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I'm using an Edirol PCR keyboard connected by USB to my laptop running Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS. I get the following output from amidi -l:

Dir Device    Name
IO  hw:1,0,0  PCR MIDI
IO  hw:1,0,1  PCR 1
I   hw:1,0,2  PCR 2

It seems the keyboard is detected.

When I look at the names of all devices detected by MidiSystem.getMidiDeviceInfo in Java, I have a "Gervill" device and a "Real Time Sequencer" device, but, contrary to my expectations, no PCR keyboard. Any theories as to what might be going wrong here, or strategies to troubleshoot this? Thanks.

Tom Price
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  • Does `arecordmidi -l` also show the PCR? Which Java implementation are you using? – CL. Mar 06 '19 at 05:08
  • arecordmidi -l does show the PCR. I'm using openjdk version 10.0.2. – Tom Price Mar 06 '19 at 08:45
  • In theory, the Java runtime should automatically pick up MIDI devices. Is the PCR being used by any other program when the JDK is started? – CL. Mar 06 '19 at 11:32
  • I don't think so. Since alsa raw midi ports can only be read by one application at a time, I've tried reading from the port by other means to make sure that there isn't some other application that's using it without my knowledge. I've been able to connect it to Qsynth and also read from the port with amidi. Of course these things are turned off when I run the java program. – Tom Price Mar 06 '19 at 17:59
  • One oddity however when connecting to Qsynth: When I select "alsa_raw" as the MIDI driver, presumably the "MIDI Device" combo box should show the available raw midi ports. It is actually empty, but I can manually enter "hw:1,0,1" there and it will connect to the keyboard (the green light blinks when I press a key). – Tom Price Mar 06 '19 at 19:21

2 Answers2

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you might need a MIDI over USB driver, alike my Access Virus uses it.

if you have regular MIDI ports & cables - it should detect it without issues.

this one here is for Android, but it implements the same concept -

notice these 16 "virtual MIDI cables", which are the channels one can control;

unless being able to select one of them, this all might be useless.

trying to connect it to Ubuntu Studio might be worth a try.

this Q&A also appears related.

Martin Zeitler
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The problem was that I was using the headless version of OpenJDK. Using the headful version fixed this.

Tom Price
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