Re: [fluid-dev] problems with fluidsynth 1.1.6 on a raspberry pi

[Aere Greenway]

Jan:

If the Google search I did on your machine specifications is correct, the processor speed is 700 megahertz, which would make it on the low end of what works with Fluidsynth.  However, with the configuration changes you mentioned, I have successfully used it with a 450 megahertz machine.  

There is one other thing I always do - especially for slower machines.  

That other step, is to configure the polyphony as 64 (instead of the default 256), or even as low as  48.  

That one change dramatically decreases the processor load.  

Another thing you can do to reduce processor load, is to turn off the "reverb" and "chorus".  

One other thing to be aware of, is that if you have the 1.1.5 version of Fluidsynth, it will run into another problem where some voices cut out, and only sound briefly.  The 1.1.6 version should not have that problem.   

I hope these changes work for you.

- Aere


-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Newmarch <address@hidden>
Reply-to: FluidSynth mailing list <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Subject: [fluid-dev] problems with fluidsynth 1.1.6 on a raspberry pi
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2012 21:25:27 +1100

Recently there was a thread about 1.1.5 on an RPi. I'm picking that up
for 1.1.6. I have a Model B RPi with 512M RAM. I have the Raspbian hard
float image installed rather than the Debian soft float (which behaves
worse). I have applied the security fixes suggested by Aere Greenway.
I'm running it with period set by -z 4096 as suggested by David
Henningsson. I'm observing CPU usage by running top in a separate
window:

fluidsynth -a alsa -l -z 4096 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2 \    
           youvemad.kar

Some simple MIDI files play okay. Others hit CPU usage between 40-99%,
varying throughout the song. At 99% CPU the sound is very broken up, too
bad to be really playable.

It has been suggested that smaller sound fonts will help. What smaller
sound fonts are there?

I can do more experiments if desired.

Jan

-- 

Sincerely,
AereSincerely,
Aere

Sincerely,
Aere