Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard setup

vmpk is a virtual MIDI Master keyboard, and does not produce any sound. To generate sound, you must

• connect the MIDI output from vmpk to the MIDI input of some tone generator (e.g. qsynth). If you then
• connect the audio output from the tone generator to the audio input for your monitors,

you should hear some sounds.

In your specific situation, where you want to use vmpk, qsynth, and jack control, I would recommend the following procedure to generate audio based on virtual keystrokes:

1. Install the "patchage" and "fluid-soundfont-gm" packages
2. Open Jack Control
3. Review JACK configuration to ensure it is attached to your preferred audio interface
4. Start JACK (the big play button)
5. Open Patchage
6. Open vmpk
7. Open Qsynth
8. In patchage, connect vmpk MIDI out to Qsynth MIDI in
9. In patchage, connect Qsynth audio out to your audio interface (both left and right channels)
10. In Qsynth, load a soundfont from /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2
11. Virtually press any key in vmpk to hear sound

Although the specific tools in use differ slightly, you may find the guidance at Ubuntu Wiki helpful. The primary difference is that you will be using a virtual keyboard rather than a physical keyboard, but patchage should not be able to tell the difference.

An alternative solution:

In Qsynth:

1. List item

   MIDI tab: Enable MIDI Input box checked ALSA Sequencer Client ID: Qsynth1 Audio tab: Audio driver: alsa Soundfonts tab: SFID 1; Name /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2; Offset 0

In VMPK:

-->Edit -->Connections: "Enable Thru on MIDI Output" checked
Input MIDI Connection <blank>
Output MIDI Connection FLUID Synth (Qsynth1):0