Yavimaya's PIZW2MT32 Turns a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Into a Tiny Roland MT-32 Emulator for Your MiSTer
Designed to bring back the best of MIDI synthesis for classic computer games, this compact board needs only a single USB cable to work.
Pseudonymous maker Yavimaya has built a compact add-on board designed for the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W to convert it into an emulated Roland MT-32 for use with a MiSTer FPGA gaming setup.
"This is a new PCB to plug in your new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (or other Raspberry Pi model) and then to your MiSTer FPGA to be able to listen to the classic games on AO486, Atari ST, Amiga and X68000 cores in gorgeous MIDI music," Yavimaya explains of the compact board, which is designed to take up no larger a footprint than the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W itself.
Together, the board and the Raspberry Pi are designed to emulate Roland's classic MT-32 — a multi-timbre MIDI synthesizer first launched in 1987 which quickly became the must-have accessory for deep-pocketed gamers looking to get the most out of games' MIDI soundtracks. The secret: Dale Whinham's mt32-pi, a bare metal emulator which runs on the Raspberry Pi 3 family or higher — meaning it's compatible with the new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, but not the original Raspberry Pi Zero or Zero W.
"I made it because there was no really cheap way to connect your Raspberry [Pi Zero 2 W] to your MiSTer to hear MIDI music," Yavimaya says. "[The] usual Raspberry [Pi] MIDI hats need special MIDI2USB cables which are really expensive and rare to find right now. With this HAT you can connect your Raspberry [Pi] directly to your MiSTer only with a bare USB 3.0 male-male cable."
The board is now available on Yavimaya's Tindie store at $15.50, excluding Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W but including a compact OLED display panel; a short USB cable is available as an accessory for an extra $4.50.