#midi-controller — Public Fediverse posts

Ableton Live MCP

https://github.com/bschoepke/ableton-live-mcp

#HackerNews #AbletonLive #MCP #MusicProduction #MusicTech #MIDIController #GitHub

@kierudsen I don't think you need another midi controller.

Re-Assign MIDI Controllers (Learn) in REAPER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPnmQ5irXDo

#PeaceLoveMusic #Reaoer #ReaperDAW #MusicProduction #MidiController #DAW #Linux #LinuxAudio

If this works out I will have the time of my life with my #MidiController soon.

Heavy WIP in #blender with the DJtechtools midifigther and my cute #rat rig.

Don’t know why I haven’t thought of testing this before, but my Linux machine recognizes my AKAI Force midi inputs through the USB connection.

This wasn’t an option on MacOS, so this is really great (I think).

I’m now trying to spin up the DrivenByMoss extensions, but I have to admit that it’s not going that well. I keep getting MIDI Error, I presume this is because DrivenByMoss is made for the midi network driver from Akai.

I’ll keep you posted!

#LinuxAudio #MusicProduction #MidiController

Turns out it was not that much manual work required to get everything over to #cablesGL and hook the encoder LEDs up to dynamic values!

#b3d #cablesGL #vj #MidiController

Thanks for being part of our first ever workshop on "Wireless MIDI" with Thomas Geissl. We can't wait to reveal the next workshops soon, stay tuned!

#midicontroller #midi #postdigital #instrument #synthesizer #wireless

The next part of the rat orchestra with #cablesGL and #vcvrack :

A very squeaky step sequencer, press the encoder to enable or disable step. Change the value to change pitch.

#theWorkshop

A longer version up over on youtube: https://youtube.com/shorts/zPrXNJKDm9Y

#characterDesign #rat #rats #cute #modularSynth #synthDiy #MidiController

Okay what would you do with sixteen free running CV recorders? Not asking for a friend. Next up would be a nice drone synth with lots of individual oscillators.

Another option would be to make half of it a step sequencer of some sort. So many options.

#vcvrack #modularSynth #midi #MidiController #synth

Made a lil thing in #vcvrack and #cablesGl Adding parameters in visuals-world as well ins synths-world is more complicated then expected.

https://youtube.com/shorts/IFXetvx9m80

#b3d #mograph #modularSynth #MidiController

ParksTool looks like really space efficient midi controllers with the most essential controls!

They are getting on the wish list, but it’s still not the “One-motorized-fader” controller I dream of.

https://www.parkstool.com/

#musicproduction #midicontroller

I could not sleep so I added (flashing) videos to my #MidiController DIY build page. Still in progress, but now with more pictures. Good night.

https://zuggamasta.de/projects/midicontroller/

I released a big update for AirBending (v1.7). More connectivities for this camera based MIDI controller: MIDI, RTP-MIDI, and OpenSoundControl. Also I’m adding 7-days free trial to test all features 😃 www.nanas.ee/products/sof... #midicontroller #macos

AirBending - Touchless MIDI Co...

I would like to give away my Novation LaunchKey 37 MK3.

Does anyone know any charity (working with kids, for example), group or individual that this could help to? Personal recommendations are much appreciated.

Fully functional, few minor scratches that do not affect the functionality.

Within EU due to fees and easier shipping in general (I’ll take care of that).

Thank you for sharing ❤️

#musicProduction #midiController #midi #novation #ableton #bitwig

Arturia Keystep mk2 https://3dcandy.live/2025/11/arturia-keystep-mk2/ #boost #controller #midicontroller

I feel like none of my projects are timely (or ever completed for that matter), but the band is planning to start writing again. I'm imaging a lot of big band sounds, so I got a Zynthian to serve as an "orchestra in a box" for shows.

Hoping to use it with the keytar I'm designing to trigger backing tracks and things. Fun kit to put together.

#zynthian #midi #midicontroller #music #groovebox

Theremin-Style MIDI Controller Does It With Lasers https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/theremin-style-midi-controller-does-it-with-lasers/ #opticaltheremin #midicontroller #ArduinoHacks #MusicalHacks #ArduinoUno #tofsensor

Theremin-Style MIDI Controller Does It With Lasers - Strictly speaking, a Theremin uses a pair of antennae that act as capacitors in a ... - https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/theremin-style-midi-controller-does-it-with-lasers/ #opticaltheremin #midicontroller #arduinohacks #musicalhacks #arduinouno #tofsensor

TeensyROM Desktop UI Hits Version 2.0 with SID DJ Features
#Commodore64 #SIDMusic #TeensyROM #RetroDJ #C64Lives #MIDIcontroller #ChiptunePerformance #LiveSID
https://theoasisbbs.com/teensyrom-desktop-ui-v2-0-released/?feed_id=4450&_unique_id=6880e1c96648b

OpenMIDIStomper Makes Sure Your Gear Does What Your Foot Says https://hackaday.com/2025/07/03/openmidistomper-makes-sure-your-gear-does-what-your-foot-says/ #midicontroller #MusicalHacks #footswitch #stompbox #midi

OpenMIDIStomper Makes Sure Your Gear Does What Your Foot Says - If you’re a solo musician, you probably have lots of gear you’d like to control, b... - https://hackaday.com/2025/07/03/openmidistomper-makes-sure-your-gear-does-what-your-foot-says/ #midicontroller #musicalhacks #footswitch #stompbox #midi

The MIDI Guitar 3: Five Dimensions of Touch • MPE for Guitar
w/ Thorleif “LoFiLeiF” Markula
#Music #Experimental #MIDI #MPE #MIDIController #Guitar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2FIGgoSwDA

Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display – MIDI CC Controller – Part 2

This revisits my Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display – MIDI CC Controller using my Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display PCB with a Waveshare RP2040 to create more of a “all in one” device.

Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments.  I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments!

If you are new to Arduino, see the Getting Started pages.

Parts list

• Updated Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display (see below).
• Completed Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display PCB Build
• Waveshare Zero format device (I’m using an RP2040)
• 4x 6mm brass spacers
• 4x 20mm nylon spacers

PCB

This requires a built of the Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display PCB with the following:

• 2 potentiometers
• MIDI IN and OUT

I’ve used potentiometers that are their own knob, as they only poke through the casing by around 5mm or so.

If it you are able to get longer shaft pots, then that would probably be worthwhile.

Updated 3D Printed Case

This requires the following from the Krell Display 3D Printed Case:

• 1x Frame
• 2x Inserts (with potentiometer holes)
• 1x EuroRack support

This requires the following options in the OpenSCAD code:

show_frame = 1;
show_quadframe = 0;
show_insert = 1;
show_support = 0;
show_quadsupport = 0;
show_eurorack = 0;
show_eurorack_support = 1;

alg_pot1 = 1;
alg_pot2 = 1;
alg_cv   = 0;

The frame does not really take into account the PCB at present, but I’ve reached the “good enough I want to do something else” stage, so I’ve just added a couple of small cut-outs (using a hacksaw) for the two MIDI sockets, and am content that the components stick out a bit from the back.

This cutout has to be 10.5mm from the end, 6mm wide, and 5mm deep.

At some point I might go back and design a deeper frame that has the cut-outs included and some kind of snap-on back to make it a self-contained box.

But for now, this is left as an exercise for, well, anyone else 🙂

Construction

I’ve used four brass 6mm spacers to screw into the mounting holes in the frame. Then the PCB can be inserted, taking care to squeeze in the 3D printed support around the LEDs and pots, and fixed with 20mm spacers which will also act as “legs”.

The Code

I’ve used a Waveshare Zero RP2040 and Circuitpython for this build. This is a combination of some of the test code used for the Forbidden Planet “Krell” Display PCB but with added MIDI.

The code supports both Serial and USB MIDI.

I wanted an equivalent of the Arduino map() and constrain() functions and didn’t immediate spot them in Circuitpython so wrote my own:

def algmap(val, minin, maxin, minout, maxout):
    if (val < minin):
        val = minin
    if (val > maxin):
        val = maxin
    return minout + (((val - minin) * (maxout - minout)) / (maxin - minin))

This allows me to map the analog read values (0 to 65535) down to MIDI CC values (0 to 127) whilst also allowing for some inaccuracies (I’ve treated anything below 256 as zero for example):

alg1cc = int(algmap(alg1_in.value,256,65530,0,127))

I’ve used the Adafruit MIDI library, which I’m still not really a fan of, but I wanted to include MIDI THRU functionality to allow the controller to sit inline with an existing MIDI stream. But it doesn’t seem to work very well.

I was already only updating the LEDs/MIDI CC if the pot values had changed, to cut down on the number of Neopixel writes required.

I experimented with changing the scheduling of the analog reads and MIDI but that didn’t seem to help very much. In the end I made sure that all MIDI messages queued up in the system would be read at the same time before going back to checking the pots.

    msg = midiuart.receive()
    while (msg is not None):
        if (not isinstance(msg, MIDIUnknownEvent)):
            midiuart.send(msg)
        msg = midiuart.receive()

It will do for now. Moving forward, I might try the Winterbloom SmolMIDI library. If that still doesn’t give me some useful performance then I might have to switch over to Arduino C.

Find it on GitHub here.

Closing Thoughts

The MIDI throughput is disappointing, but then I’ve never really gotten on with the Adafruit MIDI library. I use it as USB MIDI on Circuitpython is so easy, so will need to do something about that.

I’m still deciding on the PCB-sized supports too. The original seemed to have nicer diffusion of the LEDs, but that could have been the difference between 5mm SMT neopixels and these THT APA106s which seem more directional in the first place.

And I really ought to finish the 3D printed case properly too.

So this is “that will do” for now, but I ought to come back and finish it off properly at some point.

Kevin

#APA106 #circuitpython #ForbiddenPlanet #Krell #midi #midiController #NeoPixel #potentiometer #rp2040 #WaveshareZero

MIDI Association members Expressive E, makers of the Osmose keyboard and the Touché Controller have released a video explaining the benefits of MPE (Midi Polyphonic Expression)
#Science #Engineering #Music #MIDI #Controller #MIDIController #MPE #Synth #Synthesizer
https://midi.org/expressive-e-explains-mpe

Arduino Audio and MIDI Frameworks

I’ve been collecting bookmarks for interesting Arduino audio projects for a while now, and having now played with the XIAO SAMD21 I started looking back over my list for other things to try.  One thing that occurred to me is that there are a now a number of more powerful audio frameworks available for a range of microcontrollers, so in this post I’m doing an introductory “look see” at some of them, largely as “notes to self” to come back to them for some more detailed projects in the future.

Note: Many of these require a 32-bit processor, which is one of the reasons I’ve not looked at them so far.

Warning! I strongly recommend using old or second hand equipment for your experiments.  I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments!

If you are new to microcontrollers, see the Getting Started pages.

Mozzi

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Mozzi of course, the synthesis library for Arduino that supports a large range of microcontrollers, including the “original” 8-bit Arduino ATmega328P, so I won’t go over that again here.

For a starting point with Mozzi, see: Arduino PWM MIDI Synthesis with Mozzi.  For using Mozzi on a 32-bit SAMD processor, there is more here and here.

But Mozzi isn’t the only game in town, especially if we’re expanding out to 32-bit microcontrollers.

The Arduino Sound Library

https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/arduinosound/

This is an official Arduino library that supports SAMD21 based microcontrollers using an I2S digital to analog converter. It is designed for the MKR series of official Arduino boards.

Interestingly it appears to only support I2S audio devices for sound input and output.  That seems like a little bit of a missed opportunity to me in that the SAMD21 has a built-in DAC, but I guess analogWrite() deals with access to the DAC relatively easily.

It is designed for official Arduino SAMD architecture boards – so those in the MKR series.  It might work on other SAMD architecture boards, I haven’t looked into it in detail.

Phil Schatzmann’s Arduino Audio Tools

https://github.com/pschatzmann/arduino-audio-tools

This is a suite of open source code for audio stream processing, providing a range of audio sources (e.g. microphones, Internet streams, files, sensors, and so on) and sinks (e.g. DACs, PWM audio, MP3, codecs, audio modules, etc).

It can be used to build audio players, processors, effects, file processors, audio visualisers, networked audio tools, and so on.

I believe it supports the following microcontroller architectures:

• ESP32 (S and C variants)
• ESP8266
• RP2040 (MBED and non-MBED)
• AVR
• STM32
• SAMD

It supports several audio output boards too, including: ESP32-A1S based boards (ES8388 or AC101 codecs); VS1053 modules; and WM8960 modules.

I believe this is a library for audio processing, not necessarily audio synthesis.

Marcel Licence’s ML Synth Tools

https://github.com/marcel-licence/ML_SynthTools

This is a comprehensive synth library for producing synthesizers, organs and effects.  Most of the code is open source, but there are certain key elements that are provided only in pre-built library form.

It provides libraries for the following microcontrollers:

• ESP32
• ESP8266
• XIAO SAMD21
• Teensy 4.1
• Daisy Seed
• Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040
• STM32F407

As well as the synthesizer core oscillators there are modules for arpeggiators, effects, meters, scopes, and MIDI file playing.  Here are some example builds using the library:

• ML Organ (all platforms): https://github.com/marcel-licence/ml_synth_organ_example
• SAMD21 Synth: https://github.com/marcel-licence/samd21_mini_synth
• ML Synth (all platforms): https://github.com/marcel-licence/ml_synth_basic_example
• ESP32 FM synth: https://github.com/marcel-licence/esp32_fm_synth
• ESP32/RP2040 e-piano: https://github.com/marcel-licence/ml_epiano_example

Although it isn’t fully open source, this non-the-less looks like it would be worth taking a more detailed look.  The provided videos of Marcel playing are particularly excellent.

MIDI Controller Libraries

There are a number of Arduino libraries for building MIDI controllers. Here are a selection of some that I’ve found so far.

OpenDesk MIDI Platform – https://github.com/shanteacontrols/OpenDeck

This is a set of firmware and two official PCB designs for MIDI controllers. In addition to the official boards, it also supports many microcontrollers, including:

• Arduino Mega 2560
• Arduino Nano 33 BLE
• Raspberry Pi Pico
• XIAO RP2040
• Teensy++ 2.0

And many others. It includes a web-based configuration utility for defining the MIDI commands for the controls.  Official boards are available on Tindie and you can read more about them here: https://shanteacontrols.com/.

It supports a range of buttons, encoders, potentiometers, force sensitive resistors, certain touchscreens and can provided feedback using LEDs and displays.

Control Surface – https://github.com/tttapa/Control-Surface

This is a general purpose library for building MIDI input and output control devices.  It supports a wide range of microcontrollers, including:

• AVR (Uno, Mega, Leonardo).
• Arduino Nano Every and 33.
• Teensy.
• ESP8266
• ESP32
• Raspberry Pi Pico

It supports a range of MIDI transports, including serial, USB, “direct serial” (using Hairless MIDI) and MIDI BLE. It also supports a range of buttons, potentiometers, rotary encoders, switches, keyboard matrices, and so on and can provide visual feedback using a range of LEDS and displays.  It has built-in support for multiplexers, shift registers and LED drivers.

It includes a huge number of example projects to browse.

MIDIPal – https://github.com/pichenettes/midipal

This is a “MIDI Swiss Army Knife” that, with the additional of a display and rotary encoder, can provide a wide range of MIDI processing functions.  It includes an editor application for programming MIDI filters.

This is a “native” AVR application, not for the Arduino environment.

Notes and Volts MIDI Controller – https://www.notesandvolts.com/2016/04/arduino-midi-controller-buttons.html

This is provided for completeness as it is a fairly common codebase for people to find and use with an Arduino. It supports a range of potentiometers and buttons and makes the task of configuring them as a MIDI control device relatively straight forward.

Closing Thoughts

As I say, this post is really almost a bit of a “to-do list” of things that look interesting and that I might try to take a more detailed look at, at some point.

If you have experience of any of these frameworks or libraries; or have suggestions of others that might be worth a look, do let me know in the comments!

Kevin