Timidity++

TiMidity++ is a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer. It can either render to the sound card in real time, or it can save the result to a file, such as a PCM .wav file.

Installation

Install the timidity++ package.

You should also install a SoundFont or Gravis UltraSound (GUS) patch files to be able to produce sound. See MIDI#List of SoundFonts.

If you use pipewire, install pipewire-alsa since TiMidity++ sometimes depends on Alsa.

Configuration

To configure your preferred SoundFont, add the following lines to timidity.cfg(5) based on your choice.

For FreePats:

/etc/timidity/timidity.cfg

soundfont /usr/share/soundfonts/freepats-general-midi.sf2

For Fluid:

/etc/timidity/timidity.cfg

soundfont /usr/share/soundfonts/FluidR3_GM.sf2

Daemon

If you intended to use TiMidity++ as an ALSA sequencer client, you should add yourself to the audio user group first. As with most group changes, you will typically need to restart your user session (e.g. log out and log in again), so that the new group is visible in the output of the groups command.

Start/enable the timidity.service user unit. Note that starting the service may fail if you have changed your audio group membership but not yet restarted your session.

If you are using PulseAudio, that may also cause the service to fail. You may want to add the following command as an autostart program in your desktop environment. Or, if you just want to start TiMidity++ in daemon mode once, you can use the following command which will make console output viewable:

$ timidity -iA

Usage

Play files

There are two ways to use TiMidity++. Either as MIDI player or as daemon adding MIDI support to ALSA.

Standalone mode

You can simply use TiMidity++ to play MIDI files:

$ timidity example.mid

Add option -in for a text-based interface. There are many other options to TiMidity++. See timidity(1) or use -h to get help.

Daemon mode

If you are runing TiMidity++ as a daemon (ALSA sequencer client), it will provide MIDI output support for other programs such as rosegarden, aplaymidi, vkeybd, etc.

This will give you four output software MIDI ports (in addition of hardware MIDI ports on your system, if any):

$  aconnect -o

client 128: 'TiMidity' [type=user]
    0 'TiMidity port 0 '
    1 'TiMidity port 1 '
    2 'TiMidity port 2 '
    3 'TiMidity port 3 '

You can now play MIDI files using aplaymidi:

$ aplaymidi filename.mid --port 128:0

Another example is vkeybd, a virtual MIDI keyboard for X.

You can install vkeybd^AUR.

$ vkeybd --addr 128:0

Option --addr 128:0 connects the input (readable) software MIDI port provided by vkeybd to the first output (writable) ALSA port provided by Timidity. Alternatively you can use aconnect, patchage^AUR or kaconnect. As a result when you play around with the keys on the vkeybd TiMidity++ plays the appropriate notes.

Connect to virtual MIDI device

Once you have the TiMidity++ daemon running and it is working with aplaymidi, you can connect it to a virtual MIDI device that will work in programs such as rosegarden or scala.

Load the snd-virmidi kernel module and (optionally) configure your system to load the module at boot.

Use aconnect to verify the port numbers:

$ aconnect -o

client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
     0 'Midi Through Port-0'
 client 20: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-0' [type=kernel]
     0 'VirMIDI 1-0     '
 client 21: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-1' [type=kernel]
     0 'VirMIDI 1-1     '
 client 22: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-2' [type=kernel]
     0 'VirMIDI 1-2     '
 client 23: 'Virtual Raw MIDI 1-3' [type=kernel]
     0 'VirMIDI 1-3     '
 client 128: 'TiMidity' [type=user]
     0 'TiMidity port 0 '
     1 'TiMidity port 1 '
     2 'TiMidity port 2 '
     3 'TiMidity port 3 '

Now create the connection:

$ aconnect 20:0 128:0

You should now have a working MIDI output device on your system (/dev/snd/midiC1D0).

Tips and tricks

Convert files

TiMidity++ can also convert MIDI files into other formats. The following command saves the resulting sound to a WAV file:

$ timidity input.mid -Ow -o out.wav

To convert to another formats, you can use FFmpeg. This will convert it to mp3:

$ timidity input.mid -Ow -o - | ffmpeg -i - -acodec libmp3lame -ab 256k out.mp3

How to make DOSBox use TiMidity++

Note: The following method is tested in version DOSBox 0.72

First of all, you need to write a configuration file. Input the following in DOSBox to create a configuration file:

config -writeconf dosbox.conf

you can replace dosbox.conf by any name that you want, add a dot in front of it if you want to hide it.

Make sure you started TiMidity++ as daemon as the instructions above, use the aconnect command.

Edit this configuration file with any editor, go to the section:

dosbox.conf

[midi]
mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=

put the ALSA connection port into the back of config=, in default:

config=128:0

Restart DOSBox within a terminal so you can see its debug messages, by no accident you should see a successful initiation on port 128:0.

Troubleshooting

TiMidity++ does not play MIDI files

It may be that your SoundFile is not set up correctly. Just run:

$ timidity example.mid

If you find a line like this in the terminal output, your SoundFile is not set up properly.

No instrument mapped to tone bank 0, program XX - \
this instrument will not be heard

Make sure you have installed some samples and your SoundFile is added to /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg. See Configuration for more details.

Daemon mode plays sound out of pace

TiMidity++'s ALSA output module (default) may cause this issue in ALSA server mode. Try another output option, for example, libao:

$ timidity -iA -OO

And test it using aplaymidi. If this does not work, you may want to configure JACK and set TiMidity++'s output to jack.