Hello all, I've got a question regarding MIDI on the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (running Raspbian Jessie) and I hope this is the right place to ask!
I want to have a physical MIDI input on my Pi which could receive data from anything outputting MIDI data, such as a keyboard synth. From there, a program on the Pi could interpret the MIDI data and in turn control some LED strips (not planning on doing any audio work with the MIDI data). Specifically, I hope to run some audio software on my Windows laptop and have it output MIDI data to the Pi, which can light up the LEDs in sync with the audio.
Now I am just having trouble finding the best equipment for the job. I have Googled around and found some useful information on creating MIDI ports on the Pi's GPIO, but I would prefer to avoid the dirty work and do this over USB if possible. So, my question is this: Does anyone know of any USB/MIDI interfaces that are verified to work on the Pi? I will probably be needing two, one for the Pi to have MIDI input and one for my Windows laptop to do MIDI output. Also - I have configured the Pi's OS to use USB 1.0, if this makes a difference for finding the right USB/MIDI converter (needed to do this to get my Lexicon Alpha USB soundcard working).