Release Aria Maestosa - minimal midi/notation

[eyecreate]

I've been wanting this app for a while but have had issues compiling it. Thanks to the creator, I found the issue and now have a pnd for you!


It requires currently both timidity daemon and timidity sounds(both separate pnds) as the program itself has no sound output.(relies solely on alsa midi devices, so hook up your usb midi devices now.)


The interface is also more minimal and less prone to squish gui syndrome like MuseScore was.


What do you think? Should I bundle the timidity and patterns with this pnd to make it easier to use or should it keep it reliant on setting up the other two pnds?


Find it on the repo!


EDIT: please use fluidsynth/qsynth for now instead of timidity as it doesn't have performance problems.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

If you think it won't overlap with current packages, ship it all.

 

[ibisum]

I think it'd be great if you did a small article on how you're using it, and maybe record a little session? Fantastic tool, I love the fresh minimal ..

 

[gruso]

Thanks for your ongoing work on this stuff eyecreate. Performance issues across all MIDI software on the Pandora are disappointing, and I hope this is fixed with a realtime kernel some day (as we can use in Slackware now).


Regarding the Timidity stuff, I wonder if it's better to ship packages like yours without it, and instead use launch scripts like milkshake's Dune release to check for it and download if necessary. Or at the very least, display a detailed message on what PND the user needs to grab first (if you're not doing that already - I haven't tested yet!).


This has the advantage of ensuring the user always gets the latest Timidity packages, should they ever be updated.


--------


As a side rant, I've never really thought that having two different Timidity packages on the repo was a great situation for users. Perhaps Sebt3 and I should combine our releases. An all-in-one Timidity package would be much nicer.


[edit] Heh, my daemon installer isn't even on the repo. Action required here then.

 

[ibisum]

I think it'd be great if the Timidity installer shipped with the player/daemon so you could confirm it actually works, Gruso.

 

[gruso]

I've dropped sebt3 a PM, I'm sure he'll be fine with the idea of joining forces. Then we can just update his entry in the repo. In the meantime I might as well start looking at it.

 

[eyecreate]

Thanks for your ongoing work on this stuff eyecreate. Performance issues across all MIDI software on the Pandora are disappointing, and I hope this is fixed with a realtime kernel some day (as we can use in Slackware now). Regarding the Timidity stuff, I wonder if it's better to ship packages like yours without it, and instead use launch scripts like milkshake's Dune release to check for it and download if necessary. Or at the very least, display a detailed message on what PND the user needs to grab first (if you're not doing that already - I haven't tested yet!). This has the advantage of ensuring the user always gets the latest Timidity packages, should they ever be updated. -------- As a side rant, I've never really thought that having two different Timidity packages on the repo was a great situation for users. Perhaps Sebt3 and I should combine our releases. An all-in-one Timidity package would be much nicer. [edit] Heh, my daemon installer isn't even on the repo. Action required here then.

It seems the dune package actually has timidity bundled with it. It doesn't check for another version.

 

[gruso]

Ah, it didn't even occur to me when I said that, that Dune was using MIDI. My suggestion was just about the scripts he was using to check for & grab any external files that are needed.


I've decided that it might not be a great idea to combine mine & sebt3's PNDs, as it forces people to keep a 40MB PND on the system just to launch the dameon or player (my PND is only 600k). So size is something to consider if you plan to include it all with your app(s). Which patterns would you use? Would you be willing to increase your PND sizes by many MB? Or is it better to let the user run a separate install and make their own choice between size/quality?


As for overlapping functionality, I certainly don't care (and I don't think setb3 does either) if your PND does something ours do. Whatever works for you


If you did decide to include the daemon, would you just rip the binary from mine (which is fine) or do a new build? You would be more competent than me in this area, so an update would be welcome if newer source is available.

 

[eyecreate]

Ah, it didn't even occur to me when I said that, that Dune was using MIDI. My suggestion was just about the scripts he was using to check for & grab any external files that are needed.


I've decided that it might not be a great idea to combine mine & sebt3's PNDs, as it forces people to keep a 40MB PND on the system just to launch the dameon or player (my PND is only 600k). So size is something to consider if you plan to include it all with your app(s). Which patterns would you use? Would you be willing to increase your PND sizes by many MB? Or is it better to let the user run a separate install and make their own choice between size/quality?


As for overlapping functionality, I certainly don't care (and I don't think setb3 does either) if your PND does something ours do. Whatever works for you


If you did decide to include the daemon, would you just rip the binary from mine (which is fine) or do a new build? You would be more competent than me in this area, so an update would be welcome if newer source is available.

Don't think I'd do a new build if I didn't have to(or made things easier).


For now, I'm going to leave it as separate, but I see some benefits from bundling in the future too.

 

[milkshake]

yes mine has timidity built in but only uses a small instrument sample set (stolen from sebt3's pnd) however midi performance is pretty poor, I wonder if this will ever get better?

 

[ibisum]

We need a realtime kernel for MIDI (and realtime Audio) to be really super on the Pandora, plus there has to be absolutely no SD IO while MIDI is happening, or else timing goes to hell ..

 

[gruso]

Interesting... I've posted some very effective Timidity optimisations here but they only fix glitchy sound, not timing. I hadn't considered SD activity as a cause of timing issues. Might do some NAND-only tests today.

 

[gruso]

So I've done some more testing to try and isolate where MIDI timing issues are coming from. Using the same .mid file, I tested playing it in the Timidity GUI from my PND, and also in Seq24. I tried every possible combination: Binaries running from SD and then NAND, .mid file located on SD and then NAND, etc etc. Patterns themselves are always running from NAND.


I could do an exhaustive table of results, but it would only tell you this: In all scenarios the Timidity player had good timing, and Seq24 didn't.


Then I ran the same tests in Slackware with rt-kernel. This doesn't use NAND of course, as the filesystem is on SD. The results were the same. I have learned nothing.

 

[eyecreate]

You learn new things all the time, but I was surprised to find today that fluidsynth operates much better than timidity does currently on the pandora. I disregarded it at first because I expected soundfonts to take up more resources, but it handles playing complex realtime midi files still at 600 mhz with no lag. I'll be changing my posts that required timidity to suggest using fluidsynth for now for performance.

 

[Neelix]

@eyecreate  Sorry for the gravedig,  but I notice that Aria Maestosa has been updated several times since you packaged this up.   Any plans to update the package? 

This particular version has a bug where it will sometimes end playback early, which I understand has been resolved in later versions.

- Neelix

 

[sswam]

I'll have to try this one