pw-midiplay

Play MIDI files through PipeWire

TLDR

Play a MIDI file

$ pw-midiplay [path/to/file.mid]

Play with a specific volume

$ pw-midiplay --volume [0.5] [path/to/file.mid]

Play to a specific target node

$ pw-midiplay --target [node_id] [path/to/file.mid]

Play with verbose output

$ pw-midiplay -v [path/to/file.mid]

SYNOPSIS

pw-midiplay [options] [FILE | -]

pw-midiplay plays MIDI files through a PipeWire server. It is a convenience wrapper for pw-cat --playback --midi, making MIDI events available to the PipeWire audio graph.The tool does not render MIDI into audible audio by itself. It sends MIDI events into the PipeWire graph where they must be routed to a MIDI synthesizer (such as qsynth, fluidsynth, or timidity) or hardware MIDI device to produce sound.When - is given as the file, data is read from stdin.

PARAMETERS

--volume level

Stream volume (default 1.0).

--rate hz

Sample rate in Hz (default 48000).

--channels num

Number of audio channels (default 2).

--channel-map map

Channel layout (e.g. stereo, surround-51, or custom FL,FR mapping).

--format fmt

Sample format: u8, s8, s16, s24, s32, f32, f64 (default s16).

--target value

Target node: auto, 0, or a specific node ID.

--latency value

Node latency (default 100ms).

-q, --quality level

Resampler quality (0-15, default 4).

-R, --remote name

Connect to a specific PipeWire instance.

-P, --properties json

Extra stream properties as a JSON object.

-v, --verbose

Enable verbose output.

-h, --help

Display help information.

--version

Show version details.

CAVEATS

Does not produce audible output on its own. A separate MIDI synthesizer or compatible hardware must be connected in the PipeWire graph to render MIDI events into audio. Standard MIDI File format (.mid) is supported.

HISTORY

Part of PipeWire, the modern multimedia framework for Linux created by Wim Taymans at Red Hat. PipeWire was first released in 2017 and has become the default audio and video server in major Linux distributions, replacing both PulseAudio and JACK. The pw-cat family of tools provides simple command-line media playback and capture.