Re: [Denemo-devel] Midi-status

[Nils Gey]

I totally forgot:

Midi-In *is* working, but the strange hardware-noises are still there. So I can 
put notes in via midi!

I don't know if I should get an audio-response and what is needed for that. 
Maybe thats the reason. 
Can I deactivate the audio-response somehow?

And why are there still the two fields in Denemo options with /dev/sequencer 
and /dev/midi. Isn't this legacy now?

Nils

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:10:24 +0100
Nils Gey <address@hidden> wrote:

> First report on midi. I just write what I noticed. I am sure you probably 
> know most of these already. 
> 
> I compiled Denemo with --enable-jack. Latest git.
> 
> Then I start my jackd, after that Denemo.
> Denemo shows up as input and output client. The output has voice 1, which is 
> the first staff.
> 
> Creating new staffs, with a custom name "test", shows a new port in QJackCtls 
> [+]Denemo
> 
> Renaming of the staff has no effect. It stays the the old one for jack.
> 
> With these two staffs, "voice1" and "test", deleting the first one results in 
> the deletion of the qjackctl port and leaves only "test", which is fine. 
> Creating a new staff (create new staff above) does not create a new jack-port.
> 
> Creating a new staff with an existing name ("voice1") does create the staff 
> but not a new jack-port.
> 
> I loaded an existing .denemo file with four voices and they show up correctly 
> as four ports.
> 
> Quitting Denemo leaves no traces. Everything is fine.
> 
> Now to midi-in:
> For the midi-in testing I used the software jack-keyboard to avoid any 
> hardware and/or alsa-bridge related errors. 
> 
> I remember I got it working once, a few weeks ago, but today there was no 
> success at all:
> 
> Like I said Denemo creates an in-port "denemo" on startup. If you connect 
> jack-keyboard to it and send notes nothing happens in Denemo. I know this is 
> an expected behaviour, but in fact this is not the right behaviour and 
> confusing. If there is already a midi-in port I (as an uninformed user) don't 
> see why its not possible. See the suggestions below for that.
> 
> So I choose Input->midi input from the menu. The dialog pops up (which is 
> sooo ugly with my WMII window manager because its stretched over the whole 
> screen).
> In QJackCtl I now see a second in-port named denemo-01. I am sure this is a 
> known bug. 
> If I connect to the new "denemo-01" it automatically switches to the first 
> "denemo" port. So connecting to denemo-01 is not possible at all. 
> 
> Now comes the freaking part. To avoid confusion: I am some 80% sure this is 
> related to my system and not to Denemo. I encountered something like this 
> already with the Video-Lan-Player but I don't know what it is right now.
> 
> Status: Midi-in is now activated, I see two denemo-in ports in jack and have 
> connected the jack-keyboard to the "denemo" in-port (btw. same results with 
> my hardware-keyboard via alsa-bridge).
> 
> If I send a note now my systems totally freaks out and my hardware(!) makes 
> constant freaking noises which changes if I send another midi-note. It sounds 
> a bit like a dial-up modem and it sounds very very unhealthy.
> To be clear: I don't mean my audio-hardware! And its not the pc-speaker. It 
> sounds like scratching or somethings going wild. Maybe harddrive, maybe some 
> fan... I don't know. 
> 
> The source of this is Denemo. The sounds are going on until I close Denemo. 
> Cutting jack-connections, stopping jack or other software has now effect.
> 
> Like I said I believe this is only my system, but there is some error 
> nontheless. Other software works fine with midi-in/out and routing. 
> 
> 
> Suggestions:
> 
> 1) Make --enable-jack default on. Give a warning to the console if jackd is 
> not started, but let Denemo run. Its a common thing to restart the 
> client(Denemo) if you want to have jack in the end. I never saw a "reconnect 
> on the fly" function in any Jack-app that works flawless (like starting the 
> software anew)
> 
> 2) Prevent staffs with the same name at all. Every staff, which means 
> "jack-port" here, should have a unique name. This should have nothing todo 
> with lilypond staff names. The printout-names should be allowed to be 
> different from the internal/jack-name and should be allowed to be non-unique.
> 
> 3) The midi-in behaviour is not optimal. I expect sending midi-notes to 
> Denemo as a standard task. So I suggest to get rid of the midi-in dialog 
> (enharmonic range etc.) as a popup and leave it as a preferences tab.
> In case of enharmonic and key-related behaviour it would be better to look at 
> the actuall staff-keysigns.
> 
> 4) Also I suggest to open the Midi-in port right from the start. Maybe use 
> lash indepently from a lash-project (don't know if thats possible) to 
> remember the last midi-in connection and try to recreate it. Of it was the 
> midi-keyboard its likely that its still there. Then you can do an 
> autoconnect, instructed by Denemo.
> 
> 5) This creates a situation where Denemo constantly listens to midi-in, which 
> is a good solution in my eyes. To prevent accidental use of the midi-in 
> feature (like putting a dish or some heavy notation on the keyboard, which is 
> a real live situation) I suggest a switch in Denemo which reroutes all 
> midi-in signals to /dev/null, but which does not cut any connections. Its 
> just a bypass.
> 
> 
> So far...
> 
> Nils
> 
> 
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-- 
Nils Gey <address@hidden>