Topic by Mossy

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  • Mossy
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  • Registered: 22-01-2014
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Topic: Linux + ZynAddSubFx

Some notes from my head-banging yesterday:

You can have both Pianoteq and ZynAddSubFx installed on the same machine w/o using JACK but you need to have a launcher script clean up after each other.  (You can use JACK to share the audio otuput but JACK does not respond well to a suspend/resume sequence so I use ALSA+direct hardware plus a kill/restart script.)

When starting ZynAddSubFx:

# kill pianoteq first
pkill Pianoteq\ 5
# start ZASF in background w/ the -a parameter
zynaddsubfx -a &
# wait 2 seconds for virtual midi interface to be built before directing midi input to ZASF
# to view midi device numbers, run: amidi -l
aconnect 16:0 128:0

When starting Pianoteq:

# pkill ZASF
pkill zynaddsubfx
# ZASF starts up jackd even if you don't need it
pkill jackd
# start pianoteq
/ptq_path/arch/Pianoteq\ 5

ZynAddSubFx obviously does not generate realistic piano sounds but is still pretty fun to play around with.

https://soundcloud.com/mossy456/

Reply by varpa

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  • varpa
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Re: Linux + ZynAddSubFx

Nice enough, though I think Jack has so many advantages over running directly with Alsa, such as the ability to overlay sounds from both something like ZynAddSubFx and Pianoteq that I'd never run without it.  But if it works for you then go for it.   By the way you could add a "sleep 2" command to have your script wait for 2 seconds before connecting the midi ports.

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Reply by Mossy

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Re: Linux + ZynAddSubFx

varpa wrote:

Nice enough, though I think Jack has so many advantages over running directly with Alsa, such as the ability to overlay sounds from both something like ZynAddSubFx and Pianoteq that I'd never run without it.  But if it works for you then go for it.   By the way you could add a "sleep 2" command to have your script wait for 2 seconds before connecting the midi ports.

Oops, the first script is missing the sleep command -- wrote the comment in but forgot to type the command.  (It's not an exact copy & paste from my actual scripts.)

Unfortunately, JACK is even worse coming back from suspend.  I have a dedicated laptop just for Pianoteq and when I'm done with my 30mins/day, I press suspend and go away.  (Also set to auto-suspend after 30 mins or so.)  So when I want to play again, I hit the power button to resume and my setup is ready within 3 seconds.  But unfortunately, JACK is completely dead after suspend/resume.  You gotta shut everything down, restart JACK, press some stuff on the JACK interface to make it re-init and then restart Pianoteq/ZynAddSubFx.

Last edited by Mossy (11-09-2014 00:45)
https://soundcloud.com/mossy456/