KMid

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Simple Karaoke or getting the best from your Midi Synthesizer!

KMid is part of Extragear, so it does not necessarily ship on the same date as KDE SC. The latest stable release is 2.4.0, published on August 15th, 2010.

So what is the current status?

Currently implemented

Here are some major features implemented in KMid:

• MIDI and Karaoke files are supported.
• Playback to external hardware MIDI devices.
• Allow to use software synths as well, like Timidity++ and QSynth/FluidSynth.
• Tempo and volume controls.
• Added a pitch (transpose) control.
• Rhythm view (visual metronome).
• Configurable character encoding, font and color for lyrics.
• Playlists (song collections).
• MIDI Mapper, translating General Midi events into other events understood by some synthesizers.
• Channel window, with solo/muting controls and instrument selectors.
• Piano player window, using VMPK artwork and technology.
• Konqueror integration.
• Runs in Linux, Windows and Mac OSX.

What is not yet ready?

• Multiple MIDI output ports. Currently plays to a single output port.

ChangeLog

2010-08-15 Release 2.4.0

• New kmid_part. This component can be integrated easily in any KDE program, for instance Konqueror can play MIDI files with it.
• New DBus interfaces
• libkmidbackend has some new methods, version bumped to 1.0.0
• New and updated translations
• Assigned default shortcuts to keyboard media keys
• Fix in vumeter widget: drawing errors and CPU usage
• Fixes in all backends for initial MIDI program changes
• Fix in ALSA sequencer backend: bug 242912 (requires Drumstick >= 0.4)    

2010-06-12 Release 2.3.1

• Fixes in ALSA sequencer backend: bugs 240391 and 240394
• New and updated translations since the last release

2010-04-26 Release 2.3.0

• New Mac OSX and Windows backends
• Fixes in ALSA sequencer backend:
  • don't set an explicit output pool size, using the default size instead.
  • unconditionally reload MIDI devices before checking the available outputs.

2010-03-14 Release 2.2.2

• Fixed program termination, stopping active notes.
• Fixed a crash when shuffling an empty playlist.
• Fixed creation of examples and system songs bookmarks at runtime, for file open dialog places. Bookmarks are created only when files are found.
• Fixed saving the initial MIDI connection dialog selection.
• Replaced the initial MIDI connection dialog by a new one enabling online help access, and better design.
• The last directory used in several open/save dialogs is now saved between sessions.
• Drumstick libraries v0.3 are needed.

2010-02-08 Release 0.2.1

• Automatic detection of text encodings for lyrics
• Get channel labels from SMF metadata (track names)
• Pianola window: added labels showing the channel names
• Check the runtime ALSA driver version for advanced MIDI ports
• Patch from Kevin Kofler adding a "pulseaudio" option for TiMidity++
• Fixed a memory leak
• Fixed command line play lists handling
• Fixed settings dialog: soft-synth audio output combos and apply button

2010-01-27 Release 0.2

• External soft-synths can be automatically launched at startup. A new page including FluidSynth and TiMidity++ settings has been added to the "Configure kmid2" dialog.
• Each channel may be labeled in a text field besides each channel number.
• New "lock instrument" button in the channels window to override the song's predefined instruments.
• Settings per song can be saved and automatically retrieved, including text encoding, volume, pitch, rhythm, channel labels and fixed instruments.
• The sample songs location is added to the places navigation panel in the open dialog.
• Several other usability enhancements. Many thanks to the KDE Usability Team for the suggestions.

2009-12-30 Release 0.1.1

• Recent files menu
• Highlight trimmed syllables, ignoring leading and trailing white spaces
• Allow stop in paused state
• Synchronized with lib. aseqmm 0.2.0
• Assorted fixes

2009-11-30 Release 0.1.0

Demo

See KMid in action in this Screencast

Notes for usage

• If you use Timidity++ as a software synthesizer, you may have to install GUS patches or sound fonts. You can find them at freepats
• Fluidsynth is an alternative. It has a helpful gui called QSynth. For soundfonts, try General User GS.
• For more information and options, there is a tutorial available.

Download

• Source packages

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmid2/files/

• openSUSE Build Service - Search packages

http://software.opensuse.org

• Gentoo ebuild

http://packages.gentoo.org

• Arch Linux

(AUR) http://aur.archlinux.org

• Mandriva and Fedora users: available at the official repositories of your Linux distribution.

Resources

• Some sample .kar and .mid files are installed with the application. Others are available from http://www.mididb.com/ and http://midikaraoke.com/songdir/ . There is a useful search engine at http://www.vanbasco.com/midisearch.html
• If you are interested in building for testing, please read the README
• The source code repository for testing and development is available from here

Note

This status report has been updated on 15th August 2010