Category: midi

  • Bass Pedal MIDI Controller Video

    I’ve put together a short video showing the Bass Pedal project in its current state. Enjoy. The next step will be to add voice control, so that I can shift it form the default piano voice and perhaps an LCD display panel showing the currently selected options. This could display the current octave, transpose setting,…

  • Pullup / Pulldown

    Next step in the midification process is to add the PCF8574 chips. These chips let me add multiple inputs using only three of the input lines on the Arduino. The chips can be daisy-chained together using the same three input lines so with two chips I can have sixteen inputs and still have loads in…

  • Testing the I2C bus

    I’m using the I2C bus to read the keys in from the bass pedal. The breadboard layout is shown in an earlier post. To make sure that everything is working properly with the chips I have set up a piece of code that will read the sixteen pins in I2C chips and display their output via…

  • Multi Button MIDI

    I’ve now mixed the single button MIDI code with the I2C code to create a Multi Button MIDI. This is just the starting point but it works perfectly. Using the same board layout as the earlier post, upload this sketch and you’ll have sixteen inputs for your MIDI device, perfect for wiring into your Bass Pedal!…

  • Back to Basics

    I’ve been experimenting with the Arduino MIDI library. The code is available to download here. WIth the library installed using MIDI is simpler and your code is clearer. The MIDI library is initialises in the void setup(); function by inserting the line MIDI.begin(); Then the code to start a note playing is MIDI.sendNoteOn(36,127,1); and to stop…

  • Single Button MIDI

    Stage two of my further adventures in MIDI land. Using a single button to play a single note via MIDI. A MIDI.sendnoteon turns on a note which keeps playing unless otherwise instructed. To stop the note a second instruction is sent. MIDI.sendnoteoff To do this you need to send a MIDI message whenever the state of the key…

  • Electronics – First Steps

    The pedal board is ready with all the parts cleaned and screws tightened. I have a bundle of thirteen wires, one for each pedal. I’m planning to convert the input from these wires into a midi output. I’m using the Arduino Uno board to convert between the two. Rather than clogging up all the arduino inputs with…

  • Bass Pedal to midi-fy

    By the power of eBay, I have acquired this 13 key bass pedal, just what I needed for a bit of midi hacking. As it comes, this pedal is simply a set of thirteen switches. My plan is to  add a midi output to the back of the box. Inside, each key is switched so that…

  • Sparkfun Midi Shield

    I ordered the Sparkfun Midi Shield from Amazon for a bargain £15. The postman brought the neatly packed kit the next morning. Time for a bit of soldering. Sparkfun’s kit is designed to plug into your Arduino board ready for some MIDI programming. All the surface mount devices are already soldered into place. The remaining parts need to be…