xenial (1) pmidi.1.gz

NAME

       pmidi - A midi file player for ALSA.

SYNOPSIS

       pmidi [ -pclient:port ] [ -l ] [ -ddelay ] file...

DESCRIPTION

       The  pmidi  command reads in the specified midi files and plays them through the ALSA sequencer.  You can
       specify on the command line which sequencer port that you wish to use.  Use the -l option to get  a  list
       of possible sequencer ports for your machine.

   OPTIONS
       -pclient:port
              Specify the ALSA port to send the midi file to.

       -l     List the possible output ports that could be used.

       -ddelay
              Delay  after  song ends.  This is used to prevent the last note of a song being chopped off early.
              The default is two seconds.

   Port numbers
       You can specify client:port numbers in the ALSA_OUTPUT_PORTS environment variable.  You can also supply a
       comma  (or space if quoted correctly) separated list of client:port numbers.  This will allow you to play
       midi files that use more than 16 channels.

   Examples
              pmidi song.mid song2.mid
              pmidi -p "64:0, 64:1" song.mid

TROUBLE SHOOTING

       Before you start you need to have ALSA installed and configured correctly.  This man  page  cannot  cover
       all general ALSA topics, but here are a few things to check when things do not seem to be working.

   Checking ALSA
       1.  First check that the correct sequencer modules are loaded for your sound card:

           -  For a card with an external Midi connection, you need to load snd-seq-midi.

           -  For the OPL2/3 internal synthesiser you need to load snd-synth-opl3.

           -  For the AWE32/64 internal synthesiser you need to load snd-synth-emu8000.

           -  For the SB Live! internal synthesiser you need to load snd-synth-emu10k1.

           -  (Let me know of any more)

       2a  If  you have an AWE32/64 or SB Live! you will need to load the sounds with sfxload in the same way as
           for the standard kernel drivers.

       2b  If you have the OPL3 FM synthesiser you will have to load the FM instruments with sbiload.  See  note
           below.

       3.  Make sure that the synth in the mixer is turned up and unmuted if appropriate.

   Before use
       Because  you may have more than one sound card and each sound card may have several MIDI connections, you
       have to tell pmidi which one to use.

       First find out what the possibilities are for your system:

       If you run:
              pmidi -l
       it will give you a list of the possible devices that it can play to. On my system I get:

       Port    Client name                      Port name
       64:0    Rawmidi 0 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (U   EMU10K1 MPU - 401 (UART)
       65:0    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 0
       65:1    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 1
       65:2    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 2
       65:3    Emu10k1 WaveTable                Emu10k1 Port 3
       128:0   FLUID Synth (28152)              Synth input port (28152)
       129:0   Client-129                       TiMidity port 0
       129:1   Client-129                       TiMidity port 1

       Any of the port numbers in the first column can be used with pmidi. In the example above the first one is
       the  external  Midi  port,  the  next  four  are the internal wave table synthesiser.  Then there are two
       software synthesisers running, FluidSynth (http://www.fluidsynth.org) and Timididy.

       If you don't see anything listed then check that the correct ALSA modules are loaded as  in  the  section
       "Checking ALSA".

ENVIRONMENT

       ALSA_OUTPUT_PORTS   Port to use in playing midi file.

SEE ALSO

       playmidi(1)

AUTHOR

       Steve Ratcliffe <sr@parabola.me.uk>

                                                   Dec 20 2003                                          PMIDI(1)