[ubuntu-studio-users] Keyboard is seen but won't connect

[David Sumbler]

On Tue, 2016-12-27 at 17:57 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> An example seems to work on my machine:
> 
>   $ amidi -l
>   Dir Device    Name
>   IO  hw:0,0    HDSPMx579bcc MIDI 1
>   IO  hw:3,0,0  nanoKONTROL MIDI 1
> 
>   $ pkill -9 jack; pkill a2j
> 
>   $ jackd -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -r48000 -p256 & a2jmidid -e‬ &
> qjackctl
> 
> In QjackCtl's ALSA tab the device names are the same as displayed by
> the above amidi command, but in the MIDI tab the names are
> 
>   system                  system
>     midi_capture_1          midi_playback_1
>     midi_capture_2          midi_playback_2
> 
> Qtractor only appears in the ALSA tab. While connecting HDSPM and
> nanoKONTROL doesn't work directly in the ALSA tab, connecting MIDI
> Through with Qtractor works. It requires some trail and error, I
> don't
> remember how to use it at the moment. It's a long time ago I used
> Linux
> for MIDI. However, IIRC a2j... is only needed if
> 
> - you are using jack2 with external synth and you want to reduce MIDI
>   jitter by using -Xalsarawmidi
> 
> - you are not necessarily using -Xalsarawmidi, but you are using
> Linux
>   apps, that only support jack MIDI and not ALSA MIDI, while other
> apps
>   only support ALSA MIDI and you want to connect jack and ALSA MIDI
> apps
> 
> If you only want to use ALSA MIDI, no -Xalsarawmidi and no jack MIDI
> apps, simply run
> 
>   $ pkill -9 jack; pkill a2j
>   $ jackd -dalsa -r48000 -p256 & qjackctl
> 
> then you should be able to connect everything by the ALSA tab without
> issues.

I get:

david at eros:~$ jackd -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -r48000 -p256 & a2jmidid -e‬ &
qjackctl
[1] 6201
[2] 6202
jackdmp 1.9.11
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2014 Grame.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
a2jmidid: invalid option -- '�'
Usage: a2jmidid [-j jack-server] [-e | --export-hw] [-u]
Defaults:
-j default
no message buffer overruns
no message buffer overruns
no message buffer overruns
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
audio_reservation_init
Acquire audio card Audio0
creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|256|2|48000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-
|32bit
ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for playback. Falling back to
capture-only mode
Cannot initialize driver
JackServer::Open failed with -1
Failed to open server

and similar results with the

jackd -dalsa -r48000 -p256 & qjackctl

command.

Nothing appears in the MIDI tab of qjackctl: as ever, the keyboard
appears as both an input and output device in the ALSA tab, but can't
acrually be connected to anything else.

David