Qsynth - Qt GUI Interface for FluidSynth

[Intro] [Screenshots] [Requirements] [CVS] [Downloads] [Installation] [Configuration] [Bugs] [Support] [Acknowledgements]

What's Qsynth ?

Qsynth is a fluidsynth GUI front-end application written in C++ around the Qt4 toolkit using Qt Designer. Eventually it may evolve into a softsynth management application allowing the user to control and manage a variety of command line softsynth but for the moment it wraps the excellent FluidSynth. FluidSynth is a command line software synthesiser based on the Soundfont specification.

Licence: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Sourceforge project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qsynth

Screenshots

Click on image to see more screenshots...

Requirements

The software requirements for build and runtime are listed as follows:

Mandatory:

• Qt4 (core, gui), C++ class library and tools for crossplatform development and internationalization
  http://www.trolltech.org/products/qt/
• fluidsynth, real-time software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications
  http://www.fluidsynth.org/

Downloads

Latest release

2007-12-19 - Minor stealth fixes and season greetings.
qsynth-0.3.2.tar.gz

• A new option to start the program minimized when the system tray icon is enabled, is now available from Setup/Misc/Start minimized to system tray.
• Regression from QSystemTrayIcon (Qt4 >= 4.2) implementation, at least on X11 environments: while the main application widget was minimized to the system-tray, closing any other top-level widget was causing the immediate and unexpected application shutdown.
• Minor corrections on the output peak meter scale aesthetics.
• Tool/child windows position and size preservation fixed.
• Orphaned MIDI device name no longer mistaken when switching between MIDI drivers on engine setup.
• A bit more of precision is achieved over the output peak meters.
• Messages line limit was not being checked, now honored.
• Simple as it could ever be, the build executive summary report is now given on configure.
• Get configure to try and detect the correct qmake location and insert it the search order, so let the qt4 tools take precedence when --with-qt option is given and older qt3 ones coexist and are found located ahead in the PATH.
• The infamous "Keep child windows always on top" global option is now supposed to behave a little better when disabled, layering child windows as naturally as far the window manager dictates.
• Inspired on Andreas Persson patch, while on qjackctl-devel, which made it possible to compile and run with older Qt 4.1, similar arrangements were carried out on qsynth too, without hesitation.
• Main panel spin-boxes gets accelerated when stressed (Qt >= 4.2).

Previous and older releases, including the change log, are also available here. You may also check out from the latest bleeding edge development source tree, using CVS.

Installation

The installation procedure follows the standard for source distributions. In the extracted source directory, just do:

./configure [--prefix=prefix]
make

and optionally as root:

make install

This procedure will end installing the following couple of files:

• prefix/bin/qsynth
• prefix/share/pixmaps/qsynth.png
• prefix/share/applications/qsynth.desktop

Just launch prefix/bin/qsynth and you're off (hopefully). Note that the default installation path prefix is /usr/local.

Note:

Unlike FluidSynth, the default audio driver for Qsynth is set to jack, for the low-latency Jack Audio Connection Kit. Therefore one has to start the JACK server daemon (jackd) prior to run Qsynth, and the QjackCtl sister application may be a friendlier choice. To switch from this default behaviour, you can run Qsynth from the command-line giving it a suitable option, where available:

• for native ALSA audio driver:
  qsynth -a alsa
• or, for native OSS audio driver:
  qsynth -a oss

From then on, this setting will be persistently remembered in future sessions, and may be otherwise changed on the setup dialog, of course.

Configuration

Qsynth holds its settings and configuration state per user, in a file located as $HOME/.config/rncbc.org/Qsynth.conf. Normally, there's no need to edit this file, as it is recreated and rewritten everytime qsynth is run.

Bugs

Plenty still as this is beta software.

Support

Qsynth is open source free software. For bug reports, feature requests, discussion forums, mailling lists, or any other matter related to the development of this piece of software, please use the Sourceforge project page.

Acknowledgements

Qsynth has been created by Rui Nuno Capela, Richard Bown and Chris Cannam to bring a simple but effective software synthesier front end to the Linux desktop. From an original idea by Richard Bown and Chris Cannam to create an open software synthesiser front end to use in conjunction with Rosegarden and other ALSA based software sequencers. Inspired by Rui's work on QjackCtl.

Since 2003-11-26, Qsynth has been included in the awesome Planet CCRMA software collection. Many thanks to Fernando!

This project has also a freshmeat.net entry.

Dated from 2004-06-08, an online article written by no one else but Dave Phillips, has been published on Linux Journal, introducing you to Qsynth and also QjackCtl. Please have a read:

At the Sounding Edge: Using QSynth and QJackCtl.

It's not on every regular day that you get to see one piece of the trade pointing two of your creations right in the title, is it?

Thanks Dave! You rule!

Enjoy.

rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc at rncbc dot org

bownie aka Richard Bown
bownie at bownie dot com

cannam aka Chris Cannam
cannam at all dash day dash breakfast dot com