Playing midi files

How do I play midi files (.mid)? I have SuSE 10.0, and can't just click
on one and have it play like I can with other media types such as .ogg,
..mp3, realplayer, etc.

I have been able to play one in Rosegarden, but getting that set up in
SUSE is like pulling teeth. Have to load jackd, have to start up a
softsynth, etc. Is there an app that will just play .mid files w/o all
the hassle?

Thanks much...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
Registered Linux User No: 307357

Kevin Miller wrote:
> How do I play midi files (.mid)? I have SuSE 10.0, and can't just click
> on one and have it play like I can with other media types such as .ogg,
> .mp3, realplayer, etc.
>
> I have been able to play one in Rosegarden, but getting that set up in
> SUSE is like pulling teeth. Have to load jackd, have to start up a
> softsynth, etc. Is there an app that will just play .mid files w/o all
> the hassle?
>
> Thanks much...
>
> ...Kevin

Timidity is your friend on this one. Direct play of midi files out the
speakers of your PC.

I solved the Rosegarden challenge by attaching a keyboard to the PC,
though there is supposed to be a way to use timidity as a translator
here too (-iA option, or something similar...). See the previous thread
I started on a similar topic (search for "brahams" in the subject).

Greg.

Greg D. wrote:
> Timidity is your friend on this one. Direct play of midi files out the
> speakers of your PC.
>
> I solved the Rosegarden challenge by attaching a keyboard to the PC,
> though there is supposed to be a way to use timidity as a translator
> here too (-iA option, or something similar...). See the previous thread
> I started on a similar topic (search for "brahams" in the subject).

Hi Greg - I posted over in alt.os.linux.suse after no replies in a
couple days here. Several folks there said the same thing so I
installed timidity the other night.

Works a treat although all I had was funky piano sound. I'm not sure I
understand everything totally, but in a nutshell I think one needs sound
fonts to produce the different types of sounds - guitar, violin, bass,
women screaming in terror, whatever. I had to load some in the
timidity.conf file. That let me hear more than the tinny piano.

Some sound cards have a built in synthesizer which can produce different
sounds but I think those are for input. I only needed to timidity for
output, although I did previously get Rosegarden to output instrument
sounds by loading a softsynth and connecting it to Rosegarden via jack.
Don't have a keyboard (as in piano, not typewriter style) so that
wasn't an option. But also not a necessity.

All in all, when I click on a .mid file I now can hear it which was what
I needed. I did have to go in to Control Center and associate .mid
files with timidity instead of amaroK which was easy enough.

Thanks for the reply...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
Registered Linux User No: 307357

Kevin Miller wrote:
>
> Works a treat although all I had was funky piano sound. I'm not sure I
> understand everything totally, but in a nutshell I think one needs sound
> fonts to produce the different types of sounds - guitar, violin, bass,
> women screaming in terror, whatever. I had to load some in the
> timidity.conf file. That let me hear more than the tinny piano.
>

Hi Kevin,

Glad it worked for you. Just curious, though, where did you find the
sound font files to load into timidity? I only see an experimental
thing when I search for sound fonts in the yast2 software installer.

Greg.

Greg D. wrote:
> Hi Kevin,
>
> Glad it worked for you. Just curious, though, where did you find the
> sound font files to load into timidity? I only see an experimental
> thing when I search for sound fonts in the yast2 software installer.
>
> Greg.

I pulled them down from the internet. Google for sf2 and you'll find a
bunch. I installed one called PS51f.sf2 - it seems to have a broad
range of voices...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
Registered Linux User No: 307357