does anyone have virmidi working with Ubuntu 11.04 Natty?

[gigaday]

I had virmidi working fine with Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid but since updating to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty I cannot make it work.

Does anyone have it working?

I have followed the HOWTO http://tldp.org/HOWTO/MIDI-HOWTO-10.html which is the best and about the only reference I can find. It's out of date but I've done my best with it.

I have installed the standard 11.04 installation as an update from 10.04 - generally everything is fine, just this one problem.

My installation includes:-

paman - Pulse Audio Manager
pulseaudio
pulseaudio-module-jack
qjackctl
jackd1 (I can't get jackd2 to work)
aconnectgui - midi router
vmpk - virtual midi piano keyboard
timidity - midi synthesizer

Here's what I've done:-

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/etc/modules

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

lp
snd-virmidi index=1

virmidi seems to load fine

tony@ubuntu:~$ lsmod|grep virmidi
snd_virmidi 13064 0
snd_seq_virmidi 13309 1 snd_virmidi
snd_rawmidi 25269 2 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 14475 2 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 51291 8 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd 55295 19 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_virmidi,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
tony@ubuntu:~$

I put these lines in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

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 # mods for virmidi
 # Configure support for OSS /dev/sequencer and
 # /dev/music (aka /dev/sequencer2)
 # (Takashi Iwai advises that it is unnecessary
 # to alias these services beyond the first card, i.e., card 0)
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss

 # Configure card 1 (second card) as a virtual MIDI card
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
alias snd-card-1 snd-virmidi

the sound stopped working altogether so I took them out again.

I've checked

tony@ubuntu:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [ICH6 ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH6
Intel ICH6 with AD1981B at irq 21
1 [VirMIDI ]: VirMIDI - VirMIDI
Virtual MIDI Card 1
tony@ubuntu:~$

tony@ubuntu:~$ cat /proc/asound/devices
1: : sequencer
2: [ 1- 3]: raw midi
3: [ 1- 2]: raw midi
4: [ 1- 1]: raw midi
5: [ 1- 0]: raw midi
6: [ 1] : control
7: [ 0- 4]: digital audio playback
8: [ 0- 3]: digital audio capture
9: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
10: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
11: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
12: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
13: [ 0] : control
33: : timer
tony@ubuntu:~$

tony@ubuntu:~$ aconnect -o
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-0 '
client 21: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-1 '
client 22: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-2 '
client 23: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-3 '
client 129: 'TiMidity' [type=user]
0 'TiMidity port 0 '
1 'TiMidity port 1 '
2 'TiMidity port 2 '
3 'TiMidity port 3 '
tony@ubuntu:~$

tony@ubuntu:~$ aconnect -i
client 0: 'System' [type=kernel]
0 'Timer '
1 'Announce '
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-0 '
client 21: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-1 '
client 22: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-2 '
client 23: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3' [type=kernel]
0 'VirMIDI 1-3 '
tony@ubuntu:~$

Everything is as per the HOWTO.

HOWTO says

$ ln -s /dev/snd/midiC2D0 /dev/midi20
$ ln -s /dev/snd/midiC2D1 /dev/midi21
[...]

but this should not be necessary, so don't do this at home, kids!

I can't find an install of for aseqview anywhere and don't know if it would be useful if I did.

I can use either qjackctl or aconnectgui to make the virtual patches.

I test thus:-

1. start timidity
2. launch vmpk virtual keyboard
3. edit connections in vmpk to send output to a timidity port
4. play the keyboard and I can hear the piano

5. edit connections in vmpk to send output to virmidi port
6. change the connections in aconnectgui

7. play the keyboard and there is no sound
8. conclusion: virmidi is not working.

If anyone can shed any light on this I would be grateful.

Tony

[gigaday]

I got an answer to this at http://lau.linuxaudio.org/. There is a mailing list there and you can subscribe at http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/.

I seems that the reason I couldn't make virmidi work was that it is the wrong tool for the job I was trying to do. I should have been using snd_seq_dummy kernel module.

Adding

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snd_seq_dummy ports=4

to /etc/modules gives me 4 Midi Through Ports that I can use to send data between applications; in my case from Band in a Box to Reaper (both under Wine). Works great!

Tony