SMFPLAY(1)

💖 SMFPLAY(1) — the general commands manual bestie edition 💖

okay so real talk, this is the General Commands Manual page for smfplay(1), and it's literally about playing MIDI files. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

smfplay — play a standard MIDI file 🎹✨

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

smfplay [-mxy] [-g measure] [-d devname] [-i devname] midifile

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the smfplay utility plays a MIDI file. that's it, that's the main character energy 👑

while it's playing, it can route events from one midi(4) device to another. and to stop the performance, you send an interrupt signal to smfplay — for instance by pressing control ^C on the terminal. bestie, that's your stop button, no cap 💅

the options are as follows:

• -m — Use metronome. and the metronome is smart fr fr, it will follow tempo changes and time signature changes in the midi file. obsessed 😌🎵
• -x — Synchronise to an external midi(4) device. so if the -i flag is used then playback will be synchronised to the input device, else it will be synchronised to the default device. iykyk 🔄
• -y — Send midi timing information to the default device. this one's useful if the output device is a slave MIDI sequencer. very niche, very iconic 🕰️✨
• -g measure — Start playback at the given measure number. jump right in at the exact bar you want, no skips 🎯
• -d filename — Default midi(4) device on which to play the midi file. and if you don't specify it, then the content of the MIDIDEV environment variable will be used instead. so like, either tell it or it'll go looking 👀
• -i filename — Alternate input midi(4) device. Voice events (notes, controllers, etc) received on the input device will be sent as-is to the default device. and without this flag, the default device will be used for input. as-is means as-is, no editing, no remixing 🎛️

the smfplay utility is an interface to midish(1). so if more specific features are needed, the user may consider using midish(1). like, smfplay is the cute accessible front door and midish(1) is the whole mansion, periodt 🏠💜

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🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

the following will play mysong.mid on device /dev/rmidi4 and will use metronome. not me writing a whole concert setup in one line 🙈

$ smfplay -m -d /dev/rmidi4 mysong.mid

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

midiplay(1), midish(1), smfrec(1), midi(4)

go read those too bestie, they're all part of the same little family 🫶

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heads up: if you ever want it to stop, that interrupt signal (^C) is the move. don't just walk away from a performance mid-song, that's rude to the metronome 💀

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and that's the whole page!! this one came from Debian, dated August 22, 2005 — yeah it's vintage, it's still serving though, and yes it's still SMFPLAY(1). stay slaying, midi bestie 🎹💖✨