On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Stefan Dösinger stefandoesinger@gmx.at wrote:
Though, how would MIDI be handled. I think that OpenAL doesn't handle MIDI...
Good question.
As far as I can see PulseAudio doesn't support MIDI either, but it is certainly available in Alsa, CoreAudio and on Windows Vista, even though its more tricky to activate HW midi on Vista.
Emulating MIDI through a software synthesizer won't fly, as this will make it impossible to use hardware instruments.
A related topic: How do Joysticks connected to the gameport work(which is the same hardware connector as MIDI). I think that a joystick already takes an entirely different path in the Linux kernel and it doesn't get anywhere near a sound system, so we don't have to bother about it. Is that correct?
Joysticks work using /dev/js or evdev these days. It was hard to find some info on MIDI for Vista but I believe it still works using WinMM. You really need oss or alsa for midi I think.
Roderick