Python Synth with Raspberry

Question

I'm trying to create a synth using python with raspberry pi. I've written the code for manipulate the gpio input (i've modified the electronic of an old pianola and connected it to raspberry with the gpio) but I don't know how to create a sound. I want raspberry to reproduce a sound on the audio-output when I'm pressing a specific key (for example the pressing of the 9th key will callback a functionthat will reproduce the D note etc..). I gave a look to nsound (http://nsound.sourceforge.net/) and to PySynth (http://home.arcor.de/mdoege/pysynth/) but I can't get how to directly reproduce a sound without writing it before in a .wav file.

Any suggestions? Thanks

Answer 1

You need two things in order to accomplish your task:

1. You need a Python library that can output MIDI (e.g. python-midi or python-rtmidi)
2. You need a soft synth. You can use Timidity for that, which can be used as an ALSA sequencer device.

You can install timidity using apt. You have to start timidity in ALSA server mode:

timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os -EFreverb=0

This line is taken from the above link. The settings may vary, important is the -iA. The other parameters deal with buffering and disabling the reverb effect, to save CPU cycles.

You can test the timidity server by using aplaymidi:

aplaymidi -l
aplaymidi -p 65:0 somemidifile.mid

Where 65:0 has to be replaced by the MIDI sequencer that you see after running aplaymidi -l.

On the Python side, I cannot give you much advice, except reading the docs for the python-midi package. There you also have to connect to the ALSA sequencer device from above and send your MIDI events to that port.

Answer 2

If you don't mind programming in C, there's a working audio generation / playing sample in the /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_audio folder:

cd /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/libs/ilclient
make
cd /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_audio
make
./hello_audio.bin

It outputs audio to the headphone connector by default, but when used as ./hello_audio.bin 1 the output changes to HDMI.