Using MIDI in Ardour via ALSA devices

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

How much functionality has been given to MIDI in Ardour 3 thus far? I can see Ardour in the MIDI panel of qjackctl, but I have an Emagic AMT8, which uses the snd-usb-audio ALSA driver and therefore shows up in the ALSA tab.

Any way the twain can meet?

#2

Ardour3 utilizes Jack-MIDI. You need a version of Jack compiled with MIDI support.

Seablade
#3

I’m assuming since Ardour shows up under qjackctl at all that I’ve got it.

But my question is this: can something that shows up in the MIDI tab somehow be connected to a MIDI device that shows up in the ALSA tab?

#4

There are multiple ways to accomplish this. Either a2jmidi which will present alsa devices as Jack MIDI ports, or you need to tell Jack to actually use MIDI via the -Xseq or -Xraw switch. I believe there are ways to do this in QJackCTL’s settings page(Check for MIDI driver) as well.

    Seablade
#5

I’ll check those out. Thanks for the tip - I really appreciate it!

#6

I’m looking into this again. I have not been able to see how to connect Ardour to my AMT8 via a2jmidi using a2jmidid and/or a2jmidi_bridge. I see no -Xseq or -Xraw option in Qjackctl and JACK crashes if I try to use those switches manually. What should I try next?

#7

hey audiodef… I have an AMT8 and a UNitor mk 2 both work fine with a2jmidid … you need to use a2jmidid -e … you can setup qjackctl to run this after launching jack…

#8

I actually use ladish instead of qjackctl these dats (jackdbus) and have an application configured at level 1 for a2jmidid -e … it calls it a bit weird as it labels it as failed… (I’m still working out how to submit a bug to those guys)… but it actually works … it means you can create a “studio” with all your default MIDI connections so yo u don’t have to manually connect everything up each time … I used to do this with a bash script … but changing defaults e.t.c. became a pain…

#9

Thanks, allank! a2jmidid -e works if I run it manually after starting JACK via Qjackctl. How do you get Qjackctl to start it? I looked at Setup -> Options and tried using “start script after JACK starts”, but whether I just put a2jmidid -e in there or put that into a bash script to be called, Qjackctl just freezes on me.

#10

You can put “a2j_control ehw start” in QJackctl’s “start script after JACK starts”.

#11

HI audiodef…

I think I put it in as “a2jmidid -e &” in the same spot, this effectively forks a2jmidid to run in the background.

cheers

Allan