MIDI player takes over whole audio system about frescobaldi HOT 3 CLOSED

This has to do with how your system's MIDI softsynth is claiming the audio output.

Frescobaldi simply plays the MIDI messages to a MIDI softsynth, which in turn opens the audio subsystem to play the sound. Most Linux distros use either Fluidsynth or TiMidity.

So you should configure how the MIDI softsynth on your system is connected to the audio subsystem, so that it not claims the audio system but simply mixes in the audio.

from frescobaldi.

Frescobaldi is configured to use Timidity port 0. However, simply playing a MIDI file with Timidity doesn't lock up the audio in the way that running Frescobaldi does, so I'm at a loss to know where the configuration error is.

from frescobaldi.

When you run Timidity standalone, it reads a MIDI file and plays it to the configured audio output (which is probably configured as soon as you login based on your audio preferences).

But the Timidity instance that is loaded at bootup (the one that runs as ALSA midi synth) probably is configured in a different, system-wide way.

Here are some related bug reports that also provide a solution (i.e. let Timidity daemon use pulse-audio):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/timidity/+bug/210472
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/323320

Closing this bug because it is not a Frescobaldi bug.

from frescobaldi.