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TiMidity -- Experimental MIDI to WAVE converter
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Copyright (C) 1995 Tuukka Toivonen <toivonen@clinet.fi>
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Frequently Asked Questions with answers:
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A: Where? Well Chris, TiMidity is a software-only synthesizer, MIDI
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renderer, MIDI to WAVE converter, realtime MIDI player for UNIX machines,
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even (I've heard) a Netscape helper application. It takes a MIDI file
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and writes a WAVE or raw PCM data or plays it on your digital audio
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device. It sounds much more realistic than FM synthesis, but you need a
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~100Mhz processor to listen to 32kHz stereo music in the background while
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you work. 11kHz mono can be played on a low-end 486, and, to some, it
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still sounds better than FM.
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Q: I don't have a GUS, can I use TiMidity?
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A: Yes. That's the point. You don't need a Gravis Ultrasound to use
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TiMidity, you just need GUS-compatible patches, which are freely
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available on the Internet. See below for pointers.
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Q: I have a GUS, can I use TiMidity?
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A: The DOS port doesn't have GUS support, and TiMidity won't be taking
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advantage of the board's internal synthesizer under other operating
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systems either. So it kind of defeats the purpose. But you can use it.
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Q: I tried playing a MIDI file I got off the Net but all I got was a
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dozen warnings saying "No instrument mapped to tone bank 0, program
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xx - this instrument will not be heard". What's wrong?
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A: The General MIDI standard specifies 128 melodic instruments and
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some sixty percussion sounds. If you wish to play arbitrary General
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MIDI files, you'll need to get more patch files.
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There's a program called Midia for SGI's, which also plays MIDI
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files and has a lot more bells and whistles than TiMidity. It uses
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GUS-compatible patches, too -- so you can get the 8 MB set at
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ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/midia for pretty good GM compatibility.
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There are also many excellent patches on the Ultrasound FTP sites.
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I can recommend Dustin McCartney's collections gsdrum*.zip and
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wow*.zip in the "[.../]sound/patches/files" directory. The huge
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ProPats series (pp3-*.zip) contains good patches as well. General
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MIDI files can also be found on these sites.
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This site list is from the GUS FAQ:
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> FTP Sites Archive Directories
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> --------- -------------------
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> Main N.American Site: archive.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis
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> wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/ibmpc/ultrasound
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> Main Asian Site: nctuccca.edu.tw PC/ultrasound
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> Main European Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound
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> Main Australian Site: ftp.mpx.com.au /ultrasound/general
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> South African Site: ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/packages/ultrasound
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> Submissions: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound/submit
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> Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound
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> Mirrors: garbo.uwasa.fi mirror/ultrasound
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> ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au pc/ultrasound
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> ftp.luth.se pub/msdos/ultrasound
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Q: Some files have awful clicks and pops.
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A: Find out which patch is responsible for the clicking (try "timidity
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-P<patch> <midi/test-decay|midi/test-panning>". Add "strip=tail" in
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the config file after its name. If this doesn't fix it, mail me the
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Q: I'm playing Fantasie Impromptu in the background. When I run Netscape,
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the sound gets choppy and it takes ten minutes to load. What can I do?
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A: Here are some things to try:
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- Use a lower sampling rate.
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- Use mono output. This can improve performance by 10-30%.
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(Using 8-bit instead of 16-bit output makes no difference.)
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- Use a smaller number of simultaneous voices.
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- Make sure you compiled with FAST_DECAY and PRECALC_LOOPS enabled
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- If you don't have hardware to compute sines, recompile with
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LOOKUP_SINE enabled in config.h
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- Recompile with LOOKUP_HACK enabled in config.h.
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- Recompile with LINEAR_INTERPOLATION disabled in config.h.
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- Recompile with DANGEROUS_RENICE enabled in config.h, and make
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TiMidity setuid root. This will help only if you frequently play
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music while other processes are running.
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- Recompile with an Intel-optimized gcc for a 5-15%
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performance increase.
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