SC-55 and Linux

I would like to purchase an SC-55 pretty soon, and I've done a lot of research on how to make it work on modern systems. A good video I found was on the MT-32, and from what I've read the same steps would be used to get the SC-55 working. However, when he mentioned the word "driver" in reference to the Roland UM-ONE MK2 USB MIDI Interface at 10:30, I got concerned.

Sorry if I sound like an idiot, I'm quite new to all this midi stuff. Has anyone gotten their SC-55 to work on their modern Linux system? Does anyone know an alternative to the Roland UM-ONE MK2 USB MIDI Interface? Am I completely misguided on what I need to do to get the SC-55 to work?

I run Debian Jessie amd64 by the way.

I have two PCI sound cards with midi interfaces: the Audiophile 2496 and a SB Live! Value. Both work in Linux, as I recall. I have two midi synths, and I've driven them both. However, I haven't tried to drive a SC-55. If it's MIDI, it should just work...

I didn't need any out-of-tree (not bundled with kernel) drivers and I'd be very surprised if you did for any USB MIDI interface on Linux.

I got a cheap no-name USB-MIDI adapter off eBay; it's been buried in a closet with the rest of my MIDI stuff (including an SC-55mkII) since I last moved and I've never used it in Linux much but from what I remember it just used the generic USB MIDI class driver included with the kernel. I'll dig it out and try it in the next few days...

(From here it seems that some M-Audio devices need firmware. But it looks like the Roland device should work out of the box.)

I just got an SC-55 and here's hat I did (it became pretty obvious once I could actually see the hardware).

I connected an M-Audio USB Midisport Uno MIDI Interface to a USB port and then connected the "to MIDI in" to the front MIDI in port. This worked fine in Linux out of the box. Just make sure you don't get a defective model.

I then connected a a double-male 3.5mm TRS cable from the phone connector on the SC-55 to my PC's line in, but I couldn't get the line in to work. To fix this I had to run

pactl load-module module-loopback

and then installed pavucontrol because I couldn't get alsamixer to enable the line in port.

Now as long as I redirect midi to port 24:0, the SC-55 works. However it sounds terrible when passed through my PC's line in port, all crackly and static-y. I connected it directly to my speakers, and it sounded wonderful, but of course I had to disconnect my PC from the speakers to do that -- not an acceptable solution. I tried treating my two microphone-in ports as line-in ports but both sounded equally as bad as my actual line in port. I tried to connect other devices to my line in to see if the problem was just with the SC-55, and line in sounds terrible regardless of the device connected.

Right now I have my PC connect to the SC-55's line in, and the SC-55 connected to my speakers. The sound from the computer sounds fine as long as I have alsa master volume set to 100%, but the volume level doesn't mix well with the midi produced from the SC-55, and turning the volume nob now no longer changing the proportion between the PC sound volume and SC-55 sound volume. Reducing the PC volume from alsa even by a little bit make the sound way to soft, so that's not an option.

In short what I need to do is either get a line in port that doesn't suck, or get a mixer to combine the PC audio out and the SC-55 audio out and then connect the mixer to my speaker. Any advice? I know very little about audio so once again, I may come off as stupid.

Archy said:

In short what I need to do is either get a line in port that doesn't suck, or get a mixer to combine the PC audio out and the SC-55 audio out and then connect the mixer to my speaker. Any advice? I know very little about audio so once again, I may come off as stupid.

Is it definitely the PC line in that sucks, or is pulse audio just doing a shit job of mixing it? Can you try killing PA and using just alsa, or running something else into the line-in and seeing if that sounds bad too?

I'm not an audio expert but I do know that sadly, the software side of things on Linux is a bit shit. Pulse audio has been a serious source of woe for many people.