freepats is a free and open set of instrument patches. A patchset is required for MIDI files to be audible through TiMidity++. These patches also work with applications that use SDL_mixer for MIDI audio. To use freepats with TiMidity++ and/or SDL_mixer, edit /etc/timidity.cfg and make it look like this: source /etc/timidity/freepats.cfg Alternatively, use crude.cfg instead of freepats.cfg to use substitute patches that fill in missing entries in the tone bank.