Hi Gerald, I just noticed this new website and forum. That's great.

I see there's a .deb file which I think corresponds to my version of Mint. So I'm going to give guitar-midi another try using that.

I'm curious if anyone else here is running Mint 22.3 (which I think is Ubuntu 2.04). Actually is there any way to list the users of this forum? It looks pretty new so I'm assuming there aren't very many :-)

Anyway, really good to see the website and forum!

Hi Mike Witt the forum is building up very slow, there are not so many users yet. I hope it works for you on mint. Otherwise I can compile a mint version.

Thanks for registering

I think I'm making progress (with guitar-midi). Previously it just crashed as soon as I tried to do anything. But now that I've installed the .deb file that doesn't happen anymore. I can add it as a plugin to either Ardour or Carla and see it there. I think my problem now is that I don't know how to hook it up. For example, in Carla, in the patch panel, I can hook my input (guitar) to the input of guitar-midi, but I can't get the "Midi out" from guitar-midi to connect to anything. I'm assuming that it wants to connect to the input of a synthesizer, but I can't seem to do that. Also, in the video I've just watched, guitar-midi has an "events out" but on my screen it just has a "midi out."

One other thing. When I go to the carla rack and bring up the configuration menu for guitar-midi, everything under settings, audio, and midi is greyed out. So I guess that means it's not really active somehow?

In Ardour (which is what I really want to use), I set up an audio track, then insert guitar-midi, then insert "reasonable synth." But I can't figure out where to go from there. And maybe that's not even the right way to start?

I've tried these things with straight ALSA and with Jack running.

Is there a way to post images here?

hi @Mike Witt , which version of guitarmidi-lv2 are you running? Which distro? Which samplerate and buffersize, are you trying to connect a hardware synth or a software synth?

there are two midi subsystems, alsa and jack midi. On systems with pipewire these are unified. On older systems you can use a2jmidid:

a2jmidid -e

This converts between the two systems and you can connect your hardware synths to GuitarMidi-lv2. Hope this helps.

I installed guitarmidi-lv2_3.2_ubuntu2404_amd64.deb. As I mentioned, I tried both Alsa and Jack. I was trying to use the synth plugins that come with Ardour and Carla, like "reasonable synth." Should those work? I also tried running fluidsynth (outside of Ardour) but I couldn't figure out how to connect to that (which normally I can do with Jack).

I guess if I could figure out how to post an image, I could provide a better description of what's happening.

As comparison, when I load a regular midi track into ardour, then I insert something like reasonableSynth on that track and it plays.

I suspect that I'm just not hooking it up right. Maybe if I had a picture of the connections it would help.

I added support for images in the comments

Solution for ardour9

The issue is that for audio tracks, ardour only has a pure audio signal path so when you load GuitarMidi-lv2 and Reasonable Synth you get

The two plugins are not connected. The reason is that plugins in ardour are loaded in a sort of container, and in this case the containers only have audio ins/out. The fix is easy:

• right-click on guitarmidi and click on Pin Connections:

• in the Pin Connections window activate Manual Config and add a Midi Out:

• Connect the red output of Instance #1 to the newly created Midi Out

• Ardour now connects GuitarMidi-lv2 with the synth

I hope this helps

FYI this seems to be common with all the DAWs I tested, including Ableton. A plugin that takes audio and outputs midi is not common at all and the daws dont handle that situation automatically. The only DAW that figures this out that I've tried is Bitwig.

Regarding Carla crash. I cant reproduce the crash

Yes, it looks like that was just what I needed. I followed those directions and now I'm able to hook up guitar-midi to reasonable-synth. So that appears to be working now in Ardour. Just out of curiosity, does guitar-midi itself have a way to set the midi instrument. Or do I need to find a synth plugin what will let me set it? (Any recommendations, by the way, for synths?)

WRT Carla, this build is not crashing. That was the older one. I'm guessing that my problem with Carla is similar to what was happening with Ardour. Here's my Carla Patch Bay:

The problem is that I can't drag the MidiOut from Guitar Midi to the events-in of Reasonable Synth. So I'm thinking that there is a similar trick needed as the one that made Ardour work. The video I watched showed an "events out" from guitar midi, which I don't have.

By the way, I don't have a lot to spend on music stuff, but I would like to make another small contribution. I found someplace before In github to do it. Is that still the right place, or should contributions go on this new site somewhere?

Quick Followup: I did find the sponsor link, and I found a good synth, which seems to be working well with Guitar-Midi on Ardour. Still hope to get some more info on Carla.

By the way, is there any way to change how long before you get logged out of the Forum? Twice now it's logged me out when I was typing in a post and I got a "not authenticated" message when I tried to post it.

It still looked like I was logged in, but I had to log out and in again before I could actually post.

hi @Mike Witt Yes, GuitarMidi (as well as ArtiString) dont have builtin synthesizers. This is intended. I suggest the fabulous Odin2

synth. It is a behemoth but has a lot of presets. Or synths include ZynAdd and the products from u-he especially Tyrell

GuitarMidi-lv2 in Carla on Linux Mint 22.3

I found the issue, carla runs in patch mode by default in linux mint. Change to continuous rack mode:

restart carla. Order counts: first load GuitarMidi followed by the synth. If this still doesnt work, i will guide you to set up a pro-audio setup with JACK audio. That works for sure!

"By the way, is there any way to change how long before you get logged out of the Forum? Twice now it's logged me out when I was typing in a post and I got a "not authenticated" message when I tried to post it.

It still looked like I was logged in, but I had to log out and in again before I could actually post."

I'll check that

I fixed the issues about the website, just tell me if you still have issues

Thanks for the tip on Odin2!

On Carla, could you post a picture of your patchbay? When I switch to continuous mode, then mine looks rather different than it did before, and I no longer see the plugins there after I load them.

Actually Carla isn't really that important for my purposes. I just thought I would take a shot at getting it to work. But what I'm actually using is Ardrour, which is working great now.

In rack mode the patch bay looks like this:

Carla works best with jack audio installed, thats how I use it.

Is guitarmidi-lv2 working well for you with odin2? How is the detection rate? Many missed notes or ghost notes?