FeelYourSound has introduced MidiMidi, a new Windows app that works with the JoyLabz Makey Makey invention kit to let you make a MIDI controller out of just about anything.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
Have you ever dreamed about building your own MIDI controller / drumkit / instrument but weren’t sure about all the technical stuff and the costs? With MidiMidi (software) and MaKey MaKey (hardware) it’s entirely possible to build your own gear without any soldering. If you know how to plug in a USB device you are ready to go.
Here’s a demo of the MidiMidi + Makey Makey combo in action:
Features:
- Fully MIDI compatible – You can send both MIDI notes and MIDI continuous controller values (CC) to your synthesizers or your workstation. A special Toggle mode can be used to trigger drumloops or mute tracks etc.
- No soldering required Simply connect alligator clips to objects that should work as MIDI triggers. Any conductive material like fruits, metal, or other band members will work.
- Give your audience something to talk about!!
The Makey Makey has a street price of about US $50; MidiMidi is $27.
Resources:
So it’s a piece of HID to MIDI software that will take in the input from makeyMakey and convert to MIDI.
It would be great to have this as a hardware rather than software on a PC , so that you can directly skip the PC and connect the hardware to a MIDI instrument directly. I believe that has more applications and have been building something similar now…asked the same question on the makeyMakey forum too and there is some interest in a hardware implementation
Yes, even though I’m the author of MidiMidi I must admit that a hardware-only implementation would be great ;). But then it should also support loading different settings on the fly so that you can reuse your DIY gear for different purposes while you are on stage. MidiMidi uses four different banks for instant switching and also can load settings files of course. Maybe a slot for SD cards would be great in a hardware-only implementation..
Have you thought of porting this to Linux? Running this on a Raspberry Pi would be very cool.
Please ignore my previous comment.
Short reply about Linux anyway ;):
I won’t do a native port, but you can find a link in the MidiMidi-FAQ that points to a WineHQ-entry. A friend of mine describes how you can run another product of mine (XotoPad) via Wine. The same procedure should work with MidiMidi. However, I don’t know whether the processing power of the Raspberry Pi is cufficient to run Wine.
Here is a direct link (if Synthtopia allows to post it):
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=28811