# Chapter 1. Introduction

KMidi plays midi files using instrument patches. It does in software what a soundcard like the GUS (Gravis UltraSound) or Sound Blaster AWE does in hardware. So, the only hardware you need is a simple soundcard or chip. Even if you have a GUS or AWE, you might still like to try KMidi, since it sounds pretty good. And it has the advantage that, if you'd like it to sound better, you can just roll up your sleeves and rewrite it, because of course you get the source code free.

It does, however, need some cpu time. I find that starting up new windows or sometimes just scrolling my screen causes dropouts in the music. Also, you'll want to get yourself some patchsets (see below). They're too bulky (10-12 megs) to include as part of the regular KDE distribution, so I've include only 5 patches as examples. KMidi can handle 257 banks of 128 instruments each.

KMidi is based on Tuukka Toivonen's wonderful program TiMidity, which does most of the work. KMidi is a GUI front end for TiMidity, and TiMidity itself, with other alternative user interfaces, is included in the source distribution of KMidi. Thanks, Tuukka!

KMidi supports at the moment (Version 1.3) the following platforms:

- Linux

- FreeBSD

- DEC OSF/1

- HP UX

- SUN

- SUN SOLARIS

Ports to other platforms should be easy. Please contact me if you ported KMidi to another platform.

For details about usage that may not be covered in this manual, see the timidity(1) man page.

Remember Midi files are typically around 50k or less and are therefore so easily downloaded that you will never run out of great midi's to play.

Have fun with KMidi!

`Bernd Johannes Wuebben` wuebben@kde.org