MIDI doesn't work on its own \ VOGONS

MIDI doesn't work on its own

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First post, by realnc

Posted on 2010-10-13, 16:47

realnc Offline

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I'm using DOSBox 0.74 and also tried SVN. I'm on Linux 64-bit.

Timidity is running in the background (128:0). Playing midi files with "aplaymidi --port 128:0" works OK. However, DOSBox will not play MIDI in any game a tried, unless I have a MIDI file playing with aplaymidi before starting DOSBox. As you can imagine the result is a cacophony of notes, since both the game's music as well as aplaymidi are audible at the same time 😜 Digital sound also stops working in that case. I tried both "uart" and "intelligent" for mpu401, to no avail.

Is there any way to fix this?

Reply 1 of 4, by realnc

Posted on 2010-10-13, 18:14

realnc Offline

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I found a way to make this work. When I start timidity manually, without starting it as an init.d service, then DOSBox works correctly.

What could the cause that makes DOSBox not work when timidity is started as a background service? Other programs (like aplaymidi) don't seem to have a problem with this.

Reply 2 of 4, by TeaRex

Posted on 2010-10-15, 08:11

TeaRex Offline

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Did you try "sudo dosbox"? If it works then, you know you have a problem with permissions.

tearex

Reply 3 of 4, by realnc

Posted on 2010-10-15, 19:20

realnc Offline

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Nope, running dosbox as root doesn't help. But it's not a problem for me actually. I only need timidity for DOSBox, so running it in foreground mode is just fine 😀

Reply 4 of 4, by realnc

Posted on 2010-10-16, 11:44

realnc Offline

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I found out that there's a software synth that seems to work better then Timidity and is able to work as an ALSA sequencer: Fluidsynth. I just installed that, along with a very nice GUI for it, "QSynth", which allows very easy control of all settings.

I must say the sound quality seems better than Timidity (I use the "Airfont 380 final" soundfont.) Almost as good as my retro Terratec Maestro 32/96 with its hardware wavetable 🙄 If Fluidsynth works on your platform, I highly recommend it.

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