The KMidi Handbook <author>Bernd Johannes Wuebben, <tt>wuebben@kde.org</tt>; Greg Lee, <tt>lee@hawaii.edu</tt> <date>Version 1.1, 17 June 1998 <abstract> This Handbook describes KMidi Version 1.1 </abstract> <toc> <sect>Introduction KMidi is a midi file player and midi to wav file converter. If you have already given up on midi on Linux/Unix try this! Without expensive hard-ware such as a Gravis Ultrasound or Sound Blaster AWE64 you will get fantastic sound comparable to what you get with the above mentioned hard-ware. FOR FREE! The catch: <itemize> <item> KMidi will use your CPU time, typically about 10-30% at 32000 Hz on my Pentium 120. If you have a slower machine, simply use the commandline options to reduce the sample frequency. You should be able to get very decent sound even on a 486 without straining your CPU. <item>You need the sound patches. You can get a full set of general midi sound patches at any Ultrasound archive. Typical storage requirements around 10 megs. </itemize> Believe me, for the sound you are going to get this is a small price to pay! KMidi supports at the moment (Version 1.1) the following platforms: <itemize> <item>Linux <item>FreeBSD <item>DEC OSF/1 <item>HP UX <item>SUN <item>SUN SOLARIS </itemize> The non-KDE alternative version of TiMidity may also work on all these platforms, but this version has only been tested on Linux. Ports to other platforms should be easy. Please contact me if you ported kmidi to another platform. KMidi uses Tuukka Toivonen's TiMidity 0.2i engine Copyright (C) 1995 <url url="mailto:toivonen@clinet.fi" name="Tukka Toivonen">. In fact, an enhanced version of Tuukka's original program with five other alternative user interfaces is included with the KMidi distribution. (See below for information on compiling TiMidity.) KMidi and TiMidity use AWE SoundFont extensions done by <url url="mailto:iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp" name="Takashi Iwai"> and AMD InterWave extensions done by <url url="mailto:lee@hawaii.edu" name="Greg Lee">, which enable you to use SoundFonts (.sbk/.sf2 files) and IW patchsets (.fff/.dat files) in addition to Gravis/Forte .pat files. For details about usage that may not be covered in this manual, see the timidity(1) man page. I realize this is a rough release, and I am sure that if you try hard enough you will be able to get KMidi to crash, but I think KMidi is already more than usable and will hopefull give you hours of fun. Remember Midi files are typically around 50k or less and are therefore so easily downloaded that you will never run out of great midi's to play. Have fun with KMidi! <tt>Bernd Johannes Wuebben</tt>, <htmlurl url="mailto:wuebben@kde.org" name="wuebben@kde.org"> <sect>Installation <sect1>How to obtain KMidi KMidi is part of the KDE project <url url="http://www.kde.org">. KMidi can be found on <url url="ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/">, the main ftp site of the KDE project. It's home site is <htmlurl url="http://math.cornell.edu/~wuebben/kde.html" name="http://math.cornell.edu/~wuebben/kde.html"> <sect1>Requirements In order to successfully compile KMidi, you need the latest versions of <tt> libkdecore</tt> and <tt> libkdeui</tt>. All required libraries as well as KMidi itself can be found on <url url="ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/">. To compile the "dumb" commandline interface of TiMidity, any standard Unix-type system should do, or even Win95. The other interfaces have special requirements (see the various README files in the distribution). The Motif interface works reasonably well with Lesstif. <sect1>Compilation and installation If you previously installed KMidi, it would be wise to back up files in the configuration directory (probably $KDEDIR/share/apps/kmidi/config/) before installing this version, since files there might be overwritten. Similarly, before installing the non-KDE version of TiMidity, back up /usr/local/lib/timidity/*. On the other hand, for a completely fresh install you should remove any files in these two directories, since the old files might not be replaced by new versions. If you have the entire kdemultimedia distribution, cd to the kdemultimedia directory and <tscreen><verb> % ./configure </verb></tscreen> Then to make all the multimedia programs, stay in that directory, or to make just KMidi, cd to the kmidi directory, and <tscreen><verb> % make % make install </verb></tscreen> For the non-KDE version of TiMidity, edit the file Makefile.tim as required (depending on what user interfaces you want compiled in), then <tscreen><verb> % make clean % make -f Makefile.tim % make -f Makefile.tim install.bin % make -f Makefile.tim install.lib % make -f Makefile.tim install.man </verb></tscreen> Should you run into problems please report them to me. <sect1>Where to get a full set of patches?<label id="patches"> There are three sorts of patches that KMidi/TiMidity can use: GUS patches, IW <tt>fonts</tt>, and AWE32 SoundFonts. A set of samples and parameters for a single instrument, a patch, is in a separate file for GUS patches, but IW fonts have all the samples for a related set of patches together in a <tt>.dat</tt> file and all the parameters collected in one <tt>.fff</tt> file. AWE SoundFonts put everything in a single <tt>.sf2</tt> file (or <tt>.sbk</tt>). First, here are some places to get GUS patches: <url url="mailto:goemon@anime.net" name="Dan Hollis"> has put together a patch set. Please visit his page at <url url="http://www.anime.net/~goemon/timidity/" name="http://www.anime.net/~goemon/timidity"> and help him make this the best set available. <bf>New:</bf> I have uploaded the above patchset to ftp.kde.org. It is currently in <tt>ftp://fiwi02.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de/pub/kde/stable/Beta2/apps/multimedia/sound/</tt> but I expect we will move it around a bit until we found a good location for it. So just poke around a bit on ftp.kde.org, if the set can no longer be found at the above mentioned location by the time you read this. Patches can also be found packaged as dep or rpm modules on the Sunsite archive: <itemize> <item> Debian: <url url="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/./distributions/debian/bo/source/sound/timidity-patches_0.1.tar.gz" name="timidity-patches_0.1.tar.gz"> <item> RPM: <url url="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/oldrpms/contrib-2.0.x/RPMS/timidity-patches-1-1.i386.rpm" name="timidity-patches-1-1.i386.rpm"> <item> RPM: <url url="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/oldrpms/contrib-2.0.x/SRPMS/timidity-patches-1-1.src.rpm-try2" name="timidity-patches-1-1.src.rpm-try2"> </itemize> I have not tried the above (yet), and personally use the Midia patch set together with a few additional patches and a couple of additional drum sets. The Midia patch set can be found at: <url url="ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/midia/"> For additional patches and drum sets: (get the gsdrum and wow patches) <url url="ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/gus/sound/patches/files/"> Vincent Pagel has put together a collection of patches. This link can only be reached during night hours (Paris). <url url="ftp://sig.enst.fr/pub/midi/instruments/"> The config file that goes with his patch set can be found here: <url url="ftp://sig.enst.fr/pub/midi/timidity_pagel.cfg"> Also check the TimidityPage: <url url="http://www.clinet.fi/~toivonen/timidity/"> and Takashi's Page: <url url="http://bahamut.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~iwai/midi.html#TiMidity"> Takashi's page recommends the 8 meg AWE32 SoundFont <tt>chaos8m.sf2</tt> and the 12 meg AWE32 SoundFont <tt>chaos12m.sf2</tt> available at <url url="http://soback.kornet.nm.kr/~chaos/sbawe32/sbawe32.htm">, which are very nice. (They are packaged as self-decompressing <tt>.exe</tt> files.) There are several free IW fonts at <url url="ftp://sdc.wtm.tudelft.nl/pub/music/soundbank/">. The only IW font I know of with stereo patches (which KMidi/TiMidity can play) costs $33 on a cd; see <url url="http://sdc.wtm.tudelft.nl/utopia/">. <sect2>Patch set installation Each of the above patch sets (you need only one) should come with a .cfg configuration file similar to the .cfg files which come with KMidi and reside in <tt>KDEDIR/share/apps/kmidi/config</tt> KMidi has configurations files ready made for you for a number of common patch sets, such as the media patch set. In order to complete the installation of a complete patch set edit the file timidity.cfg and source the appropriate config files for the patch set/sets you downloaded. ( If you have a look at timidity.cfg it will be totally obvious what I am talking about) That's it. Now you can go ahead and and play the other midis that are in the KMidi distribution ( and any others of course) <sect2>Miscellaneous Ocassionally you will see that KMidi can't find a patch for a particular instrument. ( Open the Info Window in order to see this information ) In that case, all you have to do is go out and get yourself the missing patch and install it by moving the patch into the patch/ directory and editing your patch set .cfg file to tell KMidi that the new patch is available now. Sometimes a particular instrument doesn't sound all that well. In that case, simply go out and get yourself a different patch from any of the Ultrasound archives and replace the not so optimal patch by a better one. As you can see, it is totally up to you how good every instrument will sound. You can even make your own patches with the pat2wav utility which is included in the KMidi distribution. <sect> Usage <sect1> General Usage Simply click on the "eject" button to open the playlist manager. Select a midi file by double clicking on it. For your convenience I have included a few midi files in the midis directory of the distribution. For real usage you will need to get yourself a full general midi set of patches. <sect1>Midi file names KMidi will replace any '_' in the midi file name by spaces and curtail the .mid .MID ending if present. <sect1>Command Line Options <tscreen><verb> wuebben: ./kmidi -h KMidi version 0.3 MIDI to WAVE player/converter Copyright (C) 1995 Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben@math.cornell.edu> KMidi is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Usage: kmidi [options] filename [...] Options: -o file Output to another file (or device) (Use "-" for stdout) -O mode Select output mode and format (see below for list) -s f Set sampling frequency to f (Hz or kHz) -a Enable the antialiasing filter -f Disable fast decay mode -p n Allow n-voice polyphony -A n Amplify volume by n percent (may cause clipping) -C n Set ratio of sampling and control frequencies -L dir Append dir to search path -c file Read extra configuration file -I n Use program n as the default -P file Use patch file for all programs -D n Play drums on channel n -Q n Ignore channel n -F Enable fast panning -U Unload instruments from memory between MIDI files -i mode Select user interface (see below for list) -B n Set number of buffer fragments -h Display this help message Available output modes (-O option): -Od Linux dsp device -Ow RIFF WAVE file -Or raw waveform data Output format options (append to -O? option): `8' 8-bit sample width `1' 16-bit sample width `U' uLaw encoding `l' linear encoding `M' monophonic `S' stereo `s' signed output `u' unsigned output `x' byte-swapped output Available interfaces (-i option): -iq kmidi qt interface -id dumb interface Interface options (append to -i? option): `v' more verbose (cumulative) `q' quieter (cumulative) `t' trace playing </verb></tscreen> <sect>Questions and Answers <sect1>Where to get a full patch set? Please refer to the corresponding <ref id="patches" name="section"> in the kmidi installation chapter. <sect>Copyright <tscreen><verb> KMidi Copyright 1997 Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben@math.cornell.edu> KMidi uses Tuukka Toivonen's timidity 0.2i engine, Copyright (C) 1995 Tukka Toivonen <toivonen@clinet.fi> Takashi Iwai <iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp> latest sound font patches. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. </verb></tscreen </article>