MIDI and audio equipment
Linux operating systems
Windows operating systems
CPU and memory
*NEW* [ed: this is an example of keeping original content]
The original Jazz++ documentation recorded here;
"To play MIDI music your PC must be attached to a MIDI synthesizer device. The synthesizer can either be an integrated part of a sound-card, or an external device attached to the PC with a cable. To record MIDI music you will need a midi-capable piano-keyboard attached to the PC (as an alternative you can enter notes using the mouse). For audio you need an audio capable sound card."
A lot of that is still the same even today - if you're not using a hardware MIDI/synth soundcard or externally connected MIDI synthesizer, you will need an audio capable soundcard to hear anything. Today however, most personal computers already have 'onboard' audio sound chipsets, so for most people it's very likely that you already have this requirement satisfied. Likewise, MIDI/synth capable addon soundcards are a -lot- cheaper today than when Jazz++ first started out, and you can buy MIDI/synth soundcards of various types for under 50 dollars these days. One can also buy high-end MIDI/synth soundcards for a few hundred dollars if you're looking for the very best quality sound ouput, or otherwise 'professional' features and specifications.
Back when the original Jazz++ documentation was written, there weren't many 'software synthesizer' programs available for the personal computer, and even if they were available, the then computing hardware was simply too slow to run such software properly. A lot has changed since then and now. Today, even so called 'entry level' personal computers have more than enough power to run Jazz++ concurrently with one (or more) 'software synthesizers' running on the same machine, thus making it possible for Jazz++ to become the basis of a fully functional Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) using otherwise standard, low cost personal computer systems and/or other now affordable add-on sound/MIDI hardware options.
This area of the Jazz++ documentation provides information detailing how to get the most out of you personal computer when using it with Jazz++, and also platform/OS specific information regarding setting up and using Jazz++ with the now available hardware technologies and various 'software synthesizer' MIDI programs available to the user today.
*NEW*
MIDI, Time and the Personal Computer
The MIDI protocol attempts to be a real time protocol. This is unsurprising -- sound generation and replay (of a song or most all musical compositions) happens in real time, the audience and/or the recording studio hear the performance in real time. If you are a performer on stage using MIDI equipment, that MIDI equipment must be operating as close to real time performance as it possibly can -- when the performer plays a note on a MIDI keyboard, that note event should be heard almost instantaneously not in 50 to 200 milliseconds of time after the event. Likewise, every note event should be acted upon - if the MIDI track is sequenced to produce 8 beats on a kick drum voice, you should hear the synthesizer produce 8 beats of that voice, not 7 beats.
Time (with regards to MIDI) is what we used to measure the actual deviation from 'real' time that the MIDI response time effectively is. Remember, I stated MIDI *attempts* to be a real time protocol, but in actual practise it very rarely is. There are latencies in various parts of the MIDI chain -- even the physical length of the MIDI patch-cords introduce latency..albeit small..into the interconnected MIDI device chain. The response time of the MIDI instrument receiving a transmitted note event is another place latency can be experienced, and if you are using Jazz++ to trigger another externally connected MIDI device which itself is a sequencer, the timing is even more important to ensure everything starts, plays, and remains 'in sync'.
The above two paragraphs are things common to the MIDI domain that MIDI users have always had to deal with, regardless of whether or not a PC was being used in the MIDI chain. As a matter of fact, a 'virtual' MIDI chain involving softsynths and Jazz++ running on a PC, is subject to exactly the same kinds of limitations and latency problems as 'real' MIDI equipment does...plus one extra layer -- the inherent amount of latency in the operating system and PC hardware being used to 'host' the virtual MIDI machines and software programs.
When using a PC in this fashion, there are possible latencies in a few different places of the setup overall ; how fast the 'host' system executes (runs) Jazz++ itself, how fast the generated note events can be delivered to/from the computer's hardware ports, and/or how fast these same note events can be delivered to and be rendered by a softsynth running concurrently on the same system. Just how powerful your particular hardware is does matter, however there are some common methods and practises that can be employed to better tailor how your personal computer performs with Jazz++. There are also some platform/OS specific 'tweaks' that can be employed to help make your platform of choice run better when using Jazz++ with timing critical protocols such as MIDI on the modern day PC.
Running Jazz++ should not impose any significant system load by itself, however it does rely on the operating system to deliver the MIDI data to the intended hardware/virtual ports, and also for delivering software data to the computer's graphics adapter for GUI updates..ie; track window scrolling.
No matter what PC hardware you are using, most all of this software data has to be processed by (or pass through) the operating system in use, and most modern operating systems allow the software programmers to use so called 'real time' kernel calls, and direct, immediate access to I/O ports and so forth to the actual computer hardware itself. On some platform/OS types this doesn't happen automatically, and some users might have change some system configurations to achieve optimum performance when using Jazz++ and MIDI on their personal computing machine.
This area of the Jazz++ documentation provides information detailing how to get the most out of you personal computer when using it with Jazz++, and also platform/OS specific information regarding setting up and using Jazz++ with the now available hardware technologies and various 'software synthesizer' MIDI programs available to the user today.
[ed: This part, down to my out mark, should probably go]
The device-independent part of JAZZ++ (the sequencer / editor part) is known to run on Linux, Sun-OS4 and Solaris2 systems, but should compile and run (with some minor hacking) on any system supporting Linux/X11. To compile you will need the wxWidgets GUI package together with GTK.
The device-dependant part (midi-driver) currently supports:
OSS/Free (OSS/Linux) midi driver API (formerly known as USS/Lite and VoxWare). This API is included in later Linux kernels. The JAZZ++ code interfacing OSS has only been tested on Linux platforms. JAZZ++'s native MPU-401 midi driver (requires an intelligent-mode MPU-401 interface-card). The driver is implemented as a Linux kernel load-module. In this mode JAZZ++ works as a TCP/IP-based client/server application allowing the sequencer/editor and the midi-driver to run on separate computers. The native driver has better support for the MPU-401 than the JAZZ++/OSS solution (e.g. support for external timing source).
[ed: and be replaced with something more current...ie; if it still works on Sun-OS4 and Solaris2 systems currently is unknown, USS/lite and voxware..?..and I thought mpu-401 was dinosaured? I'll get some clarity before I deal with the section above. *MARK* ]
Introduction
Years ago when the Jazz++ project first came to my attention, using it with Linux on the PC was a much different proposition to what is possible today on this platform/OS. Although it would be entirely possible to create a MIDI score with jazz, (in the same way this text is being produced with a text-editor), the whole point of the exercise would be to compose a MIDI score you could actually hear.
Back then with Linux, making sound via MIDI applications meant having MIDI *hardware*. This may have taken the form of a MIDI adapter plugged in the PC's serial port or soundcard gameport (in MPU-401 mode), with a real world MIDI instrument(s) attached to that, or else a MIDI capable soundcard with a hardware based MIDI sound synthesis chip to make the actual sound. (so called 'MIDI/synth' capable soundcards) In that latter case, the soundcard necessarily had to be supported by Linux drivers, and in that respect these drivers were more than likely using the now deprecated 'OSS' sound system modules.
Things have changed. The x86 based hardwares have become faster and cheaper, Linux has grown and matured as an operating system, and likewise Free software has multiplied and proliferated around the world giving rise to the creation of a great many new software applications. Along the way, the venerable 'OSS' sound system drivers were replaced with the 'Advanced Linux Sound Architecture' (ALSA) drivers and API.
The result of these many advances and changes over time, means Linux users are no longer constrained by the need of having actual MIDI capable hardware or a MIDI/synth capable soundcard, to obtain good sound production with MIDI applications like Jazz++. Instead of having one or more hardware sound synthesis chips (be they on a soundcard or in a MIDI musical instrument) to produce the sound(s), we can now use a software application to achieve the same ends, and many folks loosely refer to these software applications as being 'softsynths'.
For many years now, users with Windows on their PC have had a distinct advantage over Linux users on the PC, because virtually every sound card (and/or 'onboard' sound chip) typically ships with proprietary Windows drivers that enable the use of that hardware as a 'softsynth' in conjunction with the underlying Windows sound API supports. In effect, Windows users could come to the website, download Jazz++ and install it, and be making noise in under 2 minutes with very little or no effort. If only users of other platforms/OS' could have it this easy - hopefully this documentation will help bridge the gap, when using Jazz++ on this platform with MIDI softsynth implementations.
One of the main benefits of using MIDI/synth based soundcards (and this is true for all platforms), is that it removes the system overhead of having a softsynth running -- the MIDI data output of Jazz++ is sent directly to the hardware MIDI/synth chip on the soundcard, and it takes care of generating the actual sound (and sound data) itself. This allows the kernel to be closer to 'real time' when using Jazz++, because the system CPU isn't having to 'play' the sound, and render that sound, all at the same time. A good analogy, would be to compare all this to the difference it makes to system -graphics- performance, when you add a dedicated 3D graphics-card with it's own onboard processor unit. Not only are the graphics greatly improved, the system responsiveness is greatly improved.
Adding a dedicated MIDI/synth soundcard to your system helps for exactly the same reasons here - it frees up your system CPU so it can do other tasks. In Linux, drivers for more than a few of these types of MIDI/synth soundcards are already available, and are a standard part of the linux kernel tree. Most linux distributions include so called 'hardware detection' softwares, which should automatically discover your MIDI/synth soundcard (if supported), and configure your system's ALSA drivers accordingly. Sometimes these routines do not detect certain hardware cards correctly (or at all) in some situations, however it is beyond the scope of the Jazz++ manual to help people with problems of this nature.
The correct place to get help with specific ALSA / soundcard related problems, can be found by visiting the ALSA website at ;
The lastest list of ALSA supported MIDI/synth soundcards, is always available inside the current alsa-driver source tarball available from the above website. Once you unpack that archive, read the file ;
alsa-driver-1.0.1x/doc/SOUNDCARDS
There you can see if your MIDI/synth soundcard is currently supported under ALSA and linux. Some MIDI/synth soundcards require firmware being loaded before the card will work - most all of these kinds of soundcards require some kind of helper application called a 'loader' to copy various instrument files and data (for example 'soundfont' files) into the working RAM of the MIDI/synth chip. Documentation regarding these things and help with configuring ALSA itself can be found in the same alsa-driver archive ;
alsa-driver-1.0.1x/alsa-kernel/Documentation/
Another good repository of current knowledge regarding linux sound drivers overall (not just the ALSA sound drivers) can be found at ;
http://linux-sound.org/drivers.html
Once you have your MIDI/synth soundcard up and running, it will appear in Jazz++ configuration dialogs just like any other MIDI device connected to the computer running Jazz++. Using a hardware based MIDI/synth soundcard, is very much like using a software based 'softsynth' as described below - you still have to decide which soundfonts to use, and which bank to load them into. Hardware or software, they are both MIDI instruments, and share very common ways of getting things done at this level.
In the early stages of the current Jazz++'s revitalization, developers, users and testers alike of the Jazz++ source code used softsynths. One of the softsynth setups used by the Jazz++ developers and testers in Linux, is as I describe below, which uses JACK, FLUIDSYNTH and QSYNTH. A similar setup should also work on the Mac running Mac OSX.
Essentially, -any- ALSA based, MIDI capable softsynth setup should work with Jazz++ in linux. I've already tested a few that seem to work fine. However, it is useful to know how to setup the same softsynth kit that the Jazz++ developers use for testing and improving the Jazz++ code itself, and this is why documentation of this softsynth setup comes first.
Overview of a typical Linux softsynth setup
Abstract:
Softsynth setups in Linux are comprised of a number of software applications which work together to form a virtual machine that emulates hardware based MIDI/synth devices. The so formed virtual machine can be easily broken down into it's individual parts, to better understand how the components 'expose' themselves to the user ;
The ALSA part -- forms virtual MIDI and real audio paths for the other parts of the virtual machine to communicate across. Allows PCM data rendered by the virtual machine to be realized as an analogue audio signal at the line outputs of the soundcard hardware.
The JACK part -- a low-latency sound server. Forms both a virtual MIDI patch-bay and a virtual audio patch-bay to control and define how the virtual machine parts interconnect with and across the virtual and real machine paths formed by the ALSA part.
The FLUIDSYNTH part -- the virtual MIDI synthesizer itself. It accepts valid MIDI data as input, and renders that data into PCM data output, as determined by sound/instrument data contained in a 'SoundFont' file.
The QSYNTH part -- this forms the virtual control panel of the virtual synthesizer part. Essentially, this comprises a GUI to easily allow the user to change/control the virtual synthesizer itself, add/remove SoundFont files, define bank settings, and adjust other working parameters of the virtual synthesizer itself.
Additionally, the QJACKCTL software provides a GUI visualization of the virtual MIDI/audio patch-bays formed by the JACK part, allowing the user a quick and easy way to 'hook it all up' as it were, in any particular configuration they desire.
For the sake of accuracy with this overview, it is worth noting that Jazz++ itself is a virtual machine - it is a software emulation of -hardware- based MIDI sequencers that were in common use years ago, so called 'step sequencers'. Jazz++ is of course much more capable than these old hardware sequencers I speak of, and more closely resembles a modern day Digial Audio Workstation. In their day, old MIDI sequencers were little more than 'drum machines' triggering sound events on a MIDI or otherwise connected 'tip-and -ring patch cord configured' analogue synthesizer.
Also note here, the virtual machine softsynth described in the overview above, lacks one obvious component - the INPUT part. It is basically a virtual MIDI synthesizer with all the bells, knobs and whistles, but without a keyboard or anything else 'driving' it. Jazz++ is that part. The MIDI data produced by Jazz++ is that MIDI input data the FLUIDSYNTH part accepts.
Jazz++ can itself accept valid MIDI data from either the virtual and/or 'real world' MIDI domains. This means, you can connect a real MIDI synthesizer keyboard to Jazz++ as a MIDI data INPUT part, and record notes played on that with Jazz++. Equally, you could connect the same external MIDI keyboard as an INPUT part to FLUIDSYNTH and use the virtual MIDI softsynth to replay the notes you are playing instead of the synthesizer's own hardware kit. Other combinations are possible as well.
Finally, there are other virtual machines in software that can be used as valid MIDI data INPUT parts here, such as the program VKEYBD, which is a virtual onscreen MIDI keyboard GUI with keys you click on with your mouse -- all these MIDI devices be they virtual machines or not, can interact and interconnect with each other, and thus possibly form very complex MIDI sound production environments that traverse and inter-operate across the software virtual and real hardware MIDI domains.
Practical:
Many people have troubles getting these softsynths installed and working properly on Linux based systems. The Jazz++ developers have also noted, that dependant on just which Linux distribution you use, (and what release version that might be), also dictates just how easy or difficult this process might be to complete.
If you have any problems with the following instructions, please check the documentation Appendix for possible solutions relative to the Linux distribution you might be using.
For some Linux distributions, the whole process can be as straight forward and simple as installing the needed software packages from your Linux distribution's installation discs and/or online package repository.
Still work in progress, come back soon!!
JAZZ++ supports the windows MIDI / audio driver interface. A driver for your MIDI interface card or sound card must be installed before JAZZ++ can play / record MIDI or audio.
Provided such a MIDI driver is installed in your system, JAZZ++ currently supports 32-bit platforms.