How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

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KuraVilu
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How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by KuraVilu »

Greetings everybody! I am very new to the Pi (and Linux) and am in need of a very basic setup for live performances. There's a lot of information on the Internet for complex audio production software (and it's a bit confusing to me) but I want something extremely basic, I just don't have the "know how" and figure I would give this a shot.

I am currently using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ running the latest version of Raspbian and have a USB M-Audio KeyRig 49 MIDI controller. I do have a Windows laptop capable of running Ableton Live but it's too bulky for me to carry around from gig to gig when I could just throw the Pi in my guitar case and love life.

Now, to the point: During our live set we play intros and a few samples in some of our songs. I want to be able to play them with my MIDI controller. What I need is simply to trigger, let's say, intro_1.wav when I press the C note on the keyboard, play intro_2.wav when I press the D note and so on. Hopefully running within Raspbian. Is there a simple program that would do that? Can I run some basic code for the same purpose?

I will be eternally grateful if you have any suggestions or can point me in the right direction.

Cheers! :D
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by Frank Carvalho »

One possibility is to prepare the samples as a soundfont, with the different samples assigned to individual keys, then start whatever version of Carla is available on the Pi and open the soundfont (which will load an instance of fluidsynth - a sample playback program). In Carla you can also route MIDI in to Fluidsyth.
The Pi is very DIY and you have to get the software. You can try Autostatics repository, if it is still available, otherwise you may have to compile some Things to get it running. And you need a sound Card with MIDI.
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by KuraVilu »

Thanks for the recommendation so far. I'm not familiar with any of the terms used, but I will explore. Lol

I will post here my results. Thanks again.
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by bluebell »

Frank Carvalho wrote:And you need a sound Card with MIDI.
Since most MIDI-Keyboards have USB-MIDI you don't need a MIDI port in your interface.

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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by KuraVilu »

I've been trying to install Jack and Carla unsuccessfully. I've follow some instructions and unfortunately didn't work out. As I mentioned before, I'm new to Linux and that makes it a bit harder than usual for me. When looking for info all I find is some people literally talking code to each other and that only makes it more confusing to me.

If anyone has working steps to run these in the Pi, please share them here. Might seem very obvious to some, but it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by ssj71 »

maybe it would make sense to start from the zynthian OS build and remove parts you don't need? See http://zynthian.org/

I think you'll definitely want jack, but maybe for this 1 purpose you'd be ok going direct to the ALSA driver level. Depending on the number of samples, petri-foo (https://github.com/petri-foo/Petri-Foo) or sampleV1 (https://samplv1.sourceforge.io/samplv1-index.html) may be better apps than carla if really all you want is to trigger samples.

Or if you'd like to proceed with trying JACK + Carla, please paste the commands you ran and the output you got and we can work through it slowly.

Edit: actually fabla may be even better http://openavproductions.com/fabla/
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by sadko4u »

You may also try LSP Klangerzeuger and LSP Schlagzeug since LSP Plugins have experimental support of Raspberry Pi after 1.1.4 release.
http://lsp-plug.in/?page=manuals&section=sampler_stereo
http://lsp-plug.in/?page=manuals&sectio ... ampler_x12
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by headwar »

Maybe Giada can run on a Pi ?
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Re: How can I run a basic MIDI sampler on Raspberry Pi?

Post by khz »

. . . FZ - Does humor belongs in Music?
. . GNU/LINUX@AUDIO ~ /Wiki $ Howto.Info && GNU/Linux Debian installing >> Linux Audio Workstation LAW
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