MIDI I/O Workaround Thread

Unity Engine
1

Hi Everybody -

I am working on music apps in Unity 3D and am frustrated by the lack of native MIDI support. I also paid for the only realtime MIDI I/O solution in the Unity 3D asset store and am again frustrated by the lack of support.

I would like to start a thread with workarounds for getting MIDI in and out of Unity 3D.

My first project is a 3D music looper. I have it working in Unity 3D using QWERTY mappings.

The only workaround I’ve had any success with thus far is using MIDI to keystroke translators which are great for certain things but it’s somewhat clunky and of limited utility for realtime MIDI performance input. The one I’ve been using is this: MIDIStroke There is also a premium product in this category called Bome MIDI Translator

So I’m reaching out to the community here to see if any of you have other ideas on how to workaround the current MIDI I/O limitations so that we can start making music with MIDI in Unity 3D.

Please post your ideas here so together we can foster a solution. Thank you :slight_smile:

Matt

PS - Bome is working on a cool hardware solution that many of you may find interesting…

BomeBox

2

I saw your other post as well. Maybe this portmidi C# lib could serve as a start. Not sure how hard it would be to integrate this into a Unity Project.

https://github.com/impsnldavid/portmididotnet

3

thanks, michael. i took a look at that and think i’d probably have to be a dev to make use of it.

i’m a designer using unity 3D and playmaker to do as much as i can without C# / scripting proficiency.

4

http://steim.org/product/junxion/

5

I simply need to trigger animation from midi file.

Have you found a good solution?

6

koreogrpapher can do that. they have good docs and support as well.

7

this sort of coding is beyond me at this point, but seems to be along the lines of a possible solution…

http://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotnet/making-music-with-midi-and-c.html

8
9

You could also use Csound to accept and send MIDI signals, but I’m afraid that also involves coding.

10

hi roy -

thanks for posting this. Csound looks like a very useful and well documented tool for audio. alas i still need to grab incoming MIDi data, associate it with a game object, then setup triggers that send that MIDI data back out when the game objects collide with the triggers.

the more i look the more it seems i will have to learn my way around with C# or this just won’t happen.

gotta walk before you run and i’m trying to fly here :slight_smile:

11

This is all possible when using the Csound library within Unity. But as you say, you will still need to get up to speed with C#. Luckily for you Unity is one of the most fun ways to learn C#!