Overview

send-sds provides utilities for sending SDS (MIDI Sample Dump Standard) files to samplers from Linux using the ALSA MIDI API.

Getting Started

Install dependencies

Debian/Ubuntu/Mint systems

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsndfile1-dev sndfile-tools libasound2-dev alsa-utils

Build send-sds

make

Install send-sds

sudo install send-sds /usr/local/bin

If you just type send-sds at the command line now you should see a brief help message:

send-sds 2010.10.23
usage: send-sds <alsa-device> <channel-num> <sample-num> <sds-filename>

Sending SDS files

Create an SDS file from a wav file

You must have sndfile-tools and alsa-utils already installed, since we will be using sndfile-convert and amidi.

sndfile-convert foo.wav foo.sds

List MIDI devices

amidi -l

I (used to) own an Elektron Machinedrum that I connected to my computer through the Elektron TurboMIDI interface. amidi shows something like this with that setup:

Dir Device    Name
IO  hw:1,0,0  Elektron TM-1 MIDI 1

Take note of the Device column for the device you want to send an audio sample to.

Send a mono SDS file to sample slot 2

send-sds hw:1,0,0 0 2 foo.sds

Note there is a small SDS file checked into this repo that you can use for testing.

If you want to test with this file, try:

$ send-sds hw:1,0,0 0 2 layered_finger_snap_mono.sds