Hi All!
I just bought an Akai EWI-USB, a MIDI wind controller, and it comes with a software package which interfaces it to my PC or my Mac. Its output is a USB port, and I’m wondering if anyone has been able to interface this controller to a Pisound? I’d very much prefer to carry around my Raspberry Pi to play this thing through than a laptop. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi, what is the output of amidi -l on the Raspberry Pi while the device is connected?
Thanks for the response!
amidi --list-devices responds:
Dir Device \name
IO hw:1,0,0 EWI-USB MIDI 1
This looks promising!
Disclaimer: i was once (30 yrs ago??) reasonably fluent in DOS, but now not so much!! |I’m OK with fairly basic terminal text operations, at least enough to get from amidi -1 >>> unrecognized option to the above! Please be gentle!
RasPi Audio settings window shows only sound card bcm 2835 ALSA mixer, with PCM as the sole option. With only this setup, no sound via the HDMI port, nor indication of MIDI activity.
Thanks again for any assistance!
Geoff
That’s an unfortunate design of the font usually used for programming and showing console commands - i, 1 and l all look really similar and is a common source of errors. 
What software do you intend to use your controller and Pisound with? Each software usually has its own audio and MIDI settings, separate from system audio settings.
After you have launched your audio software, you should run aconnectgui to make the virtual MIDI connections from your hardware to the software. Use sudo apt-get install aconnectgui if you get ‘command not found’ error.
Hi Giedruius, I honestly haven’t thought that far ahead… I don’t know if any software, other than the Akai Aria package, includes the appropriate drivers for whatever protocol the EWI uses to interface to that package.
That’s the main reason I came to this Forum! Do you know if there’s a ‘stock’ Linux-based USB-to-MIDI app, and if so, does the PiSound card include it?
And, to be honest, I’m still fighting with my (very up-to-date) PC to have the EWI make noise every time I plug it in, and that’s not happening either!
I very much doubt that I can install any of the Windows Akai drivers on my Raspberry Pi, and I wouldn’t know how to start to even try.
Tnx
Geoff
what are you trying to achieve?
the EWI is a class compliant midi controller, so you do not need any additional software to use it (so akai software is not required)
using alsa’s ‘aconnect’ , you can use it to:
- connect to software running on the rPI , e.g. a synth, or something like pure data
- route the midi from the EWI to the MIDI DIN output, if you are trying to interface to external midi hardware
really depends what you want to achieve… the manual with the EWI details the midi messages it sends, so some of this might require configuration in the ‘synth’ you decide to use.
(e.g notes will just work, but the breath control, you might want to route to different parameters/cc)
no, you wont be able to use the akai player software, but there are other synths/samplers available for the rPI.
I don’t have a AKAI… but i do use a Eigenharp, which has breath, sometimes with PiSound/rPI.
My personal preference has been to use Pure Data, as I like to use the breath control to directly control the amplitude envelope on the synth/patch… but this is probably not something to dive into until you are a bit more familiar with the setup 
not sure, what other synths/samplers others are using… i guess something like fluidsynth would be a good starter.
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