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Masanao Izumo
Tuukka Toivonen
Read Me
==============================================================================
TiMidity++ -- MIDI to WAVE converter and player
Masanao Izumo
<mo@goice.co.jp>
Jan.5.1999
version 1.0.0 or lator
==============================================================================
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
Original version of this program is written by Tuuka Tiovonen <tt@cgs.fi>
until TiMidity 0.2i. (he discontinued to develop it because of his busy
work) And Masanao Izumo <mo@goice.co.jp> and other people has begun to
hack it, then we decided TiMidity++ officially release.
TiMidity has originally been a converter that converts MIDI files to WAV
audio file. But now TiMidity++ is not only a converter but also the
real-time player that can play a MIDI file in real time. TiMidity does
not requires external MIDI instrument module to play MIDI file, performs
with software power.
TiMidity++ uses GUS/patch (Glavis Ultrasound) as the voice data to play.
And it can also handle SoundFont data for voice data.
*Features of TiMidity++:
- Plays MIDI files without external MIDI instruments
- Converts MIDI file to various formatted audio file
(ex. wav, au, etc..)
- Uses GUS/patch and SoundFont for voice data
- Displays some of information of Music data during the playing
- Various user interface are available (ncurses, motif, xaw, etc..)
- Plays the MIDI file via network
- Plays the MIDI file in archive file
- Plays not only SMF file but also MOD, RCP/R36/G18/G36
- Can handle 32 channel data
- Can handle user interfaces as dynamic link modules
- Can display the sound spectrogram
- Automatically detects the mode of MIDI file (GM/GS/XG)
- Automatically detects drum channels (GS/XG)
- Trace playing
- Low load
- The following MIDI events are supported:
NoteOn/Off, KeyPressure, Program, ChannelPressure, Pitchwheel,
ToneBank, ModulationWheel, MainVolume, Panning, Expression,
Sustain, Portamento, DataEntry, ReverbEffect, ChorusEffect,
RPN+/-, NRPN, RPN, AllSoundsOff, ResetControllers, AllNotesOff,
Mono/Poly Part, RandomPan, KeyShift,
TempoChange, Lyric, InsertText, KARAOKE-Part(@KMIDI),
MasterVolume, MIDI-Reset, SystemExclusiveMessages
(NOTE: Features that are Japanese local are not described in this file for simplify.
Please refer to timidity.1/timidity.cfg.1 for these features )
*Usage:
-format: timidity [options] midi-filenames
-option:
-A amplification
Multiplies the master volume by amplification %.
Default value is 70%. The grater number of amplification
makes louder sounds. Range of the amplification is from 0 to 800%.
-a Turns on anti-aliasing. Samples are run through a
low-pass filter before playing, which reduces aliasing
noise at low resampling frequencies.
-B fragments
For the Linux / FreeBSD / OSS / Windows sound
driver, selects the number of buffer fragments
in interactive mode. Increasing the number of
fragments may reduce choppiness when many proc-
esses are running. It will make TiMidity++ seem to
respond sluggishly to fast forward, rewind, and
volume controls, and it will throw the status
display off sync. Specify a fragments of 0 to use
the maximum number of fragments available.
-b mode
Enables pseudo surround effects. mode parameters
are the following:
-bl Sounds are comes mainly from left.
-br Sounds are comes mainly from right.
-bb Sounds are comes left and right in random.
-bc Disables this feature.
-C ratio
Sets the ratio of sampling and control frequencies.
This determines how often envelopes are recalcu-
lated -- small ratios yield better quality but use
more CPU time.
-c filename
Reads an extra configuration file.
-D channel
Marks channel as a drum channel. If channel is
negative, channel -channel is marked as an instru-
mental channel. If channel is 0, all channels are
marked as instrumental.
-d dir Specifies the directory contains installed dynamic-
link interface modules.
-e Make TiMidity++ evil. On Win32 version, this
increases the task priority by one. It can give
better playback when you switch tasks at the
expense of slowing all other tasks down.
-E mode
Set TiMidity++ extend modes. The following modes are
available (capitalized switch means disable this
feature):
w/W Enables/disables modulation controlling.
p/P Enables/disables portamento controlling.
v/V Enables/disables NRPM vibration.
r/R Enables/disables reverb effect controlling.
c/C Enables/disables chorus effect controlling.
c ratio
Sets the chorus effect value of all channels
to ratio.
s/S Enables/disables channel pressure control-
ling.
t/T Enables/disables tracing all Text Meta
Events.
o/O Accepts/rejects pronouncing multiple same
notes.
m HH Sets the manufacture ID to HH ( HH is the
two hex-digits ).
In addition if HH is GM/gm , GS/gs or XG/xg
that are same as to 41 , 43 and 7e.
B bank Sets the bank number of all channels to
bank.
-F Turns on fast panning to accommodate MIDI pieces
that expect panning adjustments to affect notes
that are already playing. Some files that don't
expect this have a habit of flipping balance
rapidly between left and right, which can cause
severe popping when the -F flag is used.
In current versions of TiMidity++ this option are
toggled.
-f Toggles fast envelopes. This option makes TiMidity++
do fast but the release time of the notes are
shorten.
-g sec Open the Sound-Spectrogram window. This option is
activated if the system has support for X Window
System.
-h Show the help message.
-I voice[/c]
Uses the program number as the default instrument.
Any Program Change events in MIDI files will over-
ride this option.
If the voice followed by /c the default program
number of the channel c is specified by the voice.
-i interface
Selects the user interfaces from the compiled-in
alternatives. interface must be begun with one of
the supported interface identifiers. Run TiMidity++
with the -h option to see a list. The following
identifiers may be available:
-id dumb interface
-in ncurses interface(old version)
-iN NEW ncurses interface
-is slang interface
-ia X Ahtena Widget interface
-ik Tcl/Tk interface
-im motif interface
-iT vt100 interface
-ie Emacs interface (press M-x timidity on
Emacs)
-ii skin interface
Environment variable TIMIDITY_SKIN must be
specified with path of the skin data(com-
pressed data are also available).
Interface options
Option characters may be added immediately
after the interface identifier. The follow-
ing options are recognized:
v Increases verbosity level. This option is
cumulative.
q Decreases verbosity level. This option is
cumulative.
t Toggles trace mode. In trace mode, TiMid-
ity attempts to display its current state
in real time. For the Linux sound driver,
this is accomplished through the use of
short DMA buffer fragments, which can be
tuned via the -B option.
-j This option enables to load the patch file while
playing.
-L directory
Adds directory to the library path. Patch, config-
uration, and MIDI files are searched along this
path. Directories added last will be searched
first. Note that the current directory is always
searched first before the library path.
-n degree
Enables Noise Shaping Filter. degree is from 0(min)
to 4(max).
-O mode
Selects the output mode from the compiled-in alter-
natives. mode must begin with one of the supported
output mode identifiers. Run TiMidity++ with the -h
option to see a list. The following identifiers
should be available in all versions:
-Od Output via audio device (default)
-Or Generate raw waveform data. All format
options are supported. Common formats
include:
-OrU uLaw
-Or1sl 16-bit signed linear PCM
-Or8ul 8-bit unsigned linear PCM
-Ou Generate Sun Audio (au) file
-Oa Generate AIFF file
-Ow Generate RIFF WAVE format output. If output
is directed to a non-seekable file, or if
TiMidity++ is interrupted before closing the
file, the file header will contain
0xFFFFFFFF in the RIFF and data block length
fields. The popular sound conversion util-
ity sox is able to read such malformed
files, so you can pipe data directly to sox
for on-the-fly conversion to other formats.
Format options
Option characters may be added immediately
after the mode identifier to change the out-
put format. The following options are rec-
ognized:
8 8-bit sample width
1 6-bit sample width
l Linear encoding
U uLaw (8-bit) encoding
M Monophonic
S Stereo
s Signed output
u Unsigned output
x Byte-swapped output
Note that some options have no effect on some
modes. For example, you cannot generate a byte-
swapped RIFF WAVE file, or force uLaw output on a
Linux PCM device.
-o filename
Place output on filename, which may be a file,
device, or HP-UX audio server, depending on the
output mode selected with the -O option. The spe-
cial filename ``-'' causes output to be placed on
stdout.
-p voices
Sets polyphony (maximum number of simultaneous
voices) to voices.
-Q channel
Causes channel to be quiet. If channel is nega-
tive, channel -channel is turned back on. If chan-
nel is 0, all channels are turned on.
-R value
Enables Pseudo Reverb Mode. value are the follow-
ing:
0 Long slight release
1 Long loud release
2 Short release
3 No release
-r This options causes another reverb effects.
-s frequency
Sets the resampling frequency(Hz or kHz). Not all
sound devices are capable of all frequencies -- an
approximate frequency may be selected, depending on
the implementation.
-U Instructs TiMidity++ to unload all instruments from
memory between MIDI files. This can reduce memory
requirements when playing many files in succession.
-w mode
Extend mode for MS-Windows. The following options are
available:
-wr Use rcpcv.dll to play RCP/R36 files.
-wR Not use rcpcv.dll (default).
-W mode
Play with WRD file. mode are the follwing:
x X Window System mode
t TTY mode
d Dumb mode (outputs WRD events directry)
- not traces WRD
WRD mode must be with trace mode(option -i?t) or timing of
WRD events are terrible.
-WR[opts]
Sets WRD options:
a1=b1,a2=b2, ...
Sets the WRD options. an is the name of option and
bn is the value.
-WRd=n
Emulates timing(@WAIT,@WMODE) bugs of the original
MIMPI player. The emulate level is following:
-WRd=0
not emulates any bugs of MIMPI
-WRd=1
only emulates some bugs (default)
-WRd=2
emulates all known bugs
-WRF=filename
Uses filename as WRD file only
(input-file-name):r.wrd (like csh syntax) is not
available.
-WRf=filename
Uses filername as WRD file.
-x string
Configure TiMidity++ by the string. The format of
string is the same as timidity.cfg.
For example:
-x'bank 0\n0 violin.pat'
Sets the instrument number 0 to violin.
*Play the MIDI file in archive file:
TiMidity++ can play a file contained in various archive file. The
following archive format are supported:
- tar (*.tar)
- tar + gzip'ed (*.tar.gz, *.tgz)
- zip file (*.zip)
- lzh file (*.lzh)
If you want to specify a certain MIDI file in the archive, describe
the #<MIDI-filename> expression following to the archive name. The
expressions after the # is allowed to use regular expressions
(case insensitive). For example:
timidity'file.zip#file.mid'
Plays file.mid in file.zip
timidity'file.lzh#*.mid'
Plays any files that match the regular
expression '*.mid' in file.zip
timidity'file.tgz#*'
This expression is same as timidity
'file.tgz'
*Play the MIDI file via network
TiMidity++ can access a file via networks. Supported network protocol is
HTTP, FTP and NNTP(NetNews). And specify these as
http://foo, ftp://foo, and news://foo respectively.
An archived file also accessible via network.
On NNTP access, if you specify newsgroup in the message-ID field
TiMidity++ plays all MIDI files posted in specified newsgroup. These MIDI
files must be encoded in uuencode or the Multipart encoded uuencode /
base64 / hexbin.
*Availability:
The latest release of TiMidity++ are available in these sites:
http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/timidity/
(unix version, and developer's site)
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~gb7t-ngm/timidity/
(Macintosh version)
http://www2.off.ne.jp/~dai/timidity/timidity-izumo.html
(Windows version)
Now, the original release of Tuukka Toivonen is discontinued. If you
want to get the original, please download from follow.
http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/timidity/dist/timidity-0.2i.tar.gz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document is translated from original README.jp (written in Japanese).
Translator: NAGANO Daisuke <breeze_geo@geocities.co.jp>
(And modified by Masanao Izumo <mo@goice.co.jp>)
If you have any comment for this translation, please tell me.
