[Denemo-devel] Re: [fluid-dev] Fluidsynth in Windows

[josh]

Hello Nils,

Nice to hear that you are using FluidSynth in your project.  Feel free  
to register an account and add a link and description to Denemo on the  
FluidSynth Applications page:
http://fluidsynth.resonance.org/trac/wiki/Applications

First off.  What version of FluidSynth are you using?


Quoting Nils <address@hidden>:
> (This is posted on two lists)
>
> Denemo http://www.denemo.org , Free and Open Source Notation Editor   
> and Lilypond Frontend, has now (beta) a built-in fluidsynth sampler   
> to provide fast, zero-configure audio output after installing and   
> without the need of JACK or other "experts" system.
> With the help of GUB (http://lilypond.org/gub/) I built Denemo with   
> Fluidsynth crossplattform for Windows and installed it succesfully.
>
> After choosing a .sf2 manually:
>
> -Most important first: Portaudio support is compiled in and works   
> partly. The sound is distorted, sounds like repitition of samples.   
> The pitch is correct, speed/bpm too. I can only guess but I think   
> this has to do with the bitrate. Jeremiah, How do I access   
> additional fluidsynth settings to test that? Fluidsynth-Devs: What   
> is the best way to provide correct sound out-of-the-box on Windows?


I tried Portaudio on Linux and also experienced problems with  
FluidSynth.  Although in my case it was that all Portaudio  
applications would lock up after playing briefly, so I don't think  
that was FluidSynth specific.  My guess is that in your case, the  
audio buffer might be too small, for the system to keep up with, so  
audio dropouts are occurring.  Try setting audio.period-size to  
something larger like 512 or 1024.


> -Fluidsynth chooses "dsound" as default driver (which is not even in  
>  the dropdown list) but this does not produce any sound on my   
> out-of-the-box Windows 7 Laptop with internal AC97 soundcard. Don't   
> know why. Maybe its because dsound.h came from WINE and not from the  
>  directX SDK?


I've tested dsound driver under Windows and it seems to work.  I'm not  
sure why you aren't getting any sound.  I've only used the DirectX SDK  
myself, but would love to know if there is a way to get the wine  
headers working.  Downloading a huge SDK just for a stupid little  
header file is ridiculous!


> -On Windows ALSA, OSS, Pulseaudio and JACK are still in the dropdown  
>  list. JACK works on Windows (but not yet inmy fluid-build) but the   
> rest not. Its only confusing to have them in there.


The audio.driver and midi.driver settings can be queried for a list of  
supported drivers, allowing for drop downs or whatever to be populated  
dynamically.


> -In a future release we have to clean up the settings and menus.   
> This is already known by the Denemo Team but not for the Fluidsynth   
> Team. The preferences are scattered, sometimes useless, sometimes   
> redundant, sometimes confusing (/dev/midi on Windows?)


FluidSynth has always had a fairly complete settings API for querying  
parameters, their types and values.  Starting with FluidSynth 1.1.0  
though, a lot of cleanup has occurred in regards to the settings  
"hints" (for example, if its a string with options, a toggle boolean  
value, etc).  Of note though is that 1.1.0 has some issues which will  
be addressed in the soon to be released 1.1.1.


> try it for yourselves: http://www.nilsgey.de/denemo-beta-0.8.11.exe
> Fluid Team: Feedback for the whole software is happily accepted.


I'll give this a try, next time I boot up my VirtualBox environment  
and remember to enable the virtual sound card :)


> --
> Nils Gey
> http://www.nilsgey.de

Cheers!
Josh Green