OSX USB to MIDI Driver for Arduino

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Software Development
1

Hello,

I feel that the successful completion of a USB-MIDI Driver would be a huge benefit to the Arduino community. I don't think it should be very difficult but I need your help.

I have begun work on a USB MIDI driver for OSX that will allow serial MIDI messages sent from the Arduino, to be received through the USB cable. I am using the SampleUSBMIDIDriver included in the CoreAudio SDK as my starting point.

My goal is that as long as properly formatted MIDI data is being sent out of the Arduino serial port using the Serial.print() function, the computer should be able to use that data to control any MIDI controllable applications that are running.

So far I have edited the SampleUSBMIDIDriver so that it contains the VendorID, ProductID, Manufacturer string and Product Description string of the ftdi chip on the Arduino board. I have also created a unique uuid for the usb-midi device. I have built and installed the driver in /Library/Audio/Midi Drivers but when I plug the Arduino into the computer the interface does not show up in Audio Midi Setup as it should.

I have also looked at the CasioUSBMIDIDriver which is based on the SampleUSBMIDIDriver and it seems to me that I have made the correct changes.

I have no experience coding for OSX or for working with drivers. I have studied C for three years and C++ for one term while at school doing electrical engineering and have been using Arduino for several years.

One concern I have is will the Arduino driver interfere with a USB-MIDI driver that is using the same ftdi chip? Any thoughts?

I really want to make this work. If anyone wants to help me or has any advice please let me know in this forum and we can get in touch.

Cheers - Jason

2

One concern I have is will the Arduino driver interfere with a USB-MIDI driver that is using the same ftdi chip?

Yes it will, you will get an "unable to open port in use by another application" type of error.
You would have to close the port in the Arduino language and open it in the serial application before you could test your system. Then reconnect to upload more code.
It would be a bit of a fag (that's English for tiresome not the U.S. meaning of the word) having to do that.

However, at the moment I have to unplug the USB and connect up the MIDI interface when getting the Arduino to speak pure MIDI.

EDIT hey! :-? the board automatically censored that word and replaced the a with a * so I guess the writers of the board software are from the U.S.

3

Bump...

OSX 10.5

I have started rewriting the SampleUSBMIDIDriver as well, but I'm not sure what to put under:

#define kMyVendorID
#define kMyProductID

USBProber gives me:
"Device VendorID/ProductID: 0x0403/0x6001 (Future Technology Devices International Limited)"
I can see the driver tries to match an unsigned 16 bit integer, so I left it in that format, but it doesn't seem to match, or at least it doesn't show up under Audio MIDI Setup.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I feel like I'm fumbling around in the dark a bit?

/me

4

any news on the osx driver....

i used the roland usbserial driver on windows and liked it because it was uch faster than any other software.

looking for something like it for osx

5

Looks like I solved this proglem some time ago, read here