LinuxMusicians

It works!

Using the jack_midi_dump plus the connections as in the picture, it finally works! Thanks a lot, all of you!

Linux_Voivod wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 10:23 am It works!

Using the jack_midi_dump plus the connections as in the picture, it finally works!Schermafdruk van 2022-03-05 11-21-41.png

That last screenshot does have the resolution to see exactly what you did. But given the other screenies that you posted it It looks to me that you (finally) connected an OUT (i.e. Midi-monitor OUT) to an IN (i.e. the a2j Keystation 49 Mk 3 Capture; capture means IN). Then you connected the keyboard's IN (which now also functions as an OUT because of said midi-monitor OUT connection) to Raper's Midi IN.

Have you tried to connect the keyboard Keystation 49 Mk Playback (i.e. OUT) on the right hand side in red (red means Midi) directly to Reaper Midi IN (in red on the left)? That should do the same thing. In the first screenshot that you posted you've got the keyboard's Midi IN connected to Raper IN. That, of course, will never, ever, work.

The jack_midi_monitor adds no functionality: your setup is needlessly complicated. That doen't matter for now but in the future, if you want to add connections etc., it can be difficult to get help for you because of this complexity. I, for example, cannot support this because I don't get it. I mean: connecting an output to an input and then using that input again as an output at the same time. I'm awfully sorry, but your setup is now incomprehensible to other people. Has nothing to to with Linux. It's all about in and out. In Windows or Apple it's the same principle.

merlyn wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 4:31 pm [...] The red ports in your screenshots are what I'm calling 'JACK MIDI'. And on your setup a2jmidid is required. The purple ports are ALSA MIDI. They don't appear on my setup unless I run a2jmdid. Strange. I am using QjackCtl 0.9.6.

I don't think that's strange. I tried to explain this in my first post, which apparently nobody red or took seriously.

merlyn wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 4:31 pm Before you run a2jmidid you could check if it's already running with

Code: Select all

$ ps -aux|grep a2j

I would have thought it must be.

There's a JACK MIDI monitor :

Code: Select all

$ jack_midi_dump

When you run that a client appears in the QjackCtl graph window. Connect this client to the M-Audio. This will determine if it's a JACK or a Reaper issue. Given there is a port for the M-Audio I would expect it to work.

As I explained: that's not necessary. Simply connect IN to OUT. The topic starter had IN connected to IN. That will not work, of course.

And I still think the TS doesn't need Jack Midi (i.e. a2jmidid) at all. Remember: we always use Alsa with Jack and Alsa already provides Midi functionality which you can see in purple in the posted Qjackctl screenshots from the TS.

Remember: one connects IN to OUT.

Good luck with using Linux audio!

Wait a minute! I don't use Reaper but I do have it on my computer. If I try to connect my Midi keyboard to a VST instrument in Reaper then I cannot see it in Qjackctl. However, if I use the Alsa to Jack midi bridge (a2jmidid) then I can see Midi connections to Reaper (remember: Jack Midi is red). I had to manually enable a midi IN and a midi OUT port in Reaper. I don't know if it one can configure Reaper to use Alsa Midi instead of Jack Midi. This is probably why the topic starter wants to use the a2j bridge.

I could play a virtual synthesizer VST instrument with my hardware Midi keyboard in Reaper only when I ran: In the Qjackctl Connections window ("graph mode" enabled) it looks like the picture below. My midi keyboard is a Korg Monologue (the second Midi port is OUT, first is IN). For my audio card (C-Media, (device?) number 16) Alsa has created a Midi Through IN & OUT port ((device?) number 14). Remember: Alsa Midi is purple. These ports can be used by a2jmidid for which it also created a Midi Through IN & OUT port (using the same (device?) number 14). One connects IN to OUT again, see picture below.

The color green is for audio signals by the way.

I didn't need jack_midi_dump or a2jmidi_bridge. I find it very confising, all these extra Jack Midi ports. Wish Reaper worked w/ Alsa Midi in stead of Jack Midi, just like Qtractor.

Now that I have the Jack stuff fixed, I tried the suggestions I read here about ALSA.

It works much, MUCH easier. It was little work to figure out how to configure stuff in Reaper, but wow, it's way easier. So again, thanks a lot to you all in helping me out with this issue and at the same time opening a different approach to recording.

Linuxmusician01 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:37 am The jack_midi_monitor adds no functionality: your setup is needlessly complicated.

jack_midi_dump outputs MIDI messages in the terminal, the same as aseqdump does for ALSA. I was intending jack_midi_dump to be used as a diagnostic, to see if JACK MIDI was working.

@Linux_Voivod Glad you got it working!

Ok, who's the asshole developer who created yet another linux music protocol with this "jack midi" shit? It's bad enough that linux already had 2 midi api's (sequencer and rawmidi) to confuse and torture endusers. Now some moron developer made a third midi api?? Someone apparently isn't satisfied until midi is as difficult to setup, and keep working, on linux as digital audio is.

Seriously, this crap is poison to linux. People need to tell linux developers who introduce new midi or audio api's or "servers" to "F'off"'. Alsa sequencer, F'off. jack midi, F'off. jack1/jack2, F'off. pulseaudio, F'off. pipewire, F'off.

For a forum that's supposedly in favour of using Linux for music and audio there's a lot of moaning about how bad Linux is. It's Linux anti-advocacy.

MacOS is considered a success and it has about 10% of desktops and laptops. Linux only needs to get to 10% to be relatively mainstream. This means most Windows users are going to stay on Windows, and that's fine. It's only the more technologically savvy/patient/curious/anti-corporate that are going to have a chance of switching to Linux.

Are you guys in a time machine that has the dial stuck at ten years ago? What you're describing is familiar to me from ten years ago, not now.

There's the OP got his system working again -- Linux audio is not that complicated. Windows users can have similar problems with hardware when Windows updates every six months. Something that may seem disappointing to us old-timers is that JACK is never going to rule the audio world, great though it is. The trend has been towards the monolithic DAW where everything is a plugin, and for that ALSA is fine.

Reaper on Linux, Bitwig on Linux. Linux is now a viable alternative, and bad noises about the complexity of Linux audio does no-one any favours.

merlyn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 1:09 pm[...]
Are you guys in a time machine that has the dial stuck at ten years ago? [...]

Seriously: I'm stuck in 1995-ish. Windows 95 looked pretty darn next level to me and so did MS Office 97. Can't see the added value of Office 365 or Win10/11's GUI. Games I like are Ms. Pac-Man, Commander Keen and Prince Of Persia 2. Considering music software: Propellerhead's Rebirth rocked my world on a 640x480 VGA screen.

Everything developed after that: meh...

merlyn wrote:there's a lot of moaning about how bad Linux is.

Because sometimes it is, That's definitely the case in terms of Linux audio/midi. Linux is especially troublesome in that regard, and a huge part of the blame for that is Linux developers constantly replacing something that turned out to be troublesome, with something else that will eventually prove to be troublesome, etc, etc, etc. And then the piles of troublesome things all add up to one big crapfast which frankly, as a developer of Linux music software, I consider it to be. By comparison, developing for WASAPI or CoreAudio is a dream compared to the Linux nightmare.

It's really bad.

Windows users can have similar problems with hardware

Nothing is perfect. Windows and Mac users do encounter problems. But Windows and Mac users don't have nearly as many, or as difficult to solve, problems with audio/midi as Linux users do. In fact, there's no such thing as a need for distinct versions of Windows/MacOS specifically configured for audio/midi (ie, music distros), because the one base system does audio/midi correctly. You can feel relatively confident when you install a driver on those systems that, upon completion, you'll have working sound. With Linux, you have to cross your fingers and make a sacrifice to a pagan god. Then, when the sound doesn't work, you have to post screenshots of what looks like spaghetti on a tile floor (see above), and ask "What do I load/unload connect/disconnect install/remove enable/disable to get some sound?".

It's really bad.

bad noises about the complexity of Linux audio does no-one any favours.

But even worse is allowing Linux developers to make things worse. When some Linux developer says "I've written a new audio server named JackOffMyWirePulse to circumvent the problems with ALSA, JACK, PulseAudio, and now PipeWire, and it surreptitiously replaces them all... well sort of... but not really...", then you need to say "JackOffMyWirePulse, F'off".

Stop the insanity. Otherwise, it will get worse.

jackmidi is a stain upon Linux midi support. No one deserves to be inflicted with that. If we don't kill it now, it will be trouble later.

j_e_f_f_g wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 4:02 pm jackmidi is a stain upon Linux midi support. No one deserves to be inflicted with that. If we don't kill it now, it will be trouble later.

Oh well, you're only twenty years too late. This is later, and JACK MIDI is no trouble to me.

What @j_e_f_f_g said. Stop the madness.

merlyn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 1:09 pm For a forum that's supposedly in favour of using Linux for music and audio there's a lot of moaning about how bad Linux is. It's Linux anti-advocacy.

C'mon man, that's a very theocratic attitude, the same attitude that's left parts of the world in the Dark Ages. No environment & ecosystem is perfect and free from faults.

Going full Taleban on shutting down debate & dissent and the highlighting of what are obvious problems, shortcomings and failures doesn't do any actual users - ie people who want to get ahead and who still hope for a better tomorrow - any favours.

Without critical analyses, criticism and evaluation of what's wrong we'll get nowhere. Broken, 1/2 broken and poor solutions will prevail because "it already exists and it is fantastic". Like the mess with Pulseaudio. The lack of vendor support. The poor shape of baseline distros for doing audio, requiring extensive reconfiguration which no newbie is going to understand how to do unless they invest a lot of time, and which even seasoned people can and do struggle with, compared to other mainstream OS's.

Reaper on Linux, Bitwig on Linux. Linux is now a viable alternative, and bad noises about the complexity of Linux audio does no-one any favours.

Yes it's great they're onboard and Linux is a viable alternative, it just isn't a new user friendly viable alternative and many of the standard solutions only work up to a point, until they don't.

There's a lot of room for improvement but getting all defensive about it and adopting an "only sunny skies" attitude is not as helpful as you may believe it to be.

When problems are out in the open they can be given attention and dealt with. Shutting it down and pretending things are otherwise doesn't help any of us, yourself included.

asbak wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 12:18 pm C'mon man, that's a very theocratic attitude, the same attitude that's left parts of the world in the Dark Ages. No environment & ecosystem is perfect and free from faults.

Don't use big words that you don't know the meaning of. 'Theo' means 'god' and as far as I'm aware I didn't bring god into it.

Going full Taleban on shutting down debate & dissent and the highlighting of what are obvious problems, shortcomings and failures doesn't do any actual users - ie people who want to get ahead and who still hope for a better tomorrow - any favours.

Are you off in metaphor land again? This is hyperbolic nonsense.

Without critical analyses, criticism and evaluation of what's wrong we'll get nowhere.

Where's any critical analysis? You three simply moan without offering solutions. Is the Linux attitude not 'send a patch'? Fix it, or shut up.

So it seems you are in a broken time machine stuck at ten years ago. As far as I'm aware these days a new user would only have to run realtimeconfigquickscan and tweak a few things. It could be as simple as using ALSA with Ardour, Reaper, Bitwig or Mixbus.

merlyn wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 12:44 pm

asbak wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 12:18 pm C'mon man, that's a very theocratic attitude, the same attitude that's left parts of the world in the Dark Ages. No environment & ecosystem is perfect and free from faults.

Don't use big words that you don't know the meaning of. 'Theo' means 'god' and as far as I'm aware I didn't bring god into it.

Theo is the Greek guy who runs my local burger joint.

This topic is about MIDI connection for a keyboard, not about the state of Linux audio.

merlyn wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 12:44 pm Don't use big words that you don't know the meaning of. 'Theo' means 'god' and as far as I'm aware I didn't bring god into it.

Apparently scholarly you is ignorant about Dark & Middle Ages European history, the part where the church and its representatives of god made up their own arbitrary facts and science, then tortured and killed the unbelievers.

Where's any critical analysis? You three simply moan without offering solutions. Is the Linux attitude not 'send a patch'? Fix it, or shut up.

Come again, dear?

I have numerous posts here offering help (in as much as I can) to people struggling with the basics. None of which would have been necessary if the environment was in better shape. How am I supposed to "fix it"? I don't make policy decisions for Canonical & Red Hat, and a few others. They chose to implement poor audio solutions with their distros and they're already well aware of this. At least RH are working on part of a future solution now. When that will be ready who knows.

So it seems you are in a broken time machine stuck at ten years ago. As far as I'm aware these days a new user would only have to run realtimeconfigquickscan and tweak a few things. It could be as simple as using ALSA with Ardour, Reaper, Bitwig or Mixbus.

It seems you're the one living in magicland where things are "as simple as".

Yeah, it's so simple that most people struggle so much to understand and get the basics to work that they have to beg for help on forums, where 10 people give them 10 different answers and they only solve a part of their original problem before hitting the next and the next problem that they couldn't have known about ahead of time, and then many run off because it is too difficult compared to the commercial OS environments.

The argument that "these people already know the commercial OS" don't hold up either. Most of these folks are not IT specialists and don't possess particular knowledge beyond pointing, clicking and installing.

There's room for a lot of improvement in Linux audio but hey, you carry on and keep on living in denial.