[ltp] question about sequencer support on tp770z

[Fabrice Bellet]

Hello,

I'm trying to use the sequencer/synth device proposed
with the alsa driver on my thinkpad 770Z. Without 
any success currently.

The tp770Z has a cs4610/11 chipset as shown by the lspci 
command:

[bellet@bonobo bellet]% lspci -v -s 00:06
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4610/11
[CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: IBM CS4610 SoundFusion Audio Accelerator
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
	Memory at 50100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Memory at 50000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]


But this chip presumably emulates a CS4239 chipset.
So I use the snd-card-cs4236 module, which is the suitable
alsa module to handle this class of chipsets. I enabled the
midi support with ps2.exe, and provided the correct
ports/irq informations when loading the module.

(the snd-card-cs46xx modules, which would be more suitable
for this chipset in my point of view, remains unloadable,
and I didn't investigate this problem, because the 
capabililities of the snd-card-cs4236 were sufficient
for me)

The mpu401 is enabled in the alsa config, and
registered in the irq lists, the synth-opl3 is loaded too :

[bellet@bonobo bellet]% more /proc/asound/sndstat 
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v0.9.0beta10 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux bonobo 2.4.17-pre6 #2 Sat Dec 8 15:53:22 CET 2001 i686
Config options: 0

Installed drivers: 
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config: 
CS4239 at 0x530, irq 9, dma 1&0

Audio devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Synth devices:
0: OPL3 FM

Midi devices:
0: MPU-401 (UART)

Timers:
7: system timer

Mixers: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

[bellet@bonobo bellet]% cat /proc/interrupts 
           CPU0       
  0:     581734          XT-PIC  timer
  1:        683          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  3:          1          XT-PIC  serial
  5:          3          XT-PIC  mwave_3780i
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
  9:          0          XT-PIC  CS4231
 10:          0          XT-PIC  MPU401 UART
 11:       7134          XT-PIC  usb-uhci, i82365, eth0
 12:         13          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
 14:      11218          XT-PIC  ide0
 15:          0          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0 
LOC:          0 
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

[bellet@bonobo bellet]% more /proc/asound/seq/drivers 
snd-synth-opl3,loaded,1
snd-seq-midi,empty,1
snd-seq-oss,empty,1

I also enabled the FM/synth control with the mixer.

So I wish I could play some midi files with this configuration.
Unfortunately, all tools I tested failed :

  - playmidi connects to /dev/sequencer, and gives the impression
  it's sending commands to the sequencer with the correct timing.
  You've got a '-r' option to this command, that enables a visualization
  of the various intruments being played, and everything looks
  fine except that the speaker remains quiet :-( quite frustrating.

  - sbiload (to load instrument files in opl3 format) and 
  pmidi fail to work too, but, they fail with a more explicit
  message :

[bellet@bonobo sbiload]% sbiload -p 65:0 --opl3 std.o3 drums.o3
[bellet@bonobo src]% ./pmidi -p 65:0  /tmp/sample.midi 
Device or resource busy
Could not connect to port 65:0
[bellet@bonobo src]% ./pmidi -l
 Port     Client name                       Port name
 64:0     External MIDI 0                   MIDI 0-0
 65:0     OPL3 FM synth                     OPL3 Port

So here are my question :

  . if someone has a working sequencer with ALSA,
  could he provide some configuration information :
  the chipset (as returned  by lspci), the used alsa module ?
  the alsa modules actually loaded ? and which program is used
  to play midi files ?

Thanks for your feedback,
-- 
fabrice

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