Getting Started w/Sparkfun MIDI/Musical Instrument Shield

Other Hardware Audio
1

Greetings all..

I've been breadboarding, hacking, and building for a couple years now and have finally gotten to where I'm ready to do something with all the shields I bought for my Duemilanove, but aside from blinking an LED, I've not done much with my Arduino. I'm still a bit timid and just need the proper push to get the ball rolling. I have Sparkfun's MIDI breakout board and Musical Instrument Shield, but can't seem to find the starting point. Obviously I could stack the Musical Instrument Shield on top of the Arduino, but where exactly do I go from there? I copy and paste the example code into a sketch and upload it to the Arduino, but then.. uh.

And I've got a ton of MIDI capable instruments (SPD-20, Dr. Sample, Dr. Rhythm, MicroKorg, etc), so I'm really excited to get started, I suppose I'm just overwhelmed with possibilities. Thanks for any and all help/advice.

Cheers,
Jrm

2

So you obviously don't need the Arduino to generate some music, but you could build something completely different, like:

  • Let the Arduino listen on the midichannels and if a high C is detected start your coffee machine - C from Coffee makes sense :wink:

  • make a Midi echo device - listen to Midi and play the same notes

  • let it switch on the light above your sheet music, after notes detected and switch instruments off after 1 minute of no notes.

Especially the last one is usefull imho, someone gets a phonecall, does something different and forgets the light and keyboard etc..

enough inspiration to get started?