midi is I think independent from jack. if you use alsa be sure you have snd-rawmidi and the oss compatibility layer loaded as driver

my .config kernel config file has: CONFIG_SND_RAWMIDI=y CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y

It has to be a driver (module) and not compiled into the kernel? Could this have something to do with hdspmixer not working (e.g. does hdspmixer make the midi interface available)?

can you use MIDI with other software ?

I dont know, is there some way from the command line to send midi signals out /dev/midi(x)? Is that even the interface for the hammerfall? At this point all I have is PD (and gem). I may install audacity later, but I do all my final mixdown (for recordings) on my windows box.

I think your right, with regard to midi and jack being seperate. My old laptop was able to use both jack and hdsp midi with pd... weird.

Thanks for the help! -thewade