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Musical Pattern Generation with the McLaren Synth Kit

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The McLaren Synth Kit (at https://github.com/mclarenlabs/libs-mclaren-alpha) is an Objective-C toolkit for building projects that simplify working with MIDI and sound synthesis on Linux. We open-sourced it last year and have been refining it with new features and capabilities.

Our latest features are the Metronome and a Pattern generation little-language. The Metronome hooks into to the ALSA MIDI system to provide a MIDI-clock timebase. It counts out beats and measures. The Pattern facility further abstracts the Metronome to longer sequences of events that repeat and can nest.

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Announcing McLaren MIDI Kit – RTP-MIDI library for your own projects

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The McLaren Synth Kit — https://github.com/mclarenlabs/McLarenSynthKit — now includes an RTP-MIDI engine that you can include in your own projects. The engine is the same one that is in our well-known rtpmidi product! We’re providing the library so that you can set up RTP-MIDI connections as you like.

Background

We sometimes receive requests from users to add features to McLaren Labs’ rtpmidi product to handle connections in a certain way. Some users might want to automatically find a particular endpoint or address. Another user might want automatic re-connect in a certain situation. Others want to experiment by translating events from non-MIDI sources into note events sent to a synthesizer on their network.

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Update: Korg Microkey Air 37 Bluetooth MIDI Keyboard with Raspberry Pi4 and Buster

Last year, in https://mclarenlabs.com/blog/2019/01/15/korg-microkey-air-37-bluetooth-midi-keyboard-with-raspberry-pi/, I described how to compile a Bluetooth update for your Pi and how to connect a Korg Bluetooth keyboard to your Pi wirelessly. Raspbian “Buster” includes bluez-5.50. The code for version 5.50 includes support for Bluetooth MIDI, but it is not enabled in the “Buster” distribution. This article describes what I discovered in compiling bluez-5.50 for “Buster” and how I installed it to get Bluetooth MIDI working on my Raspberry Pi4.

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Yamaha MD-BT01 Bluetooth MIDI adapter to Raspberry Pi

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The Yamaha MD-BT01 is a nifty little MIDI 5-pin DIN to Bluetooth adapter.  It plugs into the MIDI In/Out ports of MIDI controllers to connect wirelessly to a computer with Bluetooth.  A typical use for this adapter is to connect legacy MIDI keyboards to a computer without using a 5-pin MIDI to USB adapter on the computer.  Since most computers have Bluetooth built in these days, this makes for a tidy work-area since it eliminates at least one of the cables in your MIDI studio.


The MD-BT01 has a very smart appearance – it consists of just two large plugs connected by a single wire.  It runs off of the current already provided by the 5-pin MIDI signal.  Just plug it in, and it advertises itself as a Bluetooth MIDI connection point.    Since it uses the Bluetooth MIDI standard, it can connect to many different devices.  We tested it with Raspberry Pi and it works fine with Raspbian Stretch.  If you have followed the steps in our previous article (https://mclarenlabs.com/blog/2019/01/15/korg-microkey-air-37-bluetooth-midi-keyboard-with-raspberry-pi/) then your Pi is ready to go.
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Korg Microkey Air 37 Bluetooth MIDI Keyboard with Raspberry Pi

Do you want to have even more fun with your musical Raspberry Pi? Use an external Bluetooth MIDI keyboard with it! For this project, you need to download and compile a new version of the Bluetooth drivers for Linux. If you don’t already have compilation tools installed, you’ll need those too.

We will tell you how to compile and install the necessary Bluetooth driver, and then describe how to pair a Bluetooth MIDI Keyboard.

Prerequisites

You should have a Raspberry Pi 3 with built-in Bluetooth adaptor and Raspbian Stretch OS.
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Using Yoshimi Software Synthesizer on the Raspberry Pi 3B

The RaspberryPi 3B is an amazingly powerful computer for the price. It provides quad-core computing power for just $35. This makes it more than capable for music experimentation and learning, and experimenting with Software Synthesizers is a fun way to learn about sound.
 

Yoshimi Software Synthesizer running on the Raspberry Pi 3B


This article gives some hints for setting up a Software Synthesizer on your Raspberry Pi. We’ll talk about installing and configuring Yoshimi. Of course, this “software synth” works great with McLaren Labs rtpmidi, so you can experiment with a network of Raspberry Pi synthesizers too.
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