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Bug 5475

Summary: Document MIDI usage on Windows
Product: SDL_sound Reporter: eri0o <eri0onpm>
Component: everythingAssignee: Ryan C. Gordon <icculus>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact: Ryan C. Gordon <icculus>
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P2 CC: rose.garcia-eggl2fk, sezeroz
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Windows 10   

Description eri0o 2021-01-17 12:41:16 UTC 
On Linux one can install timidity to get the soundfont/pat files for the instruments. If possible, please document (can be a comment on the source code) how the same can be accomplished on Windows. Without it, the instruments doesn't sound correct.
Comment 1 eri0o 2021-01-17 15:14:44 UTC 
OK, finally figured out

the source code mentions the following:

#define TIMIDITYCFG	"C:\\TIMIDITY\\TIMIDITY.CFG"
#define PATHFORPAT	"C:\\TIMIDITY\\INSTRUMENTS"

one needs to download a patchset for the instruments and place the file in the instruments directory that has to be created. And then adjust the contents of the timidity.cfg file to match.

One can download the following patch as a base 
https://youfailit.net/pub/idgames/sounds/eawpats.zip

(The above patch does have some copyrighted things apparently, could not find a working patchset to download available that didn't had copyright problems...)
Comment 2 Ozkan Sezer 2021-01-17 16:36:08 UTC 
(In reply to eri0o from comment #1)
> One can download the following patch as a base 
> https://youfailit.net/pub/idgames/sounds/eawpats.zip
> 
> (The above patch does have some copyrighted things apparently, could not
> find a working patchset to download available that didn't had copyright
> problems...)

There is also this: http://libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/timidity/timidity.tar.gz
among numerous other patchsets.
Comment 3 Ozkan Sezer 2021-01-17 16:38:21 UTC 
(In reply to eri0o from comment #1)
> One can download the following patch as a base 
> https://youfailit.net/pub/idgames/sounds/eawpats.zip
> 
> (The above patch does have some copyrighted things apparently, could not
> find a working patchset to download available that didn't had copyright
> problems...)

There is also this: http://libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/timidity/timidity.tar.gz
among numerous other patchsets.
EDIT: You can search the web for 'freepats' too if you want
an 'absolutely free' patchset.
Comment 4 Ozkan Sezer 2021-01-17 16:40:05 UTC 
(In reply to eri0o from comment #1)
> OK, finally figured out
> 
> the source code mentions the following:
> 
> #define TIMIDITYCFG	"C:\\TIMIDITY\\TIMIDITY.CFG"
> #define PATHFORPAT	"C:\\TIMIDITY\\INSTRUMENTS"

Those lines in the source should be enough documentation.
(Besides, there are multitudes of information on the web
for timidity configuration.)

Closing.
Comment 5 rose.garcia-eggl2fk 2021-01-17 22:05:20 UTC 
it would be helpful if there was an API to override the baked-in paths.

e.g.

SDL_sound_set_midi_config_from_file("/etc/timidity.cfg")

or

SDL_sound_set_midi_config_from_string("source /etc/freepats.cfg\ndir /share/freepats/instruments\n")
Comment 6 Ozkan Sezer 2021-01-17 22:13:12 UTC 
(In reply to rose.garcia-eggl2fk from comment #5)
> it would be helpful if there was an API to override the baked-in paths.

Well, as far as I know, the SDL_sound-2.0 hasn't solidified yet.
Maybe Ryan would consider such an addition.