Getting started with Rosegarden ------------------------------- If you're not already into MIDI, this may well be the first time you've come across MIDI, soundfonts, JACK, etc. These tools can be quite hard to get working on an existing desktop system if you are unlucky. An easy way to get started with Rosegarden * Install the rosegarden and qsynth packages, ensuring that you also install at least one soundfont: ``apt install rosegarden qsynth fluid-soundfont-gm`` * Start qsynth and select the soundfont of your choice under setup: Setup → Soundfonts → Open → ``/usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2`` * Restart jackd from qsynth with the "Restart" button. From now on, getting rosegarden to work will be: * Run qsynth which will automatically start jackd as your user * Now run rosegarden Troubleshooting =============== * While jackd is running (from qsynth), no other programs can make sounds including anything using pulseaudio. It is possible but to configure these two to work together but it is not the intended setup to mix a professional-level low-latency sound system with a simple desktop sound system. * If jackd can't start, saying ``The playback device "hw:0" is already in use`` check what other sound-producing programs might be running in the background. For a desktop machine, a text-to-speech engine like speech-dispatcher might be running as part of an accessibility framework.