Re: KMid (was Re: [fluid-dev] Re: lost connection to Jack server)

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Friday, October 23, 2009, address@hidden wrote:
> Quoting Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas <address@hidden>:
> > Jack MIDI may be the right thing for Ardour, but it is a big nuisance for
> > everything else. For instance, FluidSynth. I'm NOT an Ardour user, and
> > I'm certainly not going to use any application requiring exclusively Jack
> > MIDI.
>
> I'm curious what you find to be a nuisance about Jack MIDI?  I haven't
> used it much yet myself, so I don't yet have much of an opinion.
> FluidSynth now has support for Jack MIDI, if you weren't already aware
> of that.  I usually end up having to run something like a2jmidid to
> bridge ALSA sequencer clients/devices with Jack MIDI.  I like the idea
> of the whole audio and MIDI pipeline being synchronized though!  The
> API seems easy enough (just a raw MIDI stream for the most part,
> without running status).

I'm aware of your Jack MIDI driver for FluidSynth. It is included in 1.0.9, 
following the same design of other MIDI drivers. That is one of the problems 
and nuisances. Current Jack drivers in FluidSynth running independent Jack 
processes for audio and MIDI is against the goals of audio and MIDI pipelines 
being synchronized. Other synths have experienced the same nuisances 
recently :) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.audio.users/56686/
IMO, or FluidSynth becomes a fair Jack MIDI client, or it should drop the 
driver entirely. 

Returning to the subject, the goal of having audio and MIDI aligned may be 
sound for a soft synth like FluidSynth, or a DAW application like Ardour, 
where MIDI is subordinated and auxiliary regarding to audio. But, where is 
the advantage of Jack MIDI for a pure MIDI/Karaoke player like KMid?

Regards,
Pedro