How can I make Rosegarden to make any kind of sound

[wilcal]

I'm testing this on M3B4 but I've seen the same thing
on Mageia 2.

I'm researching Mageia for a friend for a midi sequencer.
Rosegarden is one of the more popular Linux sequencers and
is in the Mageia Repo. It's a long but simple install with
only one selection then a whole bunch of files being installed.
The Rosegarden icon then appears in the Sound & Video launcher
and opens quite nicely but also displays a window indicating
that the Jack server needs to be running. The MCC Software
Management tool tells me that jackit is installed by default.
But try as I may I can't make Rosegarden make any kind of sound.
Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

[ghmitch]

I used Rosegarden years ago when it "just worked". I really don't know what changed, but around kernel 2.4, as I recall, it just stopped working. I has to be that either it was previously synthesizing the midi via software and that option was removed or that there was some DRM related change in the way sound fonts are handled. It may be that the older cheap sound cards had primitive sound fonts installed but that now they can't do that anymore because of patent issues? This is all speculation on my part, but SOMETHING serioiusly changed because all of a sudden it just stopped working. The advice I have received has generally been to get an upscale sound card and BUY the sound fonts for it in addition to the card itself. This sounds like IP issues to me. Before 2.4 or so, it just worked out of the box. At the same time the "hardware midi" option disappeared like magic from other midi applications. - George

[wilcal]

I used Rosegarden years ago when it "just worked". I really don't know what changed, but around kernel 2.4, as I recall, it just stopped working....

Many thanks, that's greatly helps me. It also does not work "out of the box" on Mint either.
Something I just don't understand. Maybe has something to do with Jack.

[ghmitch]

Jack has its own configuration options and gets fairll complex. I suspect that if you don't have a fancy sound card with appropriate sound fonts, you will have to use jack to route the midi stream through a software synthesizer like timidity. I have never been able to figure it out, although it has never been very high on my priority list. - George

[wilcal]

Jack has its own configuration options and gets fairll complex. I suspect that if you don't have a fancy sound card with appropriate sound fonts....

Yep

[wintpe]

simplest option here to make it realy work well, is to get either an audigigy or a soundbalster 5.1 card off ebay for about £25 pounds.

both of these carry a emu4k dsp chip, that when added to a soundfont can product professional sounding samples.

start up jack and point it at the soundblaster.

startup rosegarden, and it works realy well.

alternatives , are softsynths or roland sound modules, hooked up via usb to midi cables.

all of these are significantly cheaper that you may think, for example i got a roland jv-2080 for just a couple of hundred.

some softsynths can perform as well as hardware sound modules, if you cpu has enough grunt.

however not sure how good free stuff is.

these used to cost £1200 or more.

[ghmitch]

One thing I can add is that when it comes to midi on Linux, Rosegarden is by far the best application on the face of the earth. There is absolutely nothing else like it in my experience. And thanks wintpe for the tip on sound cards. I REALLY REALLY miss Rosegarden which I used often in the kernel 2.2 days. - George

[wintpe]

rosegarden has also been ported to windows, and is in alpha 4 version.

lookout sonar, logic pro, cubase....

[nekroluma]

you can't in mageia they have implemented pulseaudio which is death for alsa and jack, to their credit theres is the best implementation of pulse and the only linux distro i use where pulse has not been irradicated. however energyxt has a linux port and blows hosegarden in the weeds. its no acid, but as microsoft is death for creativity and freedom you'll love it. OSS has substantialy superior fidelity and is why i use mageia it is the only distro that worked with oss4 first time. i have gone through nearly a 100 distros to get to this ubuntu studio 13 can be made to work though you loose all else. if mageia can get jack functioning that would be wonderful then qtracktor could be used, and is far superior to hosegarden which is a cpu hog.