QSynth

QSynth is an open source and cross-platform graphical software written in C++ around the Qt toolkit and designed to act as a GUI (Graphical User Interface) front-end application for the FluidSynth software.

What is FluidSynth?

FluidSynth is a command-line program engineered as an audio synthesiser. It is based on the Soundfont specification. QSynth is a graphical interface for FluidSynth, providing an easy way for newcomers to use the latter application.

Minimal and easy-to-use GUI

The QSynth’s GUI (Graphical User Interface) is minimal and easy-to-use, covering all the functionality of the FluidSynth software. The user will have access to Master, Reverb and Chorus controls. You can restart or reset FluidSynth, as well as to tweak various useful options.

Getting started with QSynth

To install the QSynth application on your GNU/Linux computer, you must download the latest release from either the project’s website or via Softoware. At the moment, QSynth is distributed as native installers for the openSUSE distribution, as well as a universal source package for any other Linux kernel-based operating system.

You can also install QSynth via the built-in Software Center app of your distribution, but only if the project is available in the official software repositories. More information about how to install QSynth on your distro are provided on its homepage.

Under the hood

Taking a look under the hood of the QSynth application, we can notice that it has been written in the C++ programming language and that the Qt and Qt Designer projects have been used for its modern graphical user interface.

Runs on Linux, Mac and Windows

QSynth is a multiplatform application that has been successfully tested on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It is currently supported on 32 and 64-bit computer platforms.

What is new in this release:

• Dropped old "Start minimized to system tray" option from setup.
• CMake script lists update (patch by Orcan Ogetbil, thanks).
• Added application keywords to freedesktop.org's AppData.
• System-tray icon context menu has been fixed/hacked to show up again on Plasma 5 (aka. KDE5) notifications status area.
• Prevent x11extras module from use on non-X11/Unix plaforms.
• Messages standard output capture has been improved in both ways a non-blocking pipe may get.
• Regression fix for invalid system-tray icon dimensions reported by some desktop environment frameworks.

What is new in version 0.4.0:

• Desktop environment session shutdown/logout management has been also adapted to Qt5 framework.
• Single/unique application instance control adapted to Qt5/X11.
• Output meter scale text color fixed on dark color schemes.
• Prefer Qt5 over Qt4 by default with configure script.
• Complete rewrite of Qt4 vs. Qt5 configure builds.
• A new top-level widget window geometry state save and restore sub-routine is now in effect.
• Fixed for some strict tests for Qt4 vs. Qt5 configure builds.
• German (de) translation update (by Guido Scholz, thanks).

What is new in version 0.3.9:

• Added application description as freedesktop.org's AppData [9].
• New user preference option on whether to show the nagging 'program will keep running in the system tray' message, on main window close.
• Application close confirm warning is now raising the main window as visible and active for due top level display, especially applicable when minimized to the system tray.
• A man page has been added.
• Translations install directory change.
• Allow the build system to include an user specified LDFLAGS.
• Czech (cs) translation updated (by Pavel Fric, thanks).

What is new in version 0.3.8:

• More preparations for Qt5 configure build.
• Serbian (sr) translation added (by Jay Alexander Fleming, thanks).

What is new in version 0.3.6:

• Main window layout fixing with regard to its user preferred size and recall when system-tray icon is not enabled.
• Channels list preset items now activated on double-click.
• Desktop environment session shutdown (eg. logout) is now tapped for graceful application exit, even though the main window is active (visible) and minimizing to system tray is enabled. Both were causing first shutdown/logout attempt to abort. Not anymore, hopefully.
• libX11 is now being added explicitly to the build link phase, as seen necessary on some bleeding-edge distros eg. Fedora 13, Debian 6.
• General standard dialog buttons layout is now in place.
• CMake build system. It was silently available in 0.3.5, but now it is officially unveiled.
• Fixed a couple of dangling pointers.
• Mac OSX: Enabled the MIDI name Id option for CoreMIDI driver ports, added the icon to the app bundle.

What is new in version 0.3.5:

• Initial widget geometry and visibility persistence logic has been slightly revised as much to avoid crash failures due to wrong main widget hidden state.
• General source tree layout and build configuration change.
• Most modal message dialog boxes (eg. critical errors) are now replaced by system tray icon bubble messages where available.
• Reverb and Chorus parameter ranges have been revised to match and comply with fluidsynth back-end (libfluidsynth).
• Fluidsynth channel info and unset program interfaces are now in use where available (libfluidsynth >= 1.1.1, EXPERIMENTAL).
• Global configuration state is now explicitly saved/committed to disk when Options dialog changes are accepted and applied.
• Output peak level meters get their long deserved gradient look.
• Automatic crash-dump reports, debugger stack-traces (gdb), back-traces, whatever, are being introduced as a brand new configure option (--enable-stacktrace) and default enabled on debug build targets (--enable-debug).
• Added Czech (cs) translation, contributed by Pavel Fric.
• The channel preset selector (Channels/Edit...) has been seriously crippled for ages, only showing the presets of the last loaded soundfont, now fixed.
• Minimum number of MIDI channels allowed on engine setup has been dropped from the old value 16 to as low as 1 (one), not that it makes a difference, as (lib)fluidsynth internals just rounds it to the nearest multiple of 16 anyway.
• Cleanup to knobs source, simplified from redundant stuff.

What is new in version 0.3.4:

• Command line option parsing has been slightly refactored to allow custom override through extraordinary fluidsynth option settings (eg. -o name=value; fixes bug #2781579).
• Main form layout has been given a little bit more slack space, just to accommodate some longer text label translations (eg. German).
• Converted obsolete QMessageBox forms to standard buttons.
• Saved channel presets are now effectively loaded on engine startup.
• Russian translation added (thanks to Alexandre Prokoudine).
• Grayed/disabled palette color group fix for dark color themes.
• Qt Software logo update.
• Fait-divers: desktop menu file touched to openSUSE conventions.
• Slight optimizations to the output peak meters refresh rate.
• MIDI and audio device names are now user selectable options through respective drop-down lists on each engine setup dialog.
• New knob style: Skulpture.

Requirements:

• FluidSynth
• Qt