KMid is a midi/karaoke player, that uses /dev/sequencer to play a midi file through an external synth, GUS , AWE and FM cards . At the same time that the song is played, lyrics are displayed in a beautiful window so that the user can sing or just follow the letter :-).
You can open a song by pressing File | Open ... , or by dragging the file
from a kfm window and dropping it in the kmid window. You can also pass a
song to kmid in the command line. There's yet another way to open a file,
it is by selecting it from the currently selected collection, that is,
from the combo box under the time bar.
Hey that's easy, let's go to more difficult questions ! :-) ...
You have three ways to start playing a song, by selecting it from the menu in Song|Play , by clicking on the play button of the toolbar, or by pressing the Space key of the keyboard. Songs will automatically start playing if you drop it in KMid's window
There are two methods to store lyrics in a song, by using "Text events" or "lyrics events", some songs use the first, some the second, some use both of them, and some don't include lyrics :-) . KMid lets you choose which events to display, and even better, it has an option to automagically select the type of events that a song uses, so that you don't have to change the type manually.
Start playing the song and then press with the middle button of your mouse on the slider
Just ask me if you are interested :-)
A collection is a list of midi files that you put in a set, and which
are played sequencially . You can create new collections from the organize
collections dialog, which you can open by selecting "Collections | Organize..."
in the menu.
To create a new collection click on the "New" button and enter the name you
want it to have. To remove a collection just select it and press on the
"Delete" button. There is a collection that you cannot delete, it's the
Temporary collection, which holds songs you want to hear without adding them
to any of the other collections.
You can select a song to play of the current collection from the combo
box under the time bar, or from the organize dialog. To change the current
collection, select it from the dialog.
Keep in mind that the Temporary Collection contents are not saved to disk,
so if you want to save it, you should click on the "Copy" button to copy
it to another name.
To add a song to a collection, just open the organize dialog, select the
collection and click on the "Add" button, then select the file you want
to add.
There is another method, if you turn on the "autoAdd to collection" option
from the "Collections" menu, every song you open or drop to kmid, will be
automatically added to the collection.
If you don't want this to happen, turn it off, and then, when you open
a song, the current collection will be set to the Temporary Collection, and
the opened song added to it.
If you have installed kmid from a binary package, awe support may not be built into the kmid binaries, so you should download the sources and compile them. If you have already done that, then it may be a bug :-), so mail me.
If you have a synthesizer that doesn't complain with the General Midi standard, and you play a midi file with it, you will hear a piano playing the track that should be played by a flute and a drum playing the track that should be played by a piano. So you need some method to map sounds to different ones, this is what a Midi Mapper does. You can specify what values have to be passed to your synth so that it emulates a GM synth.
There isn't a graphical tool to configure it (yet) so you should
edit the map file by hand :-(.
Once you have done a map, select Options | Midi Setup ... and press on the
Browse button to select the map file you have created.
Another method is to add two lines like these to
~/.kde/share/config/kmidrc :
[Midimapper]
Loadfile=**absolute path to map file**
So if you, like me, have a Yamaha PSS790 you are of luck, just use the included file . But if you have a different synthesizer that isn't General Midi compliant, then you will have to make your own mapper
To do so, you should copy the file yamaha790.map to work on it without changing the original . Suppose that it is mysynth.map (though it should be "model of your synth".map) . Then you should edit the kmidrc file as above, pointing Loadfile to this copy on which you will work. Now you are ready to start.
... but I'm not, this version is not finished so I don't think that anybody will notice a small lack of help ;-) So please, follow your instinct and if you have any question, send it to me at : antlarr@arrakis.es
And remember three things :
1.- You should encourage the author to continue working on kmid,
because he has better things to do than programming kmid if nobody uses
it :-)
2.- You can download the latest version at :
http://www.arrakis.es/~rlarrosa/kmid.html