Using FS-UAE on Linux with real MIDI hardware

Warren Vercueil has written a nice and thorough guide on getting FS-UAE on Linux set up with real MIDI hardware. The guide was written to use Bars and Pipes with MIDI hardware, but should work with other Amiga MIDI software as well.

Disclaimer: I haven’t tested the guide myself.

Note: If all you want to do is to play back MIDI tunes, for example to use FS-UAE to play Sierra games with MT-32 music (using an MT-32 emulator on your host computer), you should wait until FS-UAE 3.9.x arrives, which should support this use case on all platforms via the portmidi library.

14 thoughts on “Using FS-UAE on Linux with real MIDI hardware

    • Hi, I don’t think it is possible using this method. But, FS-UAE 4.0 will contain MIDI support using the portmidi library, which should allow for MIDI on Linux, Windows and macOS.

      • I found bug – in FS Uae on keyboard not working all arrows keys… (neccessary on programs like Music-X)

        • Hi, it is not a bug, that’s the arrow keys being used for joystick emulation. Either set host device to “no host device” in port 1, or attach a gamepad/joystick to free up the arrow keys,

  1. This tutorial is very good and easy to understand.
    I tested this on the Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB RAM) with a Edirol UM-1 USB-MIDI-Interface and BarsnPipes 1.29 under FS-UAE 3.0.2.
    It work’s very nice.
    If there are other USB-MIDI-Interfaces available, should be tested. If it works under Raspian with any MIDI-program, it also will
    work with FS-UAE.

    Because (at the moment) FS-UAE serial MIDI-support “only” works like on a normal AMIGA with one MIDI-IN and
    one MIDI-OUT at the serial port, it is not neccessary to connect the MIDI-Interface over the Virtual-MIDI and qjackctl.
    You can direct connect your device to the serial-port.

    1. connect your USB-MIDI-Interface
    2. open the /dev/snd directory and have a look for a device, which named similar like: midiC1D0
    3. open in a editor your FS-UAE configurations-file with the suffix *.fs-uae
    4. insert a line :

    serial_port = /dev/snd/midiC1D0 <<< the filename from /dev/snd/

    5. save the file
    6. start FS-UAE

    That's all.
    AND:
    While FS-UAE is running: DO NOT REMOVE (unplug) the USB-MIDI-device !

    Have a lot of fun – and make nice Music.

    • I found bug – in FS Uae on keyboard not working all arrows keys… (neccessary on programs like Music-X)

    • Here is a small update:

      Before you can insert the line with “serial_port: …”

      1. connect your USB-MIDI-interface

      2. give in the terminal the command:

      amidi -l

      3. the output gives you the correct MIDI-hardware-info

      for example:

      Dir Device Name

      IO hw:1,0 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices)

      IO hw:1,1 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices)

      IO hw:1,2 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices)

      IO hw:1,3 Virtual Raw MIDI (16 subdevices)

      IO hw:2,0,0 UM-1SX MIDI 1

      At the last line you can see here the UM-1SX MIDI 1 (MIDI-Interface) has the hw:2,0,0

      The correspondenting file in /dev/snd/ is midiC2D0.
      So the line in the configuration-file must be:

      serial_port = /dev/snd/midiC2D0

      • Thanks!
        I have a question : It is possible to macos? command similar to amidi exists in osx ?

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