Can I make this Alesis VI25 work and next steps

[PsychoNerd]

Hello everyone, I have an Alesis VI25 keyboard controller. I've got it hooked up to a MOTU M4 audio interface, and I'm running the newest version of Ubuntu. I'm wondering if there's some way i can use this setup to make sounds? Since the computer, interface, and speakers work, I would assume that I would need some drivers. Unfortunately, the alesis firmware can't be installed with wine (i tried). Is there any synthesizer software that can help it make sounds through my computer and/or interface? If so, should i plug the thing in to the interface with the midi cable, or should i plug the keyboard directly into the computer? I've tried both and i can't get it to make any sounds...

Should I just get a different keyboard? Are there any that will work with Ubuntu or the MOTU M4 without any software installation?

[RyanH]

If I'm not mistaken, it looks like both of these devices are class compliant, which means you shouldn't need to download drivers to use them in Linux. They are "plug and play" devices.

To start with, you won't need the interface to use the keyboard. Just plug it in to the computer. As for making sounds...

I use music-specific Ubuntu (Ubuntu Studio), so I'm not sure what, if any, synth software comes with regular Ubuntu. Check to see if you have QSynth installed and, if not, install it from your Ubuntu's software centre. There are two elements - Fluidsynth, which is the software itself, and QSynth, which is the graphical part that allows you to see what you are doing without using the command line. I don't know how "set up" it is right off the bat when you install it (because it came with my version of Ubuntu already set up), but if you need any further help setting it up, I'm sure someone here will point you in the right direction.

An excellent synth that worked right off the bat for me was Helm. It probably won't be available in your software centre, but you can download it from the website here:

https://tytel.org/helm/downloads/

I take no responsibility for the risk of downloading software from outside of Ubuntu, but I have downloaded Helm with no issues and it is pretty established in the Linux musician world. To vouch for its reputation, another popular music-oriented version of Linux called AV Linux comes with it.

Both of these synths are free, by the way, although Helm will pop up a box asking if you want to give them a donation.

Hope this helps!

[merlyn]

... Since the computer, interface, and speakers work, I would assume that I would need some drivers.

Drivers are different when using Linux. On Linux drivers are part of the kernel, so they rarely have to be installed. If you've been using Windows then the idea you get is that when a new piece of hardware is added it needs drivers from the manufacturer. This generally is not the case on Linux and drivers for most hardware comes as kernel modules, which are included with your distro.

If the M4 is going to work we would hope it's 'class compliant' and use the snd-usb-audio module. That should automatically be loaded when the M4 is detected. To see what soundcards are in your machine you can use :

Code: Select all

$ aplay -l

... Unfortunately, the alesis firmware can't be installed with wine (i tried).

Are you sure it's firmware? Firmware is low level code to be run on the device. It wouldn't be 'installed' on Ubuntu, it would be downloaded to the Alesis.

[PsychoNerd]

I'm no longer interested in trying to make this thing work...i already tried this thing with ZynAddSubFX, and the program contained zero helpful instructions for getting sounds to come out of it. I see that there's Qsynth, but the newest version (the old version just complains about how Jack failed to install, not my problem since i didn't make the program) has all these dependencies (Qt framework, and fluid synth) and the websites that house these dependencies don't have much in the way of an explanation for how to install these...SO, i'm just gonna put the synthesizer back in the closet, install audacity, and get back to guitar playing until i can find something with a proper explanation, thank you.

i guess i gotta install ubuntu studio again.

[dan_flash]

-> download some LV2 instruments or VSTs (GVST has 2 free synths for Linux in VST format, u-he has a few, etc)

-> unzip them and put the .so files in usr/lib/vst or wherever

-> install Ardour and/or Qtractor and/or Reaper and/or (insert DAW here)

-> connect your Alesis V125 straight to machine with USB cable, open DAW, launch desired VST, play some music with keyboard

[bluzee]

There must be YouTube videos that run through the process.

[PsychoNerd]

i've installed Ubuntu Studio again alongside normal Ubuntu which has worked fine for my other purposes (scripting, gaming, browsing, music including recording with audacity, videos, etc.)

There must be YouTube videos that run through the process.

there's probably some youtube video that does something or other, or at least has information that could help me get sounds out of the keyboard...BUT, i've gone through this process before. A few months ago, i wanted to test out ardour, but i wasn't able to getting any sounds recorded with just my interface and microphones, it had something to do with Jack. I looked through a bunch of youtube videos, tried making the recommended adjustments, and wasn't able to get any sounds recorded or played back. Now, I'm trying to learn synth with the Vl25, and i'm getting the same error i got when testing on bare Ubuntu:

Qsynth1: Failed to create the audio driver (jack).

Cannot continue without it.

So, across the board, i've been having issues with jack. I'm open to any number of ideas, thanks at least for trying. I'll come back later and read all the comments and try to figure something out...even if only a small percentage of the software on Ubuntu Studio works, it's still appealing.

[j_e_f_f_g]

So, across the board, i've been having issues with jack.

It's not you. It's jack (or perhaps one of the numerous trojans pretending to be jack).

Go into every music program's audio settings, and set it to use ALSA (ie, completely bypass jack). If the program doesn't have a setting to not use jack, then don't use that program.

If jack refuses to get out of your way, then uninstall it. Run Synaptics, do a search for jack, and select every match to do a full uninstall. If it still won't get out of your way, do a search for "pipewire" and uninstall anything that matches. If you still can't get sound working, do a search for "pulseaudio" and repeat. Sometimes you just have to do the equivalent of a virus scan on linux, and remove the trojan software, in order to restore the operating system's ability to control audio.

Jack is perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to linux audio. Fortunately, its days are numbered, and before long, it will be off to the tarpits.

[Impostor]

You shouldn't need Jack to get your midi keyboard working. Maybe the easiest and fastest way to create sound with it would be running a standalone synth which doesn't depend on Jack, e.g. the Pianoteq demo.

Turn on your keyboard (connected directly to your pc), and go into (Pianoteq) settings to select your audio and midi devices. Then you can assign some controllers to parameters in the (Pianoteq) GUI and see if your keyboard works correctly.

https://www.modartt.com/try?file=pianot ... al_v754.7z

[Baggypants]

So, across the board, i've been having issues with jack.

It's not you. It's jack (or perhaps one of the numerous trojans pretending to be jack).

Go into every music program's audio settings, and set it to use ALSA (ie, completely bypass jack). If the program doesn't have a setting to not use jack, then don't use that program.

If jack refuses to get out of your way, then uninstall it. Run Synaptics, do a search for jack, and select every match to do a full uninstall. If it still won't get out of your way, do a search for "pipewire" and uninstall anything that matches. If you still can't get sound working, do a search for "pulseaudio" and repeat. Sometimes you just have to do the equivalent of a virus scan on linux, and remove the trojan software, in order to restore the operating system's ability to control audio.

Jack is perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to linux audio. Fortunately, its days are numbered, and before long, it will be off to the tarpits.

This is the best long-running gag on the forum

[j_e_f_f_g]

the best long-running gag on the forum

The best? No. Personally, my fav gag is impuning raboof's reputation. But a lot of folks like "banjo torture".

[PsychoNerd]

Well folks, i have made some progress: I switched qsynth's driver to alsa as recommended, the little green light goes off when i hit the keys, and the messages are more positive...however, i'm not getting sound and i'm getting several "fluidsynth: warning: No preset found on channel 0 [bank=0 prog=0]"
errors.

However, Yoshimi is working right away! Should be good enough for now since i'm a novice keyboard player anyways. Here are some more things i'm wondering about:

-what are LVT instruments and VSTs?

-which manufacturers of keyboards are best with open source and class compliant USB type stuff?

there is nothing more easy then getting jack audio running on linux systems:
It is called server client model, if the server aint running you have to work on this first.
Because its a server , everything is logged.
It good to get a feel of your soft and hardware.
For example. quite obvious and universal rule: hardware, normally, can only be accessed with one software at a time.
So you probably are trying to use an audio interface with jack that is allready in use.
It not bad to make yourself comfortable with linux systems if you are panning to use them-
I dont say it bad to ask questions - but yeah...Ubuntu should work out of the box.
You could also double check which jack you are using and before giving up, you could install pipewire-jack, definitly the easiest and most comfortable and stable way to get jack clients running.
love

What would this involve, getting jack working? How is what you are talking about different from an online server that stores websites?

Anyways, thanks everyone, i feel really relieved that i don't have to resort to proprietary software yet...especially considering the changes windows is making to their operating system (yuck). Hopefully i'll make another album within the next year, it's been around 10 years since i've done that. I've been wanting to fool around with electronic music for a longtime but the price tag and computer stuff is intimidating.

[RyanH]

It looks like QSynth is not configured for sound out of the box in the latest Ubuntu Studio. I'm pretty sure it was in the previous one I installed.

The reason QSynth is not making any sound is that there is no soundfont selected. (A soundfont is basically a sound or collection of sounds.) Luckily, this is easy and straightforward to do.

In QSynth, click Setup, select the Soundfonts tab, and click Open.

selecting soundfonts.png (70.27 KiB) Viewed 1817 times

soundfonts.png (67.1 KiB) Viewed 1817 times

Assuming you have the same ones show up as me:

-Red Zeppelin and Black Pearl are drumkits

-TimGM6 and Default-GM are collections of many sounds and instruments

-The rest I'm not sure, but try them out!

Select one and click Open. You can have more than one soundfont loaded at a time by clicking Open again in the soundfonts tab and selecting another, but I think it makes the instrument names not always match up properly in the next step, which is...

To switch between sounds, you can use the Program Change keys on your controller, but that doesn't give you too much information. If you want to be able to find a guitar sound, piano, sweet bassoon, telephone ringing, etc., without having to go through them one by one using your controller, open up (from your installed software) Virtual Midi Keyboard. With this open, if you click View, then Program List, you will be able to see the names of the instruments/sounds. However, first you might have to connect this to QSynth in the Jack ALSA tab... but it might auto-connect.

connecting keyboards to QSynth.png (34.97 KiB) Viewed 1817 times

[PsychoNerd]

It looks like QSynth is not configured for sound out of the box in the latest Ubuntu Studio. I'm pretty sure it was in the previous one I installed.

The reason QSynth is not making any sound is that there is no soundfont selected. (A soundfont is basically a sound or collection of sounds.) Luckily, this is easy and straightforward to do.

In QSynth, click Setup, select the Soundfonts tab, and click Open.


selecting soundfonts.png

soundfonts.png


Assuming you have the same ones show up as me:

-Red Zeppelin and Black Pearl are drumkits

-TimGM6 and Default-GM are collections of many sounds and instruments

-The rest I'm not sure, but try them out!

Select one and click Open. You can have more than one soundfont loaded at a time by clicking Open again in the soundfonts tab and selecting another, but I think it makes the instrument names not always match up properly in the next step, which is...

To switch between sounds, you can use the Program Change keys on your controller, but that doesn't give you too much information. If you want to be able to find a guitar sound, piano, sweet bassoon, telephone ringing, etc., without having to go through them one by one using your controller, open up (from your installed software) Virtual Midi Keyboard. With this open, if you click View, then Program List, you will be able to see the names of the instruments/sounds. However, first you might have to connect this to QSynth in the Jack ALSA tab... but it might auto-connect.


connecting keyboards to QSynth.png

that works too, thanks again...soundfonts are almost the same as plugins.

[RyanH]

A soundfont is kind of like a setting or group of settings for a plugin. Like how when you use Yoshimi, you can choose a preset sound like Warm Synth or E Piano 2 or something. A major difference, at least for the ones I've used (and maybe all of them), is that the soundfonts are actual recordings of the instruments playing the different notes (like samples of piano notes, guitar notes, etc.). For example, if you've chosen an electric guitar sound from a soundfont, when you play an A on your keyboard, it plays a sample of a real guitar playing an A. As opposed to a Yoshimi preset, which is just an electronic signal that's been manipulated into a given sound (which is also good).

You asked about manufacturers of keyboards that are class compliant. Modern M-Audio stuff (like my Oxygen 49) are generally class compliant. And actually even with old M-Audio keyboards (like 15+ years old), there is a way to make them work. Alesis seems good too - I know their electric drums work with Linux. Also when I was doing my research before I bought the Oxygen, it looked like Nektar keyboards were all class compliant.

I would say look for the gear you want first and then search the internet to see if it's class compliant, works with Linux, etc. And before you buy something, make sure you can return it... although I have never had to.