Re: How do you test .MIDI output when the MIDI instrument is not supported?

[Disc Magnet]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:24 AM, Brett McCoy <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 6:39 PM, Disc Magnet <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> There some seems to be some MIDI instruments supported by lilypond
>> that doesn't seem to be supported by timidity. In such a case, I don't
>> get silence output from timidity while plaing the .midi file. For
>> example, I was trying the 'string ensemble 2' instrument. The code is:
>
> The stock sounds that come with Timidity are missing a lot of
> instruments (viola is missing also!). I suggest getting a soundfont
> (Fluid GM soundfont works well) and using that with Timidity instead.
> You just need to update your timidity config to use this. Are you
> using Linux? Your distro may even have this soundfont available as a
> package (Ubuntu Lucid does), it even provides a config file for
> Timidity to use.
>
> -- Brett

Thanks! This worked smoothly.

/etc/timidity/timidity.cfg file even had a line like line this one:
source /etc/timidity/fluidr3_gm.cfg which I brought out of comments
and it worked.

I noticed that just like fluid-soundfont-gm, there's another package
called fluid-soundfont-gs. What's the difference between the two?

I also noticed a diffference between using 'freepats' (default) and
'fluid3_gm'. With freepaths, the nylon guitar sounds like mono with
equal volume in both speakers. With fluid-soundfont-gs, the nylon
guitar plays in the right speaker only creating a stereo effect. Is
there a way to force a particular instrument to play in both speakers?