, I see no way to get save all the settings in one spot, open up that file and be right where I was on another day, in the event that something was close but just not quite there when I have to call it a day.

To this end I will have to start experimenting with some sort of automation scheme, though I suppose I should give Ardour a try at some time first to see if that provides any sort of a solution.  I have it working on my system for some reason I just haven't gotten around to tinkering with it.

I actually would like to correct one thing though from my previous post about getting stuff to work.  A better string of text to put in the limits.conf file is, I believe:

@audio - rtprio 90
@audio - nice -10
@audio - memlock unlimited

I guess I don't remember why I changed it exactly now, probably experimentation combined with some guessing.  The page in question is here, I also edited it there.

A Virtual Analog Synth!

I have been having too much fun fiddling with different programs to use as softsynths on my computer, and I've been poking around at different sequencers too.  But so far it has been with generally little success, though I have decided that some things are not quite worth the bother right now for me, such as SuperCollider and CSound, but I might look into Pd (oh that's Pure Data for the uninitiated.  Yes, it seems like I was googling for "Pd" only yesterday!  Oh wait that was yesterday.) It seems a little more pick up and play, and honestly I just need something to sit on a MIDI channel and process events so even this seems like a little bit of overkill.

But the little gem in this whole bunch was a program called AlsaModularSynth, available from http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/, which seems to digitally virtualize all of the old analog synth gear with the major addition that you can go polyphonic with it, and it sits right in the digital tool chain so you can control it with MIDI and then just take the digital audio out and go straight to effects processing or digital recording.  It is going to take a lot more fiddling to get to a comfort zone, but it was pretty easy to get it up and running for a test case.  I am hopeful that there are some nice expressive tones in there, but it seems a bit finicky, like the idea is to hunt down the sweet spots.

Got the LinuxSampler Blues!

It is a little hard for me to sound bluesy, because (a) I've got a headache and (b) linuxsampler is pretty awesome when outfitted with the 900 MB .gig instrument file on their website that has a 5 separate recordings for different velocities for every single note and (c) I just am really having a hard time jamming out the blues in general for some reason or another.

Here it is, next step is getting familiar with the Ardour program, or maybe getting a real song instead of just a jam over a loop.  Anyhow tonight I had a solo blues jam tonight (link didn't work?  try downloading from here), not particularly proud of it but it shows off the new digs ok.

Check out the LinuxSampler webpage (there are Windows and Mac versions as well, I think it started as a linux project and the name stuck.)  The .gig instrument file is there, or if that's all you want just click here.

Thanks for the read, please come again.

Good Android App

I'm currently working on my twelve bar blues using the Hydrogen drum machine and a bass line that I wrote by hand (or I guess by mouse) in Rosegarden, and it is starting to feel a little better but I am still a little shaky!

One  of the reasons it has taken me so long to get the computer going is that I was afraid it would be more of a distraction than a useful learning aid, and I am not entirely sure I was wrong since there is so much stuff I want to try out on the computer.  Coming up is Linux Sampler and giving Ardour a try as replacing Rosegarden as everything but a MIDI sequencer, as well as working toward automating the whole start up process.

But one thing I am fairly confident in saying is that most Android apps for music are not very good.  However, there is an exception to this rule: a very neat, and very customizable ear trainer for intervals, chords, and scales, by the name of Theory, Practice!  I guess I'm not really smart enough to get the links to it on the android market up, so you will have to go search for it there yourself. 

Welcome to the Machine

Ok, got a good enough kernel running now, at least I'm not getting warnings.

Got the Hydrogen drum machine up and running -- it's really easy to use, my only problem at this point going forward is coming up with what drum beats I want, because it is running and syncing perfectly.  

Also syncing up with my keyboard (recording midi and then playing back through it later) works mostly without a hitch, without any noticeable latency.  But there was one hitch, weird thing about this is it dropped in a note that's not really a note (at least it's way to low for anything in a standard orchestra) and I can't figure out how to delete it (it happens right around the 2:00 minute mark, that's  what causes the wierd noise from my keyboard synth.)  I can delete other notes that are suppose to be there, just not this one magic one that I couldn't have played because there isn't a key for it!

Haha, oh well, I am not too worried for the moment.  Anyhow I manage to stretch out a little bit as this as it goes on, I quite creatively called it Test Jam,and just in case that hotlink doesn't work you can try to download it from here.

If anyone wants different formats/smaller files feel free to let me know.

Got My USB MIDI Interface

I got my usb midi interface in the mail today, I have plugged it in and used it a bit and I am excited!  I still need to get a better linux kernel up, the one I am using makes everything feel a little sloppy.  My problem right now is getting another kernel up and running using the ATI graphics driver, if anybody has any great ideas please post it in the comments below!

But just as a taste, here is an mp3 titled Hooked Up, in celebration of me hooking up my keyboard to my computer.  It is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Alright, that's all folks, let you know when I get this thing purring.

Edit: link was broken, now it's working I think.

Rosegarden is working

I've finally got a baseline test of what can be done with Rosegarden.  (Pun intended.  feel free to cringe.)  Sorry if the volume is a little low on the mp3, if it is too low, you should turn the knob on your amp labeled "Volume" clockwise.

As far as using midi recording instead of inputting the notes with notation goes, I think I am going to need a real time kernel, and none of the ones I have tried from my openSUSE distro are working.  The desktop one causes serious video issues, and the real time one causes a kernel panic.  So I think I am going to have to compile one (shudder.) 

As far as what the song above kind of sort of reminds me of goes, there was a funny line from Craig Ferguson about his robot side kick, where he said that people have said to him that it seems like he has gone from deconstructing the late show format to outright mocking it, and he said it was like they were inside his head.  Haha.  No idea how that's really related to this though.

Anyhow, that's three days in a row on this blog, I'm getting places now.

How to get Rosegarden/Jack/Fluidsynth working on openSUSE

Ok it has taken me practically all day, but I finally got Rosegarden working for midi playback on openSUSE 11.3.  I just placed an order for a usb midi interface, so I am hoping to get my computer ready for when it arrives, and I have to say that I did not expect there to be so much of a hurdle just to get Rosegarden working.

I use openSUSE, but I hope that this will be helpful to users of other linux distributions, but I am not going to figure out how to do all system administration stuff from the command line without using yast, or using different package managers, etc.

Ok step one get the stuff:

Needed:
rosegarden (mine is 10.04.2)
jack
fluidsynth

Nice to Have, and basically assumed for this tutorial:
qjackctl
qsynth

KDE users will probably be happier than those of us on gnome, since all of this stuff uses the KDE toolkit (though the GUI for fluidsynth-dssi is in GTK+, so KDE users should probably keep that around in case they figure out how to use it!  I haven't ;) ).  Also there isn't a repo with qsynth, so I built from source.  You need the fluidsynth development package to build it from source, plus probably a whole bunch of development packages (I have a bunch already).  There was a user on the openSUSE build service who had it in his home project, if you would prefer doing it that way.

Step 2, get the audio group on!
 Add yourself to the audio group in Yast->Security and Users->User and Group Management by selecting the users who will be using the midi stuff and going to edit and then details.

Then, and here is the tricky part, add the following lines to the file /etc/security/limits.conf:

@audio - rtprio 90
@audio - nice 15
@audio - memlock 4000000

Edit (12/23/2010):  The above worked for a while, but I now use:

@audio - rtprio 90
@audio - nice -10
@audio - memlock unlimited

 It's probably easiest to call a text editor with sudo and just cut and paste them in, that's what I did.

The point of all of this is that now you will be able to use the audio stuff without calling them from root, which makes everything much simpler.

Step 3 Get some SoundFonts!

There are a lot of them out there it appears!
There are a bunch on a site called Hammersound.  I found one on there called FluidR3 or something similar in the collections category that is General Midi (i.e. a little bit of everything, with things on standardized channels.)  Actually General Midi is not really essential for using fluidsynth with rosegarden, since there is a convenient way to set the instrument channels in rosegarden (see step 4)  I haven't really used any of this stuff enough to give a recommendation to anything though.

You may also need the program from http://www.melodymachine.com/sfark.htm, which has a linux version, if the file that you have has a .sfark extension.  It is a specialized compression program as far as I can tell.

Step 4:  Get jacked up!  I mean get jackd up, and everything else too!
If you haven't signed off and back on after editing the file limits.conf file in step 2, go ahead and do that.  Then start up jackd using qjackctl, or from the command line using "jackd -d alsa" (additional options I don't know anything about really, but jackd --help and jackd -d alsa --help have some info).

Then start up your qsynth.  Actually, starting fluidsynth from the command line still looks fairly useful, because I don't see a way to start multiple copies of qsynth (though I might be missing something) but adding more fluidsynths from the command line seems to work.  The command that works without any hitches for me is "fluidsynth -l -a jack -m alsa_seq [soundfontfile.sf2]".  Actually, just start up one at first though, it is probably easier to add them one at a time because you have to keep track of which one is using which soundfont file.

Then start up Rosegarden and go to Studio->Manage Midi Devices (there is an icon as well.  It should list your fluidsynths in the Midi Outputs section.  Select your synth, and then click on banks, and then on import.  And then switch to .sf2 files, and load the sf2 file that the synth is using in order to load the names of the different instruments.

Step 5: Make sure everything is hooked up right-
Go to your qjackctl (I have no idea how to do this from the command line, sorry), and click on connect.  Make sure that your synth is going where you want it to go, for playback send it to system  Haven't figured out how to record this yet, I'll probably use audacity as a software recorder/mixer if the rosegarden one is not good enough.

Step 6:  Making music!
Just right click on the name of the midi channel, and then select the device.  Choose the instrument in the panels on the left of the screen, and you should be ready to make music!  This is as far as I have gotten, wanted to call it a day at this point and type this up before I forgot how I got it working because I hope no one else has to go through a day like this.  I assure you it is much easier if you know what you are doing, each of these steps was hit upon after a lot of trial and error and googling for only tangentially related stuff, though I did get step 2 off of an openSUSE forum, I would never have thought of it on my own.  Ok, phew, I am going to watch sports now.

Ok Been a While

Yeah, I let this go far too long...

But I guess I haven't completely lost my touch.  I put together a little jam yesterday, I feel like I'm playing well today too.  Here it is:

Little Jam

Ok, I will be getting a little bit more equipment and be experimenting a bit with different recording set ups, but I will try to get a little bit more up on here in any case!

Testing this out

Ok, I just found a website that I think can use as a file host. The following link should work:

Blues Vamp

Ok. If you're on the e-mail list then you have this already, so just ignore it and wait for me to post something new.