Re: [Denemo-devel] Midi-status

[Jeremiah Benham]

On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 22:11 +0100, Nils Gey wrote:
> I think I've got it.
> 
> The audio-feedback is connected to it.
> 
> Denemo now requires JACK. If jackd is not present Denemo starts it itself (I 
> recommend to deactivate this and instead give a warning and only leave 
> non-audio/midi features avaible).
> 
> The nature of JACK is that it does not allow any use of the audio-driver 
> while its running.
> 
> But Denemo tries to use /dev/dsp /dev/sequencer which is blocked by JACK. If 
> that happens my system goes crazy (instead of a crash). 

I assume regular denemo does not cause this noise? And if you deleted
the /dev/dsp and /dev/sequencer and turned off immediate playback does
the noise stop?

Jeremiah


> And now I remember: In Debian it crashed at this moment. Now here in Arch it 
> does not crash but produce these weird sounds.
> 
> I don't know how to deactiate this crash. Unchecking the Audio feedback and 
> deleting the two values /dev/midi and /dev/sequencer is not the solution.
> 
> I reommend to get rid of support for people without jack. Not for complete 
> Denemo, but for the audio-part. Then --enable-jack can be the standard.
> 
> It will mean greater compability and better cross-platform-support, too. And 
> Denemo will loose dependencies like portaudio and can completly rely on JACK.
> 
> 
> 
> Nils
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:32:42 -0500
> Jeremiah Benham <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 17:28 +0100, Nils Gey wrote:
> > > I totally forgot:
> > > 
> > > Midi-In *is* working, but the strange hardware-noises are still there. So 
> > > I can put notes in via midi!
> > > 
> > > I don't know if I should get an audio-response and what is needed for 
> > > that. Maybe thats the reason. 
> > > Can I deactivate the audio-response somehow?
> > 
> > Try turning off plyaback entered notes immediately in preferences. See
> > if that fixes it. 
> > 
> > > 
> > > And why are there still the two fields in Denemo options with 
> > > /dev/sequencer and /dev/midi. Isn't this legacy now?
> > 
> > Thats for people who don't compile with --enable-jack
> > 
> > Jeremiah
> > 
> > > Nils
> > > 
> > > On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:10:24 +0100
> > > Nils Gey <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > First report on midi. I just write what I noticed. I am sure you 
> > > > probably know most of these already. 
> > > > 
> > > > I compiled Denemo with --enable-jack. Latest git.
> > > > 
> > > > Then I start my jackd, after that Denemo.
> > > > Denemo shows up as input and output client. The output has voice 1, 
> > > > which is the first staff.
> > > > 
> > > > Creating new staffs, with a custom name "test", shows a new port in 
> > > > QJackCtls 
> > > > [+]Denemo
> > > > 
> > > > Renaming of the staff has no effect. It stays the the old one for jack.
> > > > 
> > > > With these two staffs, "voice1" and "test", deleting the first one 
> > > > results in the deletion of the qjackctl port and leaves only "test", 
> > > > which is fine. Creating a new staff (create new staff above) does not 
> > > > create a new jack-port.
> > > > 
> > > > Creating a new staff with an existing name ("voice1") does create the 
> > > > staff but not a new jack-port.
> > > > 
> > > > I loaded an existing .denemo file with four voices and they show up 
> > > > correctly as four ports.
> > > > 
> > > > Quitting Denemo leaves no traces. Everything is fine.
> > > > 
> > > > Now to midi-in:
> > > > For the midi-in testing I used the software jack-keyboard to avoid any 
> > > > hardware and/or alsa-bridge related errors. 
> > > > 
> > > > I remember I got it working once, a few weeks ago, but today there was 
> > > > no success at all:
> > > > 
> > > > Like I said Denemo creates an in-port "denemo" on startup. If you 
> > > > connect jack-keyboard to it and send notes nothing happens in Denemo. I 
> > > > know this is an expected behaviour, but in fact this is not the right 
> > > > behaviour and confusing. If there is already a midi-in port I (as an 
> > > > uninformed user) don't see why its not possible. See the suggestions 
> > > > below for that.
> > > > 
> > > > So I choose Input->midi input from the menu. The dialog pops up (which 
> > > > is sooo ugly with my WMII window manager because its stretched over the 
> > > > whole screen).
> > > > In QJackCtl I now see a second in-port named denemo-01. I am sure this 
> > > > is a known bug. 
> > > > If I connect to the new "denemo-01" it automatically switches to the 
> > > > first "denemo" port. So connecting to denemo-01 is not possible at all. 
> > > > 
> > > > Now comes the freaking part. To avoid confusion: I am some 80% sure 
> > > > this is related to my system and not to Denemo. I encountered something 
> > > > like this already with the Video-Lan-Player but I don't know what it is 
> > > > right now.
> > > > 
> > > > Status: Midi-in is now activated, I see two denemo-in ports in jack and 
> > > > have connected the jack-keyboard to the "denemo" in-port (btw. same 
> > > > results with my hardware-keyboard via alsa-bridge).
> > > > 
> > > > If I send a note now my systems totally freaks out and my hardware(!) 
> > > > makes constant freaking noises which changes if I send another 
> > > > midi-note. It sounds a bit like a dial-up modem and it sounds very very 
> > > > unhealthy.
> > > > To be clear: I don't mean my audio-hardware! And its not the 
> > > > pc-speaker. It sounds like scratching or somethings going wild. Maybe 
> > > > harddrive, maybe some fan... I don't know. 
> > > > 
> > > > The source of this is Denemo. The sounds are going on until I close 
> > > > Denemo. Cutting jack-connections, stopping jack or other software has 
> > > > now effect.
> > > > 
> > > > Like I said I believe this is only my system, but there is some error 
> > > > nontheless. Other software works fine with midi-in/out and routing. 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Suggestions:
> > > > 
> > > > 1) Make --enable-jack default on. Give a warning to the console if 
> > > > jackd is not started, but let Denemo run. Its a common thing to restart 
> > > > the client(Denemo) if you want to have jack in the end. I never saw a 
> > > > "reconnect on the fly" function in any Jack-app that works flawless 
> > > > (like starting the software anew)
> > > > 
> > > > 2) Prevent staffs with the same name at all. Every staff, which means 
> > > > "jack-port" here, should have a unique name. This should have nothing 
> > > > todo with lilypond staff names. The printout-names should be allowed to 
> > > > be different from the internal/jack-name and should be allowed to be 
> > > > non-unique.
> > > > 
> > > > 3) The midi-in behaviour is not optimal. I expect sending midi-notes to 
> > > > Denemo as a standard task. So I suggest to get rid of the midi-in 
> > > > dialog (enharmonic range etc.) as a popup and leave it as a preferences 
> > > > tab.
> > > > In case of enharmonic and key-related behaviour it would be better to 
> > > > look at the actuall staff-keysigns.
> > > > 
> > > > 4) Also I suggest to open the Midi-in port right from the start. Maybe 
> > > > use lash indepently from a lash-project (don't know if thats possible) 
> > > > to remember the last midi-in connection and try to recreate it. Of it 
> > > > was the midi-keyboard its likely that its still there. Then you can do 
> > > > an autoconnect, instructed by Denemo.
> > > > 
> > > > 5) This creates a situation where Denemo constantly listens to midi-in, 
> > > > which is a good solution in my eyes. To prevent accidental use of the 
> > > > midi-in feature (like putting a dish or some heavy notation on the 
> > > > keyboard, which is a real live situation) I suggest a switch in Denemo 
> > > > which reroutes all midi-in signals to /dev/null, but which does not cut 
> > > > any connections. Its just a bypass.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > So far...
> > > > 
> > > > Nils
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Denemo-devel mailing list
> > > > address@hidden
> > > > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/denemo-devel
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
>