Software Midi

I'm trying to get some good software midi program installed since my onboard audio (Via686) hasn't got any support for midi. I have installed Timidity with ALSA support according to the how-to. When I run the Timidity server (I need to run it with -B4,8 instead of 2,8 cause otherwise sound quality is bad, haven't tried any other values yet) eveything works correctly. The problem is that I would like to be able to use midi all the time without having to run the Timidity server each time. Also when I play a midi file, the sound device is used so I can't play wave sounds at the same time for example. Is there any workaround for this? Would it be better to use another program instead of Timidity in my case? Thanks in advance.