Music Keyboard for TamTam?

Thu Dec 4 02:55:43 EST 2008

Thanks for all your efforts!

The last time I used a midi keyboard with a Mac (it was a G3) it had to have a special "midi interface" and then was just "plug and play" from there using Finale as a program. In looking over your discussion below, it looks like you did manage to get a midi keyboard to work with the XO, but with great difficulty. Some questions...

Will it work with all of the TamTam Activities?

Is it likely that all midi keyboards would work?

Would it be possible to put the instructions into language that the less technically inclined could easily follow to get started on this?

Does anything have to be changed in the software/hardware to make this easily used by teachers everywhere?

Do you know of any source of very simple, inexpensive midi keyboards? No bells and whistles needed, they are already in the XO in the TamTam Activities.

Could easier use of a midi keyboard be incorporated into a change in the Sugar OS (like 9.1.0)?

Or is there an easy way to make the current set-up easier?

Thanks again for your interest and efforts!

Caryl

> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:37:59 -0800
> From: echerlin at gmail.com
> To: gary at garycmartin.com
> Subject: Re: Music Keyboard for TamTam?
> CC: cbigenho at hotmail.com; devel at lists.laptop.org
> 
> See also
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/189728345/
> 
> Walter and Simon demonstrate MIDI keyboard input into the A-TEST board
> Taken on July 14, 2006, uploaded July 14, 2006
> 
> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 9:16 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
> > On 1 Dec 2008, at 04:01, Gary C Martin wrote:
> >
> >> On 30 Nov 2008, at 22:16, Erik Garrison wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 12:20 AM, Gary C Martin
> >>> <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
> >>>> On 30 Nov 2008, at 01:29, Erik Garrison wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 8:23 AM,  <pgf at laptop.org> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ignacio wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 04:24 +0000, Gary C Martin wrote:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On a more disappointing note I found this ticket "G1G1 tamtam
> >>>>>>>> suite
> >>>>>>>> should respond to MIDI keyboard input" from 10 months ago.
> >>>>>>>> Closed.
> >>>>>>>> Wont fix :-(
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6031
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> All "wontfix" means is that they're waiting for someone with a
> >>>>>>> stronger
> >>>>>>> itch to scratch it ;)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> i really have no idea how such devices are normally presented to
> >>>>>> the systems, but is it possible that the keyboard is consists of
> >>>>>> more than one USB device (i.e., via a built-in hub) and that not
> >>>>>> all the drivers are present on the XO?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> FWIW, The M-audio systems abide by open midi specifications and are
> >>>>> platform-independent.  I don't know about the driver situation.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There is a program which can be used to dump midi signals to
> >>>>> stdout.
> >>>>> It might be a good test as it's very simple to configure and its
> >>>>> results are very clear, unlike the audio programs you'll want to
> >>>>> use.
> >>>>
> >>>> ... and it's called??? Gah! ;-)
> >>
> >> Just for reference, after connecting the USB Midi keyboard amidi -l
> >> gives me:
> >>
> >> [olpc at xo-0C-E6-BB ~]$ amidi -l
> >> Dir Device    Name
> >> IO  hw:1,0,0  Keystation 49e MIDI 1
> >>
> >>> I'm not at an XO or my development machine now, but looked around the
> >>> web to try to find some information to help.
> >>>
> >>> See: http://www.4front-tech.com/pguide/midi.html
> >>
> >> Will go read.
> >>
> >>> Does the system have a /dev/midi* when you plug the device in?
> >>
> >> Yep, I get a /dev/midi1
> >>
> >>> Do you see anything interesting in the kernel logs returned with
> >>> dmesg?
> >>>
> >>> Unfortunately our kernel configs aren't online anywhere i can find...
> >>> but I'll check to see if it's enabled.  My guess would be not, but
> >>> perhaps I'm mistaken.
> >>>
> >>>> I'm trying to hack my way through coding csound, but I've not had
> >>>> much time
> >>>> to play so far. A magic midi data dumping tool would be a nice
> >>>> shortcut to
> >>>> test – FWIW, I can see my M-audio correctly listed on the USB as an
> >>>> available MIDI input device, but not got any further yet.
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps cat /dev/midi*  if the file(s) exist.
> >>
> >> Fab, yes, cat/dev/midi1 gives me wild ascii characters each time I
> >> press a key, looks like both note and velocity (this particular
> >> keyboard doesn't emit pressure but I have another one somewhere that
> >> does), also other controls (volume, pitch blend & modulation) trigger
> >> comms.
> >>
> >> I'd say the drivers are good to go, and I need to get back to reading
> >> csound documentation and try a demo to pickup the incoming midi feed.
> >
> > OK, really boring but working example (XO 8.2-767):
> >
> > 1) Plug in your USB MIDI input device
> >
> > 2) In terminal run "amidi -l" it should list something like:
> >
> >    Dir Device    Name
> >    IO  hw:1,0,0  Keystation 49e MIDI 1
> >
> > 3) Make a file bells.csd, it MUST be called <some_such_or_other>.csd,
> > that alone wasted hours of my life :-( here's a what should go in it,
> > the one thing to watch is the -M hw:1,0,0 as this is the option that
> > tells csound which midi device to listen to, if "amidi -l" shows your
> > MIDI device with a different reference, use that instead:
> >
> > <CsoundSynthesizer>
> > <CsOptions>
> > -odac -M hw:1,0,0
> > </CsOptions>
> > <CsInstruments>
> > instr 1
> > idec = 1
> > iamp ampmidi 32767
> > kfrq cpsmidib 2
> > kenv expsegr 1, idec, 0.1, 0.1, 0.01
> > asig oscili  kenv*iamp, kfrq, 1
> >    out asig
> > endin
> > </CsInstruments>
> > <CsScore>
> > f0 36000
> > f1 0 16384 10 1
> > </CsScore>
> > </CsoundSynthesizer>
> >
> > 4) Then again in console run:
> >
> >        csound bells.csd
> >
> > 5) Start pressing keys and make beautiful music, see I said it wasn't
> > too exciting, but nice to get this far :-) The XO speakers don't do
> > very well below middle C (with this instrument), but it's a start.
> >
> > So... hardware/kernel/driver all working in 8.2-767. MIDI input is now
> > demoted to just ;-) a client software side feature for the TamTam
> > activities. I'll do a little more csound reading on the python side
> > and try to hack on TamTamMini, will ping the list if I make useful
> > progress.
> >
> > Regards,
> > --Gary
> >
> >>> Erik
> >>
> >> Many thanks,
> >> --Gary
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> 
> 
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