Rosegarden

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Resources

Rosegarden is a music composition and editing environment based around a MIDI sequencer that features a rich understanding of music notation and includes basic support for digital audio.

Installation

Emerge

root #emerge --ask media-sound/rosegarden

Configuration

Kernel

KERNEL Enable sequencer support

Device Drivers --->
  <M> Sound card support Search for <code>CONFIG_SOUND</code> to find this item. --->
    <M> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Search for <code>CONFIG_SND</code> to find this item. --->
      <M> Sequencer support Search for <code>CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER</code> to find this item.

Ensure the snd_seq_midi module and its dependencies are loaded at boot by adding a file seq_midi.conf in the /etc/modules-load.d/ directory, creating the latter if necessary:

FILE seq_midi.conf

snd_seq_midi

Software synth

Install a software synth that can be used by Rosegarden. Qsynth is a Qt GUI frontend to FluidSynth (media-sound/fluidsynth):

root #emerge --ask media-sound/qsynth

Install a soundfont that can be used by the software synth, e.g. the Fluid Release 3 (Fluid R3) General MIDI soundfont:

root #emerge --ask media-sound/fluid-soundfont

Configure the synth to use the relevant soundfont and audio driver. For example, in Qsynth, the soundfont can be specified via Settings -> Soundfonts, and the relevant Fluid R3 file is /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2; and PipeWire can be specified as the audio driver via Settings -> Audio.

Usage

Before starting Rosegarden, ensure the software synth (e.g. Qsynth) is running:

user $qsynth

Start Rosegarden:

user $rosegarden

If not using JACK, but instead using e.g. PipeWire, ensure that the following Rosegarden settings, available via Edit -> Audio, are disabled:

Make default JACK connections for audio outputs
Make default JACK connections for audio inputs
Start JACK automatically