MIDI Synths and Arduinos

MIDI, Synths and Arduinos

Participants	Dennis
Skills
Status	Planning
Niche	Electronics
Purpose	Use in other project
Tool	No
Location
Cost
Tool category

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What

I've got some Arduino Pro Mini's and some DIN5 connectors from Adafruit, so let's do something with it. Yay MIDI \o/. Some ideas:

MIDI enabled synth

MIDI in

Read the notes that are being transmitted from a keyboard or sequencer. Information about velocity and pitch bend would also be nice.

Sound output

Multiple possibilities here:

Arduino as synth

The Arduino is capable of producing sound on its own, so write/borrow some code and connect a jack connector to the Arduino and we're done.

Driving the Korg Monotron

I own a Korg Monotron and supposedly they are very easy to modify. It would be awesome to be able to play it with a decent keyboard.

Drive a sound chip

555

Datasheet: http://www.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/pdf/161277/TI/NE555P.html
Example synth: http://blog.makezine.com/2008/12/16/simple-diy-555-synth/

Yamaha OPL2 / OPL3

MIDI player / sequencer

Start with implementing MIDI out and go from there.

Opto-isolation

It is good practice and part of the MIDI spec to use opto-isolation (for MIDI in only?). I've seen examples without it, but I'm not taking any chances when it comes to connecting to other MIDI hardware. I've found a dual channel HCPL-2630 optocoupler which seems suitable.