Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

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yama
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Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by yama »

Right now when I want to just play on my midi keyboard (not record, just play), I open up cadence, start up jack, turn on midi controller, open calfjack, select fluidsynth, select soundfont (I still can't figure out how to change the default folder where fluidsynth looks for soundfonts) and then open catia and manually link midi controller to fluidsynth.

How can I automate or speed up this process?
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Michael Willis
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Re: Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by Michael Willis »

You can use Carla (or probably some other session management app). I think the initial setup would be something like this:
  • Open cadence
  • Start Jack
  • Turn on midi controller
  • Open Carla
  • Load soundfont as a plugin in carla (it should know how to use sf2, probably uses fluidsynth)
  • Switch to Carla's patch bay
  • Wire up midi controller to the soundfont plugin, and the soundfont plugin audio output to system output
  • Save the Carla session
On subsequent sessions, the steps should be much easier:
  • Open cadence
  • Start Jack
  • Turn on midi controller
  • Open Carla
  • Load the Carla session that you previously saved
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noedig
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Re: Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by noedig »

Similarly to Michael's solution, Ardour often also works nicely for this task and it also remembers MIDI connections.

Alternatively, I created a program specifically to assist keyboard playing: http://www.noedig.co.za/konfyt/
It has built-in support for Fluidsynth and SFZ (via Carla/Linuxsampler).
It scans directories you specify to build a searchable library of your soundfonts.
You can easily switch between multiple patches, and each patch can have multiple instrument layers.
MIDI connections made in the program are automatically maintained the next time you run it.

At the moment it has to be compiled from source.
https://github.com/noedigcode/konfyt/tree/testing
It's pretty straight forward, you just need to install the development packages of Qt4, Carla, Fluidsynth and JACK.

(There is a compiled binary of a slightly older version on my website if you're fine with not compiling yourself, and I can put up a newer one if you're interested.)
dave
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Re: Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by dave »

Sorry if I'm mistaken, but doesn't Carla automatically start the jack session at the program start? It's been a while since I've messed with Cadence, so maybe I misunderstand your situation. Is Cadence doing something Carla isn't, like provide a BPM or something with sinks/bridges?

If not and provided your system doesn't juggle the inputs around between uses, you should be able to get this down to like 2 steps. Open Carla >> Open Carla Project File

In Carla, F5 starts the jack session.
or in the program menu: Engine >> Start
or with the keyboard shortcuts Alt+E, S
Luc
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Re: Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by Luc »

Well, I have Jack and Cadence running all the time, permanently, from bootup to shutdown. Why wouldn't I? Or you? Or anyone?
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Re: Connecting midi controller with less hassle?

Post by dave »

Sure that makes sense. All I was saying is that if a user only wants to jam w/ Carla, they don't really need Cadence at all. It would seem to be a redundant step, at least for some situations. I just realized a minute ago that I don't even have Cadence installed on this partition. 8)
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