Unable to load shared library 'asound' or one of its dependencies

[Connor14]

I am working on an app written in .NET Core using this library and it works great on Windows. I tried it on my Ubuntu 18.04 installation and I got this exception:

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Commons.Music.Midi.MidiAccessManager' threw an exception. ---> System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load shared library 'asound' or one of its dependencies. In order to help diagnose loading problems, consider setting the LD_DEBUG environment variable: libasound: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
   at AlsaSharp.Natives.snd_seq_open(IntPtr handle, IntPtr name, Int32 streams, Int32 mode)
   at AlsaSharp.AlsaSequencer..ctor(AlsaIOType ioType, AlsaIOMode ioMode, String driverName) in D:\a\1\s\external\alsa-sharp\alsa-sharp\AlsaSharp\AlsaSequencer.cs:line 19
   at Commons.Music.Midi.Alsa.AlsaMidiAccess..ctor() in D:\a\1\s\Commons.Music.Midi.DesktopShared\alsaseq\AlsaMidiAccess.cs:line 16
   at Commons.Music.Midi.MidiAccessManager.InitializeDefault() in D:\a\1\s\Commons.Music.Midi.DesktopShared\MidiAccessManager.cs:line 10
   at Commons.Music.Midi.MidiAccessManager..cctor() in D:\a\1\s\Commons.Music.Midi.Shared\MidiAccessManager.cs:line 15
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at Commons.Music.Midi.MidiAccessManager.get_Default() in D:\a\1\s\Commons.Music.Midi.Shared\MidiAccessManager.cs:line 23
   at DemoPlayer.Program.Main(String[] args) in /home/connor/Documents/AbundantMusic.NET/DemoPlayer/Program.cs:line 25
Aborted (core dumped)

I tried installing libasound2-dev and that resolved the exception, but no sound was played. I am running the my compiled program using dotnet DemoPlayer.dll from my terminal.

Here is the code used to play the midi:

// Play the MIDI using managed-midi
// https://github.com/atsushieno/managed-midi
var access = MidiAccessManager.Default;
var music = MidiMusic.Read(new MemoryStream(midiFile));
using (var player = new MidiPlayer(music, access))
{
    long totalPlayTime = player.GetTotalPlayTimeMilliseconds();
    Console.WriteLine("Play time: " + TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(totalPlayTime).ToString("g"));

    player.Play();
    while (player.State == PlayerState.Playing)
    {

    }
}

The Console.WriteLine was shown and my computer was definitely doing something because htop showed 2 threads running at 100% here and there. After the midi finished playing, the program ended.

I just don't hear any sound. It's probably a missing package on my end but I'm not sure which one.

[atsushieno]

Do you open any actual MIDI output device/software? ALSA default MIDI port is "MIDI through" which has no sound output.

[Connor14]

I don't have any MIDI specific output devices or software connected, which is definitely the problem.

I thought the player would interpret the MIDI and play it to speakers (like any other audio file) or a MIDI output device depending on the configuration. It played directly to speakers in Windows so I assumed it would work the same way in Linux. But that's probably because Windows has some additional functionality built in. I guess I just misunderstood what the MidiPlayer was doing.

Ultimately what I was looking for is a way to take in a MIDI file and spit out audio. The best way to do that might be by "rendering" it to a WAV or MP3 and then playing that back separately.

[atsushieno]

Exactly. Windows has built-in "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth". On Linux there is timidity or fluidsynth (which also needs some attention on how to use it; it needs soundfont file as the command line argument) that work like MS GS Synth. On Mac I have no idea. Fluidsynth should build on Mac too, but I don't see any package.

For audio rendering fluidsynth is an easy option on Linux. It has file rendering "audio driver". (disclaimer: I am a fluidsynth contributor so it's from very personal point of view.)

[Connor14]

I think I'll use FluidSynth. It works great so far!