TiMidity++(1) General Commands Manual TiMidity++(1)
NAME
TiMidity++ - MIDI to WAV converter and player
SYNOPSIS
timidity [-options] filename [filenames ...]
DESCRIPTION
TiMidity++ is a converter that converts some of MIDI files (supported formats: Standard MIDI files (*.MID), Recomposer files (*.RCP, *.R36,
*.G18, *.G36) and Module files (*.mod)) into formatted audio files (e.g. RIFF WAVE). TiMidity uses Gravis Ultrasound-compatible patch
files or Soundfonts (*.sfx, *.sf2) to generate digital audio data from MIDI files. The digital audio data generated by TiMidity can be
stored in a file for processing, or played in real time through an audio device.
In real time playing, TiMidity can show the lyrics contained in KAR or WRD files.
FILENAME
You can use the following expressions as the filename argument:
- Read a MIDI file from standard input.
/path/filename
Read a MIDI file from the specified path on a filesystem.
dir:directory
directory/
Read and play all MIDI files in the specified directory.
Archive File
Extract and play the file(s) in the archive. If you want to specify a certain MIDI file in the archive, append #<MIDI-filename> to
the archive name. The expression after # can use regular expressions (case insensitive).
For example:
timidity 'file.zip#file.mid'
Plays file.mid in file.zip
timidity 'file.lzh#*.mid'
Plays any files that match the regular expression '*.mid' in file.zip
timidity 'file.tgz#*'
This expression is the same as
timidity 'file.tgz'
Since these mechanism are contained in TiMidity itself, you can use this syntax even in the MS Windows environment.
TiMidity can handle the following archive formats:
tar (*.tar)
tar + gzip (*.tar.gz, *.tgz)
zip (*.zip)
lzh (*.lzh, *.lha)
(lh0, lh1, lh2, lh3, lh4, lh5, lh6, lzs, lz5, lz4 are available)
news://news-server[:port]/Message-ID
news://news-server[:port]/newsgroup[/first-last]
Play the MIDI file in the specified article on the news server. If a newsgroup is specified TiMidity plays all MIDI files found in
any article posted to that newsgroup.
TiMidity parses MIME Multi-part messages.
The following MIME-types are allowed:
uuencoded file
"begin" is required
base64 encoded
"Content-Transfer-Encoding base64" is required
quoted-string
"Content-Transfer-Encoding quoted-string" is required
Mac BinHex format
only 'HQX' format is available
http://url
ftp://url
Play the file specified in the URL.
For example:
"timidity http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/dist/midi/impromptu.mid"
plays the specified MIDI-file directly from the network.
If these expression are used in the *.cfg files, you can even use patch-files (and others) from remote machines.
INPUT FILE
Timidity can handle the following file formats:
.MID (Format 0, 1, 2)
Standard MIDI File
.RCP, .R36, .G18, .G36 (Recomposer formats (product of COME ON MUSIC co.))
The Windows version converts these with rcpcv.dll.
.KAR (Karaoke format)
Displays the lyrics as a Lyric Meta Event message.
.MOD, MOD.* (module file)
.WRD (WRD format)
OPTIONS
The following command line options are accepted by TiMidity:
-A amplification
Multiplies the master volume by amplification %. Default value is 70%. Higher amplification makes louder sounds. The allowed val-
ues of amplification range from 0 to 800%.
-a Turns on antialiasing. Samples are run through a lowpass filter before playing, which reduces aliasing noise at low resampling fre-
quencies.
-B fragments[,buffer-bits]
For the Linux/FreeBSD/OSS/ALSA/Windows sound driver, selects the number of buffer fragments in interactive mode. Increasing the
number of fragments may reduce choppiness when many processes are running. It will make TiMidity seem to respond sluggishly to fast
forward, rewind, and volume controls, and it will throw the status display off sync. Specify a fragments number of 0 to use the
maximum number of fragments available.
-b mode
(obsoleted)
-C ratio
Sets the ratio of sampling and control frequencies. This determines how often envelopes are recalculated -- small ratios yield bet-
ter quality but use more CPU time.
-c filename
Reads an extra configuration file.
-D channel
Marks channel as a drum channel. If channel is negative, channel -channel is marked as an instru- mental channel. If channel is 0,
all channels are marked as instrumental.
-d dir Specifies the directory containing installed dynamic-link interface modules.
-e Make TiMidity evil. For the Win32 version, this increases the task priority by one. It can give better playback when you switch
tasks at the expense of slowing all other tasks down.
-E mode
Set TiMidity extend modes. The following modes are available (capitalized switch means disable this feature):
w/W Enable/disable modulation controlling.
p/P Enable/disable portamento controlling.
v/V Enable/disable NRPM vibration.
s/S Enable/disable channel pressure controlling.
t/T Enable/disable tracing all Text Meta Events.
o/O Accept/reject pronouncing multiple same notes.
m HH Sets the manufacturer ID to HH (where HH are two hex-digits).
HH values of GM/gm, GS/gs or XG/xg are understood as 41, 43 and 7e respectively.
b n Use tone bank n as the default.
B bank Sets the bank number of all channels to bank.
F args For effects. See below.
-F Turns on fast panning to accommodate MIDI pieces that expect panning adjustments to affect notes that are already playing. Some
files that don't expect this have a habit of flipping balance rapidly between left and right, which can cause severe popping when
the -F flag is used.
In the current version of TiMidity this option is a toggle.
-f Toggles fast envelopes. This option makes TiMidity faster but the release time of the notes are shortened.
-g sec Open the Sound-Spectrogram window. This option is activated if the system has support for the X Window System.
-h Show the help message.
-I voice[/c]
Use the program number as the default instrument. Any Program Change events in MIDI files will override this option.
If voice is followed by /c the default program number of the channel c is specified by voice.
-i interface
Selects the user interfaces from the compiled-in alternatives. interface must be begun with one of the supported interface identi-
fiers. Run TiMidity with the -h option to see a list. The following identifiers may be available:
-id dumb interface
-in ncurses interface
-is S-Lang interface
-ia X Athena Widget interface
-ik Tcl/Tk interface
-im Motif interface
-iT vt100 interface
-ie Emacs interface (use M-x timidity in Emacs)
-ii skin interface
Environment variable TIMIDITY_SKIN must be set to the path of the skin data (compressed data are also supported).
-ig GTK interface
-ir Launch timidity as MIDI server.
-iA Launch timidity as ALSA sequencer client.
Interface options
Option characters may be added immediately after the interface identifier. The following options are recognized:
v Increases verbosity level. This option is cumulative.
q Decreases verbosity level. This option is cumulative.
t Toggles trace mode. In trace mode, TiMidity attempts to display its current state in real time. For the Linux sound driver,
this is accomplished through the use of short DMA buffer fragments, which can be tuned via the -B option.
l Loop playing (some interfaces ignore this option)
r Randomize file list arguments before playing
s Sort file list arguments before playing
-j Enable the loading of patch files during play.
-k msec
Specify audio queue time limit to reduce voices. If the remaining audio buffer is less than msec milliseconds, TiMidity tries to
kill some voices. This feature makes it possible to play complicated MIDI files on slow CPUs. Setting msec to zero tells TiMidity
to never remove any voices.
-L directory
Adds directory to the library path. Patch, configuration, and MIDI files are searched along this path. Directories added last will
be searched first. Note that the current directory is always searched first before the library path.
-m time
Modify envelope volume decay time. time is the minimum number of milliseconds to sustain a sustained note.
-m 1 Effectively behaves as if all sustains are ignored, volume ramping is the same as normal stage 3.
-m 0 Disable sustain ramping, causes constant volume sustains (default).
-m 3000
A note at full volume will decay for 3 seconds once it begins to be sustained (assuming the regular stage 3 rate would not
cause it to decay even longer). Softer notes will of course die sooner.
-n degree
Enables Noise Shaping Filter. degree ranges from 0 (min) to 4 (max).
-O mode
Selects the output mode from the compiled-in alternatives. mode must begin with one of the supported output mode identifiers. Run
TiMidity with the -h option to see the list. The following identifiers are available in all versions:
-Od Outputs via audio device (default)
-Or Generate raw waveform data. All format options are supported. Common formats include:
-OrU uLaw
-Or1sl 16-bit signed linear PCM
-Or8ul 8-bit unsigned linear PCM
-Ou Generate Sun Audio (au) data
-Oa Generate AIFF data
-Ow Generate RIFF WAVE format output. If output is directed to a non-seekable file, or if TiMidity is interrupted before closing
the file, the file header will contain 0xFFFFFFFF in the RIFF and data block length fields. The popular sound conversion
utility sox is able to read such malformed files, so you can pipe data directly to sox for on-the-fly conversion to other
formats.
Format options
Option characters may be added immediately after the mode identifier to change the output format. The following options are
recognized:
8 8-bit sample width
1 6-bit sample width
l Linear encoding
U uLaw (8-bit) encoding
M Monophonic
S Stereo
s Signed output
u Unsigned output
x Byte-swapped output
Note that some options have no effect on some modes. For example, you cannot generate a byte-swapped RIFF WAVE file, or force uLaw
output on a Linux PCM device.
-o filename
Place output on filename, which may be a file, device, or HP-UX audio server, depending on the output mode selected with the -O
option. The special filename ``-'' causes output to be placed on stdout.
-P Use patch file for all programs.
-p voices
Sets polyphony (maximum number of simultaneous voices) to voices.
-p a Toggle automatic polyphony reduction.
-Q channel
Causes channel to be quiet. If channel is negative, channel -channel is turned back on. If channel is 0, all channels are turned
on.
-q m/n Specify audio buffer in seconds. m: maximum size of buffer, n: percentage filled at the beginning (default is 5.0/100%) (size of
100% equals the whole device buffer size)
-R n Enables Pseudo Reverb Mode. It sets every instrument's release to n ms. If n=0, n is set to 800 (default).
-S size
Sets the re-sample cache size to size bytes. If size equals 0 any sample caches are disabled. The default value of size is 2097152
(2MB).
-s frequency
Sets the resampling frequency (Hz or kHz). Not all sound devices are capable of all frequencies -- an approximate frequency may be
selected, depending on the implementation.
-t code
Sets output coding of Japanese text. Possible values of code are:
auto determined by the LANG environment variable.
ascii Translates non-ASCII code to period.
nocnv No conversion.
1251 Convert from windows-1251 to koi8-r.
euc Outputs EUC (Japan) coding.
jis Outputs JIS coding.
sjis Outputs SJIS coding.
-T n Adjust tempo to n%; 120=play MOD files with an NTSC Amiga's timing.
-U Unload all instruments from memory between MIDI files. This can reduce memory requirements when playing many files in succession.
-w mode
Extended mode for MS Windows. The following options are available:
-wr Use rcpcv.dll to play RCP/R36 files.
-wR Do not use rcpcv.dll (default).
-W mode
Play WRD file. Allowed values of mode are:
x X Window System mode
t TTY mode
d Dumb mode (outputs WRD events directory)
- do not trace WRD
WRD mode must also use trace mode (option -i?t) or the timing of the WRD events will be terrible.
-WR[opts]
Sets WRD options:
a1=b1,a2=b2, ...
Sets the WRD options. an is the name of option and bn is the value.
d="n" Emulates timing (@WAIT,@WMODE) bugs of the original MIMPI player. The emulation levels are:
-WRd=0 do not emulate any bugs of MIMPI
-WRd=1 only emulate some bugs (default)
-WRd=2 emulate all known bugs
F="filename"
Use filename as WRD file only no file matching *.wrd is found.
f="filename"
Uses filename as WRD file.
-x string
Configure TiMidity with string. The format of string is the same as timidity.cfg.
For example:
-x'bank 0
0 violin.pat'
Sets the instrument number 0 to violin.
Character (Ascii 0x5c) in the string is treated as escape character like in C literals. For example
is treated as carriage
return.
-Z file
Cause the table of frequencies to be read from file. This is useful to define a tuning different from the occidental temperate
scale.
EFFECT OPTIONS
In -EF <arg> option, you can specify following effect options:
-EFdelay=l
Left delay.
-EFdelay=r
Right delay.
-EFdelay=b
Swap left & right.
-EFdelay=0
Disabled delay effect.
-EFchorus=1[,level]
Enable MIDI chorus effect control.
The optional parameter `level' specifies the chorus level [0..127]
-EFchorus=2[,level]
Surround sound, chorus detuned to a lesser degree (default).
The optional parameter `level' specifies the chorus level [0..127].
-EFreverb=0
Disable MIDI reverb effect control.
-EFreverb=1[,level]
Enable MIDI reverb effect control.
The optional parameter `level' specifies the reverb level [0..127] This effect is only available in stereo (default).
-EFreverb=2
Global reverb effect.
-EFns=n
Enable the n th degree noiseshaping filter. Valid values of n are in the interval [0..4].
This effect is only available for 8-bit linear encoding
SEE ALSO
lsmidiprog(1), mididump(1), patinfo(1), sf2text(1), wav2pat(1), timidity.cfg(5)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1999-2002 Masanao Izumo <mo@goice.co.jp> Copyright (C) 1995 Tuukka Toivonen <tt@cgs.fi>
The original version was developed by Tuukka Toivonen <tt@cgs.fi> until the release of TiMidity-0.2i. His development was discontinued
because of his being busy with work.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER-
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
AVAILABILITY
The latest release is available on the TiMidity++ Page,
URL http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/timidity/
BUGS
8-bit and low-rate output sounds worse than it should.
Eats more CPU time than a small CPU-time-eating animal.
This man page was translated from Japanese to English by me with poor English skill :-)
AUTHORS
Version 0.2i and earlier:
Tuukka Toivonen <toivonen@clinet.fi>
Vincent Pagel <pagel@loria.fr>
Takashi Iwai <iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Davide Moretti <dmoretti@iper.net>
Chi Ming HUNG <cmhung@insti.physics.sunysb.edu>
Riccardo Facchetti <riccardo@cdc8g5.cdc.polimi.it>
TiMidity++:
IZUMO Masanao <mo@goice.co.jp>
HARADA Tomokazu <harada@prince.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
YAMATE Keiichirou <keiich-y@is.aist-nara.ac.jp>
KIRYU Masaki <mkiryu@usa.net>
AOKI Daisuke <dai@y7.net>
MATSUMOTO Shoji <shom@i.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp>
KOYANAGI Masaaki <koyanagi@okilab.oki.co.jp>
IMAI Kunihiko <imai@leo.ec.t.kanazawa-u.ac.jp>
NOGAMI Takaya <t-nogami@happy.email.ne.jp>
WATANABE Takanori <takawata@shidahara1.planet.kobe-u.ac.jp>
TAKEKAWA Hiroshi <sian@big.or.jp>
NAGANO Daisuke <breeze.geo@geocities.co.jp>
YAMAHATA Isaku <yamahata@kusm.kyoto-u.ac.jp>
KINOSHITA kosuke <kino@krhm.jvc-victor.co.jp>
ARAI Yoshishige <ryo2@on.rim.or.jp>
Glenn Trigg <ggt@netspace.net.au>
and other many people sent information and bug-fixes.
The english version of this man page was written by NAGANO Daisuke breeze.nagano@nifty.ne.jp>.
If you have any comments or suggestions or complaints :) about this man page, please tell me it.
2.11.0 Nov 10 2001 TiMidity++(1)