[Scottish] sounds blues

[Colin McKinnon]

On Friday 17 August 2001 12:52, Joste Bowen wrote:
> > If I start up in 5 and login to a KDE desktop, amarok works (but it
> > always starts up artsd which runs at s illy priority and eats all my
> > CPU). If I kill off artsd, I get noises from speaker-test.
>
> Thier is an option in KDE somewhere to not run artsd at startup - and also
> configure the sound system soewhat
>

Thanks Joste - I'd have gone looking for it but I can kill it manually for now 
- but apart from making amarok silent that doesn't really help.

I'm vaguely aware of esd and jackd - are these intended to do the same thing 
as artsd? I'm assuming that they all sit between the applications and the 
device drivers and mix audio in and out...is this right?

(but of course they all seem to be incompatible. ALSA should be pretending to 
be OSS but I've no idea if it is - it all reminds me of when people started 
making OSI network products).

> > I'm trying to rosegarden working (a Midi Sequencer) and it is configured
> > to talk to Alsa. If artsd is running when it starts, it seems happy
> > enough - but no sound.
>
> if you are planning on using it just as a midi sequencer you don't need
> sound.
>

OK, let me change what I said there - I want to play back midi tracks on my 
soundcard and mess around with midi files. I thought Rosegarden had a soft 
synth built in (I've tried killing artsd before starting jackd - to no 
avail). I'm guessing jackd is working OK as I can get terminatorX to make 
noises when jackd is running.

Timidity seems happy to playback files from the command line, but not the gui, 
even when artsd is running.

> > KMid never complains - and looks as if it is playing my midi files
> > regardless of whether artsd is running or not. Doesn't make any noise
> > though. It says its using alsa.
>
> what midi device is kmid trying to play? and for that matter what midi
> device is rosegarden trying to play?
>
Kmid - "Midi Through Midi Through Port-0 - ALSA device"
Rosegarden - no idea.
timidity - no idea, but I suspect alsa

> your soundcard may need to have some midi sounds laoded into it, or may not
> have midi sounds at all.  there are also plenty of soft synths out there
> you can try.
>

I'll have more of a nosey.

C.