Provided by: bristol_0.60.11-2_amd64 
NAME
bristol - a synthesiser emulation package.
SYNOPSIS
startBristol -mini -jack -midi seq [options]
DESCRIPTION
bristol is a vintage synthesiser software emulator suite. The application consists of an
engine itself called bristol and a graphical user interface called brighton. The graphical
interface is a bitmap manipulation library to present the diverse synth devices such as
potentiometers, buttons, sliders, patch cables and which generates the messages to
configure the synth emulator. The engine is an infrastructure that hosts the emulator
code that couples together the different audio operators required to generate the audio.
The engine and GUI are started together with the startBristol script which sets up the
required environment for the two to connect together. It is not generally envisaged that
bristol and brighton be started outside of the script however there are options to the
script to only start one or the other. Bristol also has a command line interface that can
be used rather than the GUI.
Currently following synthesizers are emulated:
Emulations
moog mini
moog explorer (voyager)
moog voyager electric blue
moog memory
moog sonic 6
moog/realistic mg-1 concertmate
hammond module (deprecated, use -b3)
hammond B3 (default)$
sequential circuits prophet-5
sequential circuits prophet-5/fx
sequential circuits prophet-10
sequential circuits pro-one
fender rhodes mark-I stage 73
fender rhodes bass piano
crumar roadrunner electric piano
crumar bit 01
crumar bit 99
crumar bit + mods
crumar stratus synth/organ combo
crumar trilogy synth/organ/string combo
oberheim OB-X
oberheim OB-Xa
arp axxe
arp odyssey
arp 2600
arp/solina string ensemble
korg polysix
korg poly-800
korg mono/poly
korg ms20 (unfinished: -libtest only)
vox continental
vox continental super/300/II
roland juno-60
roland jupiter-8
baumann bme-700
bristol bassmaker sequencer
yamaha dx-7
yamaha cs-80 (unfinished)
commodore-64 SID chip synth
commodore-64 SID polyphonic synth (unfinished)
granular synthesiser (unfinished)
ems synthi-a (unfinished)
16 track mixer (unfinished: -libtest only)
The default connection between the engine and GUI is a TCP socket using a SYSEX format
message taken from MIDI. Optionally the code will use a unix domain socket for improved
security. The GUI and engine do not need to be resident on the same system if suitable
parameters are given, this feature requires the TCP domain sockets be used. The engine can
also accept requests from multiple brighton interfaces and run all the emulators at the
same time, multitimbraly, sharing voices between them and pre-empting where necessary. If
an emulator is started in monophonic mode then it is preallocated a voice that will never
be pre-empted and which runs continuously, ie, by default it will continue to run even
when no piano keys are pressed. The polyphonic code will only run the voice algorithms
whilst the key gate is open, the gate being derived from the voice envelope state. The
engine supports minimally 32 voices per default, if an emulator requests less then its
emulation is configured with a soft limit. If more are requested then more voices are
created however the upper limit is imposed at 128 voices. A voice is an engine structure
that allows for allocation and executing, the actual code run by a voice can be any of the
emulator algorithms which is how multitimbral operation is supported. The voice allocation
process is 'last note precedence' and whilst others are available for the monophonic
instruments, this is the only polyphonic assignment algorithm.
This package should be started with the startBristol script. The script will start up the
bristol synthesiser binaries, evaluating the correct library paths and executable paths.
There are emulation, synthesiser and operational parameters:
OPTIONS
Emulation:
-mini - moog mini
-explorer - moog voyager
-voyager - moog voyager electric blue
-memory - moog memory
-sonic6 - moog sonic 6
-mg1 - moog/realistic mg-1 concertmate
-hammond - hammond module (deprecated, use -b3)
-b3 - hammond B3 (default)
-prophet - sequential circuits prophet-5
-pro52 - sequential circuits prophet-5/fx
-pro10 - sequential circuits prophet-10
-pro1 - sequential circuits pro-one
-rhodes - fender rhodes mark-I stage 73
-rhodesbass - fender rhodes bass piano
-roadrunner - crumar roadrunner electric piano
-bitone - crumar bit 01
-bit99 - crumar bit 99
-bit100 - crumar bit + mods
-stratus - crumar stratus synth/organ combo
-trilogy - crumar trilogy synth/organ/string combo
-obx - oberheim OB-X
-obxa - oberheim OB-Xa
-axxe - arp axxe
-odyssey - arp odyssey
-arp2600 - arp 2600
-solina - arp/solina string ensemble
-polysix - korg polysix
-poly800 - korg poly-800
-monopoly - korg mono/poly
-ms20 - korg ms20 (unfinished: -libtest only)
-vox - vox continental
-voxM2 - vox continental super/300/II
-juno - roland juno-60
-jupiter - roland jupiter-8
-bme700 - baumann bme-700
-bm - bristol bassmaker sequencer
-dx - yamaha dx-7
-cs80 - yamaha cs-80 (unfinished)
-sidney - commodore-64 SID chip synth
-melbourne - commodore-64 SID polysynth (unfinished)
-granular - granular synthesiser (unfinished)
-aks - ems synthi-a (unfinished)
-mixer - 16 track mixer (unfinished: -libtest only)
Synthesiser:
-voices <n>
The selected emulator will start with this number of voices. The engine will always
create 32 voices but only allocate this subset to the emulator. If the selected
value is greater than 32 then the greater number of voices is allocated.
-mono Run the emulator in monophonic mode. This is not really an alias for '-voices 1' as
it additionally configures parameters such as '-retrig -lvel -wwf -hnp'. These
additional options can be overridden if desired.
-lnp Select low note precedence logic. This only applies to monophonic synthesisers and
all of the note precedence affect the legato playing style.
-hnp Select high note precedence logic. This only applies to monophonic synthesisers.
-nnp Select no note precedence, this is the default and operates as a last note
precedence selection.
-retrig
Request a trigger event for each note that is played AND notes that are released.
The trigger will cause the envelopes to cycle. They will not return to zero by
default however some of the emulations have that as a GUI control. Without this
flag triggers are only sent for the first pressed note of a sequence.
-lvel Configure velocity inheritance for all legato notes - the first note of a sequence
will have a velocity value that is applied to all subsequent notes. This option is
a toggle: applying twice will disable the feature. This is important with regards
to the emulators as many of the mono synths with set lvel per default. The
following options may not work as expected:
startBristol -mini -lvel
The issue is that -mini enables legato velocity so the -lvel switch will toggle it
off again. The same applies to -retrig.
-channel <c>
Start the emulator to respond on this MIDI channel, default 1.
-lowkey <n>
Configure the lowest note for which the emulator should respond. This defaults to
'0' but can be used to define key splits and ranges for different synths.
-highkey <n>
Configure the highest note for which the emulator should respond. This defaults to
'127' but can be used to define key splits and ranges for different synths.
-detune <%>
Request the emulator run with a level of temperature sensitivity. The default value
is defined by the emulator, typically 100 or 200. The detune is applied to a voice
at note on only and is a random value within the range defined here.
-gain <gn>
Output signal gain level for the emulator. These can be used to normalise the
signal levels from different synths when played together. The default value is
defined by the synth itself, this is an override.
-pwd <s>
Pitch wheel depth in semitones, default 2.
-velocity <v>
Velocity curve for the emulator. Default is 520, an exponential curve for a hard
playing style. Value '0' is flat (no touch sensitivity). Values up to 100 are
linear scaled maps. The velocity map is table of points that is interpolated
linearly: you may only have to define the inflexion points, however if you want
smooth curves you will have to define each of the 128 velocity values that are used
in noteon/noteoff events. The emulation only has a single table of gain levels for
each key.velocity index, the engine by contrast has two tables, one for each on/off
event however that is an integer map, not a gain map.
There are several default tables if you do not want to specify your own
interpolated curve. Each table is the gain for the Midi velocity value given in the
note event, it has 128 entries. The following are implmented:
100-199 Convex curves for a soft touch keyboard player
200-499 Concave curves for a hard touch, linear up to quadratic function.
The next set up to 525 are repeats of the above but with less granularity. In the
above range the value of 200 is linear, as is 510 below:
500-509 Convex curves for a soft touch keyboard player
510 linear
511-25 Concave curves for a hard touched player.
Then there are a couple of specific curves
550 logarithmic
560 parabolic
The values up to 100 consists of two digit numbers. The first digit defines how
late the line starts (it is linear) to ramp up, and the second digit is how late it
reaches 1.0. The value of 09 is almost the linear mapping above as it starts from 0
and ends almost at the end. A value of 49 would be for a heavy player, it is zero
for a large part of the velocity table, and then ramps up to max gain (1.0) close
the end of the table. Note that these table could also have been defined with
velocityMap definitions as they are linear interpolations. A present release will
include curves to smooth things out a little.
Option 520 is a squared powercurve and feels quite natural although that is very
subjective. Perhaps its natural for a hard player and it could be a better default
than the linear curve.
The value 1000 will invert the mapping, so:
1510 - linear from 1.0 down to 0.0 as velocity increases
1520 - exponential, from 1.0 down to 0.0 as velocity increases
The engine mapping is applied before the emulation mapping given here. There are
reasonable arguments to make this table logarithmic - you are welcome to do so.
There are no limits to the values here other than negative values are not mapped,
so this table can also be used to compensate for volume levels.
-glide <s>
Duration of nogte glide in seconds, default 5.
-emulate <name>
Search for the named emulator and invoke it, otherwise exit. Invoking an emulation
this was is currently the default, it implies extra parameters for voicecount,
gain, glide, pitchwheel depth, detune, etc. The default is hammondB3. The -emulate
option also implies -register to the emulator name.
-register <name>
Use a specific name when registering with Jack and ALSA. By default the engine will
use the name 'bristol' however this can be confusing if multiple engines are being
used and this can be used to override the default.
-lwf Select lightweight filters for the emulator.
-nwf Select normalweight filters, the default. These are about twice as expensive as
lightweight filters.
-wwf Select welterweight filters, this are again about double the CPU load as the normal
filters.
-hwf Select heavyweight filters. These are roughly twice the welterweight filter.
Whilst their is a noticable audible difference between -lwf and -nwf, it is
debatable whether the difference between -nwf, -wwf and -hwf is other than visible
in the CPU load. The default filter for any -mono synth is -wwf which can be
overridden with something line '-mini -mono -nwf'.
-blo <h>
Number of bandwidth limited harmonics to map. The value of zero will select
infintite bandwidth, default is 31.
-blofraction <f>
The engine uses precomputed tables for all frequencies where the maximum harmonic
does not exceed this fraction of the samplerate. The default, 0.8, is already above
nyquist as a tradeoff betweeen content and distortion. Values tending towards 1.0
are heavily aliased at the higher frequencies naturally.
-scala <file>
The engine will read the given scala file and map it into its frequency tables.
User Interface:
-quality <n>
The color cache depth will affect the rendering speed. The lower values start
showing loss of clarity, the higher values start using thousands of colors which is
where the performance is affected, value is bpp, default is 6.
-scale <s>
Each of the emulators has a default window sisze, this size can be scaled up or
downwards if desired.
-width <n>
The pixel width defines the smaller of two sizees that can be configured. It works
with the -scale and -autozoom options for flipping between different sizes on mouse
Enter/Leave of the window.
-autozoom
Minimise window on exit, maximise on enter.
-raise Automatically raise the window on Enter.
-lower Automatically lower the window on Leave. It is noted here that the use of autozoom,
raise and lower may have undesirable effects with some window managers.
-rud Constrain the rotary controller tracking to mouse up/down motion, not to actually
track the mouse position. The value will be a fraction of the current window size.
-antialias <%>
For some window sizes there will be pixelation of the rendered imagas unless some
antialias is applied. With large zoom values this is automatically set up. Value is
a percentage, default is 30.
-aliastype <pre/texture/all>
There are three antialiasing options, ´pre´ will apply it to the text silkscreens,
´texture´ will apply it to the surface bitmaps and ´all´ will apply it everywhere
including devices rendered. The default is pre however this parameter is only
applied if -antialias has a value other than zero.
-opacity <%>
Brighton uses a transparency layer for some features such as the ARP 2600 patch
cables. This is the default transparency. It can be adjusted later with the
^o/^O/^t control codes in the GUI. Default is 50 percent.
-pixmap
Use the X11 pixmap interface rather than the default XImage interface to the
server.
-dct <ms>
Double click timeout for button events, etc, 250 ms.
-tracking
Prevent the GUI piano keyboard image from tracking MIDI events, small reduction in
CPU overhead.
-keytoggle
The default GUI behaviour for tuning keys on with the mouse is to latch them, this
allows for playing chords on the polyphonics. This option will disable the latch to
that keys are played only whilst held with the mousebutton.
-neutral
Initial the emulator with a null patch, all parameters will have the value of zero
to allow for a patch to be built from the bottom up, completely from scratch. This
is equivalent to '-load -1', negative memory locations will not be saved, ie, you
cannot save to the null patch.
-load <m>
Initial memory number to load at startup. Default is 0 for most emulators.
-import <pathname>
Import a memory from a disk file to the active patch at start time. This patch can
then be saved to another location and allows for interexchange of memories.
-mbi <m>
The master bank index allows for access to extra memory ID. This value times 1000
is added to the memory ID saved/loaded by the GUI so the GUI can access for example
8 banks of 8 memories but using -mbi you can actually save multiple sets of 64
memories.
-activesense <ms>
The rate at which hello messages are sent from GUI to engine to ensure it is still
active. If the transmission fails then the GUI will exit, if the engine does not
receive updates it will also exit. Zero will disable active sense.
-ast <m>
The engine timeout period on active sense messages.
-mct <m>
The MIDI cycle timeout is a busy waiting GUI timer for MIDI events, used when the
GUI takes a MIDI interface for direct event tracking.
-ar|-aspect
All of the emulators will attempt to maintain an aspect ratio for their windows so
that they look 'normal'. This conflicts with some tiling window managers so can be
disabled. It may also cause some excessive remapping of windows when they are
resized.
-iconify
Open the window in the iconified state.
-window
Do not map any window.
-cli Enable the text based command line interface to the engine. This can be used in
connjuction with -window however if compiled without support for any windowing
system the -window option is implied.
-libtest
Do not start the engine, nor attempt to connect to it, just post the GUI for
testing.
GUI Shortcuts:
<Ctrl> 's' - save settings to current memory
<Ctrl> 'l' - (re)load current memory
<Ctrl> 'x' - exchange current with previous memory
<Ctrl> '+' - load next memory
<Ctrl> '-' - load previous memory
<Ctrl> '?' - show emulator help information
<Ctrl> 'h' - show emulator help information
<Ctrl> 'r' - show application readme information
<Ctrl> 'k' - show keyboard shortcuts
<Ctrl> 'p' - screendump to /tmp/<synth>.xpm
<Ctrl> 't' - toggle opacity
<Ctrl> 'o' - decrease opacity of patch layer
<Ctrl> 'O' - increase opacity of patch layer
<Ctrl> 'w' - display warranty
<Ctrl> 'g' - display GPL (copying conditions)
<Shift> '+' - increase window size
<Shift> '-' - decrease window size
<Shift> 'Enter'- toggle window between full screen size
UpArrow - controller motion up (shift key accelerator)
DownArrow - controller motion down (shift key accelerator)
RightArrow - more control motion up (shift accelerator)
LeftArrow - more control motion down (shift accelerator)
Operational options:
General:
-engine
Do not start a new engine. The GUI will attempt to connect to an existing engine on
the host and port configuration (cq). If the connection is built then the engine
will operate both emulators and voice allocations will be shared amongst them. All
of the emulator outputs are folded back onto the same stereo output, excepting
where extra Jack control inputs are used.
-gui Do not start the GUI, only the engine. The GUI will attempt to connect to the
engine on the configured host and port values. If it does not respond then the GUI
will exit with some rather terse messaging.
-server
Start the engine as a permanant server that does not exit with the last emulator.
-daemon
Run the engine as a daemon with disconnected controlling terminal. This does not
imply the -server option, nor does it imply the -log option for logging to the file
system, nor -syslog which might also be applicable to a daemon.
-watchdog <s>
Timeout for the audio thread initialisation. If the thread does not activate within
this period then the engine will gracefully exit rather than wait around for
connections indefinitely. Default period is 30 seconds. This is not active in
-server or -daemon mode. In normal operation the audio thread will be launched
within a couple of seconds but if the engine and GUI are started separately then
this timeout demands that a GUI be started before the timer expires.
-log Redirect logging output to a file. The default file is /var/log/bristol.log and
/var/log/brighton.log and if they are not available then $HOME/.bristol/log
directory is used. The selection of /var/log is to prevent logging to root in the
event that the engine is invoked by this user.
-syslog
Redirect logging output to syslog.
-console
Maintain the controlling terminal as output for logging messages, remove the
timestampes for readability purposes. This can also be configured with the
environment variable BRISTOL_LOG_CONSOLE=true.
-rc Do not load any bristolrc parameter file.
-exec The final process to be requested by the startBristol script will be called as an
exec such that it maintains amongst other things the PID of the parent. This option
will override the exec and leave the script waiting for the processes to exit.
There implications of not using this parameter, some of the cleanup code is part of
the wrapping shellscript, per default this is not called due to the exec request.
This flag is default but should only really be required for LADI compatibility.
-stop Stop all the running bristol engines. This will indirectly result in termination of
any GUI due to active sensing although that can be disabled. The use case is to
stop any -server -daemon engines running in the background. The back end to the
option is pkill.
-exit Stop all the running bristol engines and GUI.
-kill <-emulator>
Stop all the running bristol engines and GUI that have been associated with the
given emulator. If bristol was started with '-mini' it can now be killed with -mini
so that other emulators are not terminated. If there are multiple mini running they
will naturally die also. If the engine is running multitimbral GUI then the other
associated GUI will also exit in addition to the mini.
-cache <pathname>
The default location for new memories and emulator profiles, the default is
~/.bristol and it will be searched before the system/factory default directory
/usr/local/share/bristol when emulators are started and memories are loaded. If the
pathname does not exist then it is created if possible.
-memdump <pathname> [-emulate <synth>]
Create the target directory <pathname>/memory/<synth> and copy first the factory
default memories for the synth, then the user private memories. This can be used
with session management to make a copy of all synth memories in a session. If the
target directory already exists then no copy operation takes place but the
directory does replace the -cache default to make this the new location for saved
memories for that session. The -emulate option is required, if it is not provided
then the default hammondB3 is taken.
-debug <1-16>
Debug level, values above 12 can be very verbose and only the value 0 is arguably
realtime safe as it avoids printf() in the engine compute thread.
-readme [-<e>]
Display the program readme information. Show the readme for just a single emulator
if desired.
-glwf Only allow the use of '-lwf' for all emulators, no overrides.
-host <hostname>
Connect to the engine on the hostname, default is localhost. This is used in
conjuction with -engine to distribute the GUI. The hostname accepts syntax such as
hostname:port to fix both the host and port for a remote connection to the engine.
If the host portion is the token 'unix' then a local named socket is created rather
than a TCP connection. In this instance a specific port number can be given to
create the named socket /tmp/br.<port> and if the port is not specified then a
random numeric index is chosen.
-port <p>
Connect to the given TCP port for GUI/engine messaging, default 5028. If the port
is alreeady in use then the startup with fail. For starting multiple bristols with
GUI then this option should be discarded and the script will look for a free port
number for each invocation. It is incorrect to mix this option with -host
parameters that take a value host:port or unix:port as the results will be
indeterminate depending on the order the parameters are submitted.
-quiet Redirect debug and diagnostic output to /dev/null.
-gmc Open a MIDI interface in the GUI. Per default the engine will own the only MIDI
interface for bristol and will redistribute events to the GUI. It is possible to
disable the forwarding and attach both GUI and engine to midi devices if necessary.
-forward
Disable MIDI event forwarding globally. Per default the engine opens a MIDI
interface and is connected to the physical keyboards, control surfaces and/or
sequencers. It will forward MIDI events to the GUI for tracking. This option
disables the feature. When disabled the GUI will not reflect the piano keybaord
state, nor will it track CC motion unless the options '-gmc' is given to open a
MIDI connection in the GUI and that the user connects the same control surfaces to
the GUI via this alternative channel. This option is logically identical to
´-localforward -remoteforward´.
-localforward
This will prevent the GUI from forwarding MIDI messages to the engine. This is not
to prevent MIDI message loops as the forwarding only ever occurs from MIDI
interfaces to TCP connections between GUI and engine. This option will prevent
messages from any surfaces that are connected to the GUI from forwarding to the
engine.
-remoteforward
This will prevent the engine from forwarding to the GUI but still allow the GUI to
forward to the engine. If the GUI is given a MIDI connection with the -gmc option,
and control surfaces are applied to both processes then the -forward option should
be used to globally prevent event redistribution. Failure to do so will not result
in loops, just one-for-one duplication of events. It is possible to connect the
control surfaces just to the GUI when the -gmc option is used, this gives the
possibility to have a local keyboard and GUI but drive an engine on a remote
systems. Their is admittedly additional latency involved with handling the MIDI
messages from the GUI to the remote engine over TCP.
-oss Configure OSS defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces
-alsa Configure ALSA defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces. The MIDI interface is an
ALSA SEQ port.
-jack Configure Jack defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces. At the time of writing this
option causes some issues as it selects Jack MIDI which currently requires a
bridging daemon to operate. The options '-jack -midi seq' would be a more typical
configuration.
-jackstats
Do not request audio parameters from the jack server, take the bristol system
defaults or the configured parameters. The bristol defaults will invariably fail
however the call to bristoljackstats is sometimes superfluous and this can speed up
the initial startup times. Using this parameter will typically require that the
options -rate and -count are also provided. TP -jsmuuid <UUID> This is for sole
use of the Jack Session Manager
-jsmfile <path>
This is for sole use of the Jack Session Manager
-jsmd <ms>
Jack session manager delay before session events are distributed internally. Event
execution is delayed in the GUI by a default of 5000ms.
-session
Disable all session management including JSM and LADI.
-sleep <n>
Stall the initialisation process for 'n' seconds. This is to work around what
appears to be race a condition when using a session manager to initialise multiple
bristol clients as they all vie for the same TCP port identifier.
-jdo Jack Dual Open: let the audio and midi threads register as independent clients with
Jack. Per default the audio thread will open as a jack client and the MIDI
connection is piggypbacked as another port rather than as another client.
-o <filename>
Generate a raw audio output of the final stage samples to a file. The format will
be 16bit stereo interleaved.
-nrp Enable support for NRP events in both GUI and engine. This is to be used with care
as NRP in the engine can have unexpected results.
-enrp Enable NRP support in the engine only.
-gnrp Enable NRP events in the GUI. This is required to allow the GUI (and hence the
engine) to be driven from some MIDI control surfaces.
-nrpcc <n>
Maximum number of NRP to map. The default is 128, seen as sufficient for any of the
current emulators but the mixer will require more if it is every released.
Audio driver:
-audio [oss|alsa|jack]
Audio driver overrides. Depending on the order of the switches it is possible to
set a group of global defaults (-jack/oss/alsa) then have specific re-selection of
components.
-audiodev <dev>
Audio device name. For Jack, this will be the name registered with the Jack daemon.
-count <samples>
Number of samples/frames in processing period.
-outgain <gn>
Output signal normalisation level, per emulator default 4.
-ingain <gn>
Input signal normalisation level, per emulator default 4.
-preload <periods>
Number of audio buffers to prewrite to the audio output on start. This is not
active with the Jack drivers.
-rate <hz>
Sampling rate, defaults to 44100.
-priority <p>
Realtime priority requested by the engine audio thread, default 75. Zero will
disable RT processing.
-autoconn
Automatically connect the engine input and output to the first Jack IO ports found.
This can also be achieved with the environment variable BRISTOL_AUTOCONN=true
-multi <c>
Multiple IO port requests, only works with Jack and currently only the ARP 2600
gives access to these ports.
-migc <f>
Input signal normalisation level for the multi IO ports.
-mogc <f>
Output signal normalisation level for the multi IO ports.
Midi driver:
-midi [oss|[raw]alsa|jack]
Audio driver overrides. Depending on the order of the switches it is possible to
set a group of global defaults (-jack/oss/alsa) then have specific re-selection of
components such as in ´-jack -midi seq´. The default MIDI driver is '-midi seq' but
that can be overriden with compile time options such as --enable-jack-default-midi
to ./configure.
-mididev <dev>
MIDI device namee to be opened (OSS/ALSA).
-mididbg
Request MIDI level 1 debuging.
-mididbg2
Request MIDI level 2 debuging. Both can be selected for level 3.
-sysid <0xXXXXXXXX>
Configure an alternative SYSEX identifier for the engine. The default is the value
0x534C6162 for historical reasons, this is not a free development ID but it is not
assigned so should not cause conflict.
LADI driver (level 1 compliant):
-ladi brighton
Execute LADI messages in the GUI only
-ladi bristol
Execute LADI messages in the engine only
-ladi <memory>
The LADI state memory for save operations. This should be unique for each LADI
session.
EXAMPLES
startBristol -mini
Run a minimoog using ALSA interface for audio and midi (seq). The emulator will
default to monophonic, high note precedence with retrigger and legato velocity.
startBristol -alsa
Run a hammondB3 using ALSA interface for audio and midi. This is equivalent to all
the following options: -b3 -audio alsa -audiodev plughw:0,0 -midi seq -mididev
plughw:0 -count 256 -preload 4 -port 5028 -voices 32 -channel 1 -rate 44100
startBristol -explorer -voices 1
Run a moog explorer as a monophonic instrument, using ALSA interface for audio and
midi.
startBristol -prophet -alsa -channel 3
Run a prophet-5 using ALSA for audio and midi (on channel 3).
startBristol -b3 -count 512 -preload 2
Run a hammond b3 with a 512 samples in a period, and preload two such buffers
before going active. Some Live! cards need this larger buffer size with ALSA
drivers.
startBristol -oss -audiodev /dev/dsp1 -vox -voices 8
Run a vox continental using OSS device 1, and default midi device /dev/midi0.
Operate with just 8 voices out of the 32 available.
startBristol -b3 -audio alsa -audiodev plughw:0,0 -seq -mididev 128.0
Run a B3 emulation over the ALSA PCM plug interface, using the ALSA sequencer over
client 128, port 0.
startBristol -juno &
startBristol -prophet -channel 2 -engine
Start two synthesisers, a juno and a prophet. Both synthesisers will will be
executed on one engine (multitimbral) with 32 voices between them. The juno will be
on default midi channel (1), and the prophet on channel 2. Output over the same
default ALSA audio device. The 32 voices will never all get used as these emulators
will run per default with a lower soft limit. They can be run with more voices
however that would require suitable values to the -voices option.
startBristol -juno -jack -register juno -voices 32 &
startBristol -prophet -jack -register prophet -channel 2 -voices 32
Start two synthesisers, a juno and a prophet5. Each synth is totally independent
with its own GUI and own engine. Each engine will register separately with the jack
daemon. They will respectively register the names 'juno' and 'prophet' with Jack
and ALSA so that they can be differentiated in the respective control programmes
such as aconnect and qjackctl. The outputs will be visible separately in these
control programs and can thus be routed independently. Each synth can use up to 32
voices and there will only be CPU contention - these are separate engine process
with 32 voices each.
FILES
The bristolrc file can be created in the BRISTOL_CACHE directory (default value
${HOME}/.bristol/bristolrc) and the users prefered options placed as the content. The file
will be read as a single line and incorporated onto the command lines for both bristol and
brighton. There is an additional variable BRISTOL_RC which can point to another location
if necessary. This can be used to simply the command line for all parameters that a user
provides with each invocation. The parameters can be all on a single line of the file or
one per line. The parameters from this file will preceed the user specified ones such that
the RC defaults may be overridden on the comand line.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
BRISTOL
This indicates the location of the bristol installation for the binaries, bitmaps
and related data reside. The default depends on the prefix used for the system
build, /usr/local/share/bristol and /usr/share/bristol are typical.
BRISTOL_CACHE
The cache is where memories and emulator profiles (keyboard maps and MIDI
Continuous Controller maps) are saved. The default is ${HOME}/.bristol
BRISTOL_RC
Location of the bristol runcom file.
BRISTOL_LOG_CONSOLE
Force debuging output to be sent to console without timestamping, log file or
syslog.
BRISTOL_AUTOCONN
Attempt to automatically connect the bristol audio inputs and outputs when using
Jack.
BRISTOL_AUTO_LEFT
If BRISTOL_AUTOCON is set to anything other than '0' this will be the default Jack
port for the bristol left channel output. There is no default, if AUTOCONN has been
requested this will be the first jack playback channel.
BRISTOL_AUTO_RIGHT
If BRISTOL_AUTOCON is set to anything other than '0' this will be the default Jack
port for the bristol right channel output. There is no default, if AUTOCONN has
been requested this will be the second jack playback channel.
BRISTOL_AUTO_IN
If BRISTOL_AUTOCON is set to anything other than '0' this will be the default Jack
port for the bristol (mono) input channel. There is no default, if AUTOCONN is set
this will be the first jack capture channel.
AUTHOR
Written by Nicholas Copeland <nickycopeland@hotmail.com>
REPORTING BUGS
Bugs and enhancement requests can be submitted to the bristol project page on SourceForge:
<http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=157415>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1996,2011 Nick Copeland. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and
redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Oct 29, 2011 BRISTOL(1)