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Initial add.
author Ryan C. Gordon <icculus@icculus.org>
date Fri, 04 Jan 2002 06:49:49 +0000
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198:f9a752f41ab6 199:2d887640d300
1 ---------------------------*-indented-text-*------------------------------
2
3 TiMidity -- Experimental MIDI to WAVE converter
4 Copyright (C) 1995 Tuukka Toivonen <toivonen@clinet.fi>
5
6 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
7
8 Frequently Asked Questions with answers:
9
10 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Q: What is it?
12
13 A: Where? Well Chris, TiMidity is a software-only synthesizer, MIDI
14 renderer, MIDI to WAVE converter, realtime MIDI player for UNIX machines,
15 even (I've heard) a Netscape helper application. It takes a MIDI file
16 and writes a WAVE or raw PCM data or plays it on your digital audio
17 device. It sounds much more realistic than FM synthesis, but you need a
18 ~100Mhz processor to listen to 32kHz stereo music in the background while
19 you work. 11kHz mono can be played on a low-end 486, and, to some, it
20 still sounds better than FM.
21
22 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
23 Q: I don't have a GUS, can I use TiMidity?
24
25 A: Yes. That's the point. You don't need a Gravis Ultrasound to use
26 TiMidity, you just need GUS-compatible patches, which are freely
27 available on the Internet. See below for pointers.
28
29 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
30 Q: I have a GUS, can I use TiMidity?
31
32 A: The DOS port doesn't have GUS support, and TiMidity won't be taking
33 advantage of the board's internal synthesizer under other operating
34 systems either. So it kind of defeats the purpose. But you can use it.
35
36 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
37 Q: I tried playing a MIDI file I got off the Net but all I got was a
38 dozen warnings saying "No instrument mapped to tone bank 0, program
39 xx - this instrument will not be heard". What's wrong?
40
41 A: The General MIDI standard specifies 128 melodic instruments and
42 some sixty percussion sounds. If you wish to play arbitrary General
43 MIDI files, you'll need to get more patch files.
44
45 There's a program called Midia for SGI's, which also plays MIDI
46 files and has a lot more bells and whistles than TiMidity. It uses
47 GUS-compatible patches, too -- so you can get the 8 MB set at
48 ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/midia for pretty good GM compatibility.
49
50 There are also many excellent patches on the Ultrasound FTP sites.
51 I can recommend Dustin McCartney's collections gsdrum*.zip and
52 wow*.zip in the "[.../]sound/patches/files" directory. The huge
53 ProPats series (pp3-*.zip) contains good patches as well. General
54 MIDI files can also be found on these sites.
55
56 This site list is from the GUS FAQ:
57
58 > FTP Sites Archive Directories
59 > --------- -------------------
60 > Main N.American Site: archive.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis
61 > wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/ibmpc/ultrasound
62 > Main Asian Site: nctuccca.edu.tw PC/ultrasound
63 > Main European Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound
64 > Main Australian Site: ftp.mpx.com.au /ultrasound/general
65 > /ultrasound/submit
66 > South African Site: ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/packages/ultrasound
67 > Submissions: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound/submit
68 > Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound
69 >
70 > Mirrors: garbo.uwasa.fi mirror/ultrasound
71 > ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au pc/ultrasound
72 > ftp.luth.se pub/msdos/ultrasound
73
74 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
75 Q: Some files have awful clicks and pops.
76
77 A: Find out which patch is responsible for the clicking (try "timidity
78 -P<patch> <midi/test-decay|midi/test-panning>". Add "strip=tail" in
79 the config file after its name. If this doesn't fix it, mail me the
80 patch.
81
82 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
83 Q: I'm playing Fantasie Impromptu in the background. When I run Netscape,
84 the sound gets choppy and it takes ten minutes to load. What can I do?
85
86 A: Here are some things to try:
87
88 - Use a lower sampling rate.
89
90 - Use mono output. This can improve performance by 10-30%.
91 (Using 8-bit instead of 16-bit output makes no difference.)
92
93 - Use a smaller number of simultaneous voices.
94
95 - Make sure you compiled with FAST_DECAY enabled in options.h
96
97 - Recompile with an Intel-optimized gcc for a 5-15%
98 performance increase.
99
100 --------------------------------------------------------------------------