Midi Virtual Band (patch panel?)

[pperrin]

I have got my Pi (A) up and running wireless and headless (hurrah) - running raspbian (cos its default).

I have a project that I have looked at over the years(!), which it may be the final part of.

My aim is to have a virtual band in my den - each 'band member' a midi synth with its own speaker - spacially positioned as per a human band.

I have collected a few hardware midi synths and other midi kit- some pretty specialist, and some quirky with their midi implementation. The problem was always getting a controller flexible/pwoerful enough to run it all... Hence the Pi

The main odd bits are an Yamaha UX256
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov00/a ... aux256.htm

A Yamaha VL70m (Aker)
http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMVL70M

A yamaha DD55 (Ringo)
http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical- ... mode=model

I want to run a midi file on the Pi - and be able to it filter/tweek/distribute the messages via the UX256 (usb midi router) to the relevant synth... Remapping instruments/channels etc I am not really worried about audio (I'd probably get another Pi to set up as a midi controlled audio/sample player...)

I have done a load of googling - but most stuff that looks promsising turns out to be archaic/obsolete. I can program in most languages - if any have particularly good libraries...

UMIDI, ALSA look interestng - are they still the thing? Any thoughts, ideas pointers appreciated!

[pperrin]

Found this which saved me some trouble...

http://www.nielsmayer.com/bin/view/Rasp ... h+Rasbpian

Basic Midi over USB is supported out of the box - no installs/conf needed! Just plug it in. I have tried a basic 1+1 midi interface and the capture is working. So thats a good start, thought I'd be downloading/installing/buidling to even get to first base.

[pperrin]

Found this too

http://das.nasophon.de/mididings/

Which looks like it will do all the filtering re/mapping.

And this which explains what all this 'jack' stuff is about...

http://murks.lima-city.de/serendipity/? ... mmies.html

So need to get it all installed/connected up and see what goes wrong!

[st0kes]

Sounds interesting, it reminded me a bit of the "Teenage Engineering" project here:

http://www.teenageengineering.com/proje ... olut-choir

Theirs is Arduino based but it looks like a similar concept!

[Ravenous]

each 'band member' a midi synth with its own speaker

You might like to search the forum for the Chamber Orchestra - a regular member here has been working on it for a while. (Several raspis with a "conductor" sending MIDI-like signals to several "players")

Don't know what software he was using to handle the MIDI on the conductor, which I think is what you need to know.

[pperrin]

Thanks both for the input - interesting angles on related lines.

Being a huge cheapskate, I am looking to use existing, old midi sound modules with practice-amp-combos' for the output - so one pi, plus all the software, pushing out to these.

Having found the stuff, I think there is less to do than I anticipated(!).

But further down the line (much further!)...

I think it would be interesting to look at 'it' self configuring - give it a microphone or two as ears and, let it 'try' all the midi channels etc it has access to 'discover' what players are available and where they are placed. Then maybe let it record itself to loop back to multiply up the polyphony...

Then even further down let it pick up on surrounding sounds and 'improvise' to them... - autonomous band members - just keep them away from cars and swimming pools

[Ravenous]

... - autonomous band members - just keep them away from cars and swimming pools

Even worse, stop them developing oversized egos and breaking up due to "Musical differences"...

[pperrin]

... - autonomous band members - just keep them away from cars and swimming pools

Even worse, stop them developing oversized egos and breaking up due to "Musical differences"...

ha ha

If I get around to it, I suspect their music will be very different!