Manage the FluidSynth (MIDI synthesizer) service in non-privileged userspace - tested on Ubuntu & derivatives

midi_emulation.sh

#!/bin/bash

#install fluidsynth and fluid-soundfont-gm first using:
#sudo apt-get install fluidsynth fluid-soundfont-gm

#the following line also needs to be added in /etc/default/fluidsynth
#OTHER_OPTS='-a pulseaudio -m alsa_seq -r 48000'

#bash output styles and colors
DEFAULT="\033[0m"
BOLD="\033[1m"
GREEN="\033[1;32m"

case "$1" in

start)
    echo -n "Starting fluidsynth service... "
    systemctl --user start fluidsynth.service
    echo -e $GREEN"DONE"$DEFAULT
    ;;

stop)
    echo -n "Stopping fluidsynth service (may take a while)... "
    systemctl --user stop fluidsynth.service
    echo -e $GREEN"DONE"$DEFAULT
    ;;

*)
    echo -e "Invalid option! Use either "$BOLD"start"$DEFAULT" or "$BOLD"stop"$DEFAULT"."
    exit 1
    ;;

esac

exit 0