Installation instructions

Windows

Download and run the setup program at https://www.jjazzlab.org/en/download, which embeds everything you need.

If you get a Windows Smart Screen alert

Windows Smart Screen blocks the program NOT because it is a malware (it is NOT!), but just because JJazzLab is new, so Windows security servers don't have enough statistics to evaluate its "security reputation".

Once enough users will have successfully downloaded and installed it, Windows Smart Screen will not block the program anymore.

You can find more explanations in this good article.

If you don't have admin rights on your computer, choose Install for me only during setup

MacOS

You need to manually install FluidSynth first.

1/ install FluidSynth (>=2.2.0, but avoid 2.4.4 which has a bug)

I strongly recommend via Homebrew: brew install fluidsynth

2/ Download a JJazzLab package and install it

Mac computers with Apple Mx processor:

Download the .pkg file at https://www.jjazzlab.org/en/download and open it.

Mac computers with Intel x64 processor:

.pkg files are not always supported on old MacOS versions, so we propose a .zip file, a basic solution but compatible with many MacOS versions.

• Download the .zip file at https://www.jjazzlab.org/en/download and extract it (open file with Finder)

• Execute file bin/jjazzlab to start JJazzLab.

If you get a security alert

Using the Finder, select the JJazzLab package, ctrl-click menu, Open, this will give you the choice to open the application in spite of the security alert.

If JJazzLab does not start, make sure that files bin/jjazzlab and jdk/bin/java have read and execution permission ('xr'), as shown below:

To fix file permissions: chmod a+rx bin/jjazzlab jdk/bin/java

Linux

If FluidSynth makes some "crackling" noise, make sure your Linux is optimized for audio applications: https://jackaudio.org/faq/linux_rt_config.html

Using deb/rpm packages

JJazzLab packages are only proposed in selected formats (.deb, .rpm, ...).

Download the relevant package for your distro at https://www.jjazzlab.org/en/download, then open it with the relevant package manager (examples below) :

sudo apt-get install ./jjazzlab_4.0.2-1_amd64.deb

sudo gdebi install ./jjazzlab-4.0.2-0.x86_64.deb

sudo zypper install ./jjazzlab-4.0.2-0.x86_64.rpm

JJazzLab packages declare a dependency on an appropriate FluidSynth package. So the package manager should automatically install it if it's not already present on your system.

Using the tar.xz package

The .tar.xz package should work on any Linux distro (x64).

1. Install FluidSynth (>=2.2.0, but avoid 2.4.4 which has a bug) manually: https://github.com/FluidSynth/fluidsynth/wiki/Download

2. Download at https://www.jjazzlab.org/en/download and extract the JJazzLab .tar.xz file, e.g tar -xf JJazzLab-4.0.2-linux-x64.tar.xz

3. Make sure that all extracted files have read permission ('r'), and that bin/jjazzlab and jdk/bin/java have execution permission ('x'), as shown below: To add read+execution permissions: chmod a+rx bin/jjazzlab jdk/bin/java

4. Runbin/jjazzlab

Special case: libfluidsynth.so.3 in a non-standard directory

On Linux, JJazzLab uses FluidSynth via its shared library libfluidsynth.so.3 (or libfluidsynth.so). The file is expected to be in one of the standard directories: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu, /usr/lib, /usr/lib64, /usr/local/lib, /lib

If you successfully installed FluidSynth (>=2.2.0, but avoid 2.4.4 which has a bug) but JJazzLab can't load FluidSynth, it's possible that libfluidsynth.so.3 was installed in a non-standard directory. Once you found the file location (for example in /tmp/lib/libfluidsynth.so.3), you can tell JJazzLab where to find it:

• In the JJazzLab installation directory, edit file etc/jjazzlab.conf

• Add -J-Dfluidsynthlib.path=/tmp/lib/libfluidsynth.so.3 at the end of the default_options variable

• Start JJazzLab

JJazzLab embeds its own Java Runtime Engine. You don't have to deal with Java at all. Trying to use a different JRE/JDK will certainly generate problems.

Using flatpak

The Flatpak package is NOT a JJazzLab official package, it is kindly provided by a JJazzLab user. Therefore we do not provide support for it. If you encounter problems, please try the other packages proposed on this page.

https://flathub.org/apps/org.jjazzlab.JJazzLab