I’m setup on Raspbian. I see the MIDI device listed when I use aconnect -l
I see the same midi device from within the software I’m using (running on same RPi).
However no signals are going through to my externally connected device (modular synth), and the LED on the pisound isn’t lighting up.
If I use the same software, and connect via MIDI USB to my audio interface, MIDI signals are going through correctly.
Is there an extra step I’m missing to enable MIDI DIN output from software on the RPi itself?
Hi, let’s first make sure the ports themselves work by sending data using a command utility and monitoring the input. Connect the Pisound’s MIDI output directly to the Pisound’s MIDI input, turn off all music software, open a new terminal and run these commands:
aconnect -x
amidi -p hw:pisound -d
It will disconnect any ALSA sequencer virtual MIDI connections, so they don’t interfere in any way, and start monitoring the input port.
Then in another terminal window run:
amidi -p hw:pisound -S "90 3c 7f"
It should send full velocity middle C (note number 60) to the output.
Then run this command to send an equivalent note off:
amidi -p hw:pisound -S "80 3c 00"
You should see the same data in the terminal running the MIDI monitoring, and you should see both MIDI activity LEDs blink at once. If you break the loopback connection, and try to send data, you’d only see the output LED blink.
Let us know how this experiment goes. If it ends up working fine, we’ll move on to further troubleshooting of the issue.
Yes, that’s expected - that’s why I mentioned the use of two terminal windows, but I should have been more explicit about this, my bad.
So amidi -p hw:pisound -S "90 3c 7f" didn’t make the MIDI OUT LED blink? Could you try running it again, and just afterwards, check the Linux kernel log by running:
dmesg
The very latest lines will be at the bottom, do they indicate some sort of error? You may get the entire log into a file and upload it here, by running:
Oh I’m sorry - you were very clear about the terminal windows and I just glossed over that.
I’m on non-gui version of raspbian so I used nohup to run the first command and get the prompt back to run the second one. Unfortunately no LEDs lit up. Here’s the log file you mentioned. Thanks so much for all this support.
By the way, there’s nothing special installed, if it’s easier/better to wipe the Rpi and do a fresh OS install, that’s certainly fine by me. dmesg.log (25.1 KB)
The dmesg log seems fine. Do the MIDI activity LEDs blink if you click or hold the button on Pisound? (pisound-btn has to be installed for it to work, sudo apt install pisound-btn, check if the service is running by executing sudo systemctl status pisound-btn)
I’ve checked that pisound-btn is running (it was) and tried both clicking the button and holding down the button. At no point have I seen any LEDs light up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an LED light up on the board so far come to think of it. Continued thanks for your debugging help!
and see if button clicks are getting logged? (it may take a couple of clicks of the butto for a new batch of information to appear, as the log is buffered and output is delayed a bit)
Button clicks were logged! Here’s what I saw output per click:
Jun 30 08:59:51 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: script = '/usr/local/pisound/scripts/pisound-btn/system/down.sh', args = ''
Jun 30 08:59:51 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: script = '/usr/local/pisound/scripts/pisound-btn/system/up.sh', args = ''
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: script = '/usr/local/pisound/scripts/pisound-btn/start_puredata.sh', args = ''
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: No display found, specifying -nogui
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: 2021-06-30.08:59:52: Searching for main.pd in USB storage!
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: 2021-06-30.08:59:52: No patch found in attached media, trying to mount USB devices...
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: 2021-06-30.08:59:52: No patch found in attached media, checking /usr/local/puredata-patches...
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi pisound-btn[448]: 2021-06-30.08:59:52: No patch found! Doing nothing...
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi sudo[18061]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/sh -c echo 100 > /sys/kernel/pisound/led
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi sudo[18061]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jun 30 08:59:52 raspberrypi sudo[18061]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
If it ends up working fine, we’ll move on to further troubleshooting of the issue.