Tools

RASPBERRY PI AS USB/BLUETOOTH MIDI HOST

Fabio Barbon

Fabio Barbon

— 1 min read
RASPBERRY PI AS USB/BLUETOOTH MIDI HOST

Here are some instructions for setting up a Raspberry Pi 3B or a Raspberry Pi 4B as a MIDI host for USB or Bluetooth musical equipment. The purpose is to build an as-simple-as-possible device with no user interface that can be switched on and off by simply connecting/disconnecting to/from a power source.

This is being used daily since years by hundreds of musicians and by me on the following equipment:

WHAT WE NEED

  • a Raspberry Pi 3B or a Raspberry Pi 4B or a Raspberry Pi 2B
  • a microSD card (4GB is enough. More is ok, but useless in this case)
  • a micro USB power charger, sending at least 2A (most modern smartphone power chargers suffice)
  • a USB/MIDI music device for testing
  • optional a MIDI-Bluetooth device for testing Bluetooth connectivity

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Download the RPi 3 SD image or the RPi 4 SD image (updated with Raspbian Buster released 2020-02-13).

    Here's another ready to use image for Raspberry Pi 2B (with optional TP-Link UB400 Bluetooth dongle) kindly provided by Shreyash Agarwal:
  2. Download and install balenaEtcher
  3. Use balenaEtcher to flash the image to the microSD card
  4. Unmount the microSD and plug it on the Raspberry
  5. Make music!

Here are the complete instructions

Here's a similar project that uses Pi Zero-W 1.1 enhanced with DIN-MIDI: A minimalistic MIDI interface for the Raspberry Pi

Read more