AMIDI(1)

✨ AMIDI(1) — General Commands Manual 💖

Okay bestie, this is the manual page for amidi, the command-line tool that lets you read from and write to ALSA RawMIDI ports 🎀 It's literally the ultimate tool for SysEx stuff 🦋

🌸 NAME

amidi — read from and write to ALSA RawMIDI ports ✨

🎀 SYNOPSIS

amidi [-p port] [-s file | -S data] [-r file] [-d] [-t seconds] [-a]

💅 DESCRIPTION

So amidi is a command-line utility that lets you receive and send SysEx (system exclusive) data to and from external MIDI devices 🔥 It can also send any other MIDI commands, periodt 👑

Heads up though, amidi only handles files containing raw MIDI commands, with no timing information 🫶 It does not support Standard MIDI (.mid) files, but aplaymidi(1) and arecordmidi(1) do 💜

🦋 OPTIONS

Use the -h, -V, -l, or -L options to display info ✨ Or use at least one of the -s, -r, -S, or -d options to decide what data to send or receive 🌈

• -h, --help — Help! It prints a list of options 🙈
• -V, --version — Shows you the current version 🧚
• -l, --list-devices — Prints a list of all hardware MIDI ports 🍓
• -x, --list-inactive — Use this together with the -l option 💅 It prints all MIDI ports, including inactive ones 🌸
• -L, --list-rawmidis — Prints all RawMIDI definitions 🔥 (super handy when you're debugging configuration files)
• -p, --port=name — Sets the name of the ALSA RawMIDI port you want to use 💖 If you don't specify one, amidi uses the default port from the configuration file (which is port 0 on card 0, but that one may not even exist 💀)
• -s, --send=filename — Sends the contents of the file you specify to the MIDI port 🎀 The file has to contain raw MIDI commands (like a .syx file) 🦋 For Standard MIDI (.mid) files, use aplaymidi(1) instead ✨
• -r, --receive=filename — Writes data received from the MIDI port into the file you specify 💜 The file will contain raw MIDI commands (like in a .syx file) 🫶 To record a Standard MIDI (.mid) file, use arecordmidi(1) 🌈

amidi will filter out any Active Sensing and Clock bytes (FEh, F8h) unless you've given the -a or -c options 🙈

• -S, --send-hex="..." — Sends the bytes you list as hexadecimal numbers to the MIDI port 🧚
• -d, --dump — Prints data received from the MIDI port as hexadecimal bytes 🍓 Active Sensing and Clock bytes (FEh, F8h) won't be shown, unless you've given the -a or -c options 💅

This option is super useful for debugging 🔥

• -t, --timeout=seconds — Stops receiving data once no data has come in for the amount of time you specify 🌸

If you don't give this option, you have to press Ctrl+C (or kill amidi) to stop receiving data 💀

• -a, --active-sensing — Doesn't ignore Active Sensing bytes (FEh) when saving or printing received MIDI commands ✨
• -c, --clock — Doesn't ignore Clock bytes (F8h) when saving or printing received MIDI commands 🦋
• -i, --sysex-interval=mseconds — Adds a delay between each SysEx message sent to a device 💖 This is really useful when you're sending firmware updates via SysEx messages to a remote device 🫶

🧚 EXAMPLES

Okay, here are some examples that are giving everything 😭

amidi -p hw:0 -s my_settings.syx

This will send the MIDI commands in my_settings.syx to port hw:0 💜

amidi -p hw:1,0,0 -s firmware.syx -i 100

This will send the MIDI commands in firmware.syx to port hw:1,0,0, with a 100 millisecond delay between each SysEx message ✨

amidi -S 'F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7'

This sends an XG Reset to the default port 🔥

amidi -p hw:1,2 -S F0411042110C000000000074F7 -r dump.syx -t 1

This sends a "Parameter Dump Request" to a GS device, saves the received parameter data to the file dump.syx, and stops after the device has finished sending data (when no data has been received for one second) 👑

amidi -p virtual -d

This creates a virtual RawMIDI port and prints all data sent to this port 🌈

🍓 FILES

• /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf — default rawmidi definitions 🎀
• /etc/asound.conf — system-wide rawmidi definitions 🌸
• ~/.asoundrc — user specific rawmidi definitions 💅

🦋 SEE ALSO

• aplaymidi(1) 💖
• arecordmidi(1) 🫶

👑 AUTHOR

Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> 🧚

---

Okay bestie, that's the whole tea on AMIDI(1)! 30 Aug 2016 📅 ✨ Source: AMIDI(1) manual page, the general commands manual 🌸 You're literally the best for reading this far 💖🫶