EasyABC - fluidsynth fix and playing multi-voice selections

[DaveRo]

A couple of us have been working on getting EasyABC to play multi-voice selections - i.e. a part of the tune selected by dragging the mouse across the score. This might be of interest to some of you, particularly if you play a duet concertina.

 

The source code for EasyABC on github is currently at version 1.3.8.7

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC

That has not been 'released' (in the usual meaning of the word) but I see that snapshots of 1.3.8.7 have been made available on Apple Macs.

 

The most recent change fixed a bug which was preventing fluidsynth working reliably on 64bit machines. (Fluidsnth had never worked for me on Linux.)

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/87

On 4th March that was incorporated in 1.3.8.7 so any snapshot taken after that will incorporate it.

 

You can download all the code as a zip file with the green button. There is a text file describing how to install and run it in Windows, though it may not be up to date.

 

The problem I set out to solve is described in the image and sound file in my post here:

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/77#issue-1856792681

I fixed that, and you can see multi-voice selection working in the later post here:

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/77#issuecomment-1773845899

 

So job done. Well, no. Over the next few months people found cases where it didn't work. My thanks to markblinkhorn for discovering that it wouldn't play chords - and for fixing that:

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/90

 

And I added the ability to select passages from multiple lines. There is a short video of that in operation in this post:

https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/91#issuecomment-2025059857

That feature is useful whether it's a single- or multi-voice tune.

 

Thanks also to @RWL for discovering several odd effects involving repeats and alternate endings, which are unexplained but have work-rounds.

 

All that works well-enough on Linux and Windows 10  (I do not have a Mac) so I'm posting here to invite you to try it if you know how to run Python.  (Sorry, no Windows installer.) If you want to try it PM me and I'll send you a link to the dozen python files which you substitute for the ones on github. Those files also allow EasyABC to work under Python up to 3.10 and includes changes to the settings menus required by newer versions of python/wx-python.

 

If you are not a member of c.net, you can contact me at the support email address here.

Edited April 18, 2024 by DaveRo
Added contact email address

[Michael Eskin]

Nice!

 

[RWL]

Dave thanks for pointing out this update to me [via email].  Where is it though?  I went to https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC and used the green code button to download the zip file, but when I unpack it, it won't let me highlight selected bars of two part harmonies like your video did.  Do I need to download a single updated file from somewhere that I missed?

[DaveRo]

Bob: You already had my updated version of 1.3.8.7. Nothing has changed since you were testing it a few weeks back. My changes are not in the github version - I can't change those.

 

I'll answer your other questions by PM.

 

 

[DaveRo]

8 months later...

 

Since my OP, EasyABC 1.3.8.7 has been released on Sourceforge. The ones packaged for Windows and Mac include Python 3.9, I think. The latest Python code on github will not run under Python 3.11 but my patched version does - and probably under 3.12 too. It includes the changes proposed in this issue and this one.

 

This is probably only of interest to Linux users who want to run under their distro's installed version of Python, which is likely to be 3.11 at least. That should be simpler than using a virtual environment. Contact me (see OP) if you want the patched version.