Circuit Python BLE Midi on Windows

Make a BLE Midi device using an nrf82540 board

We are going to use an Adafruit NRF Sense but any NRF82540 board will do.

You will need theses libraries:

• adafruit_ble
• adafruit_ble_midi.mpy
• adafruit_midi

You can get the libraries here : https://circuitpython.org/libraries

Here is a code to test if BLE Midi works correctly, it will play a note, wait 1 seconds and stop it.

Save it on your circuit python drive as code.py

import time

# Midi
import adafruit_midi
from adafruit_midi.note_off import NoteOff
from adafruit_midi.note_on import NoteOn

# BLE Midi
import adafruit_ble
from adafruit_ble.advertising.standard import ProvideServicesAdvertisement
import adafruit_ble_midi

# Setup BLE Midi
midi_service = adafruit_ble_midi.MIDIService()
advertisement = ProvideServicesAdvertisement(midi_service)
midi = adafruit_midi.MIDI(midi_out=midi_service, out_channel=0)
ble = adafruit_ble.BLERadio()

# Make BLE Device visible
print("Waiting for BLE MIDI connection")
ble.start_advertising(advertisement)
while True:
    # If not connected, don't execute the rest of the code
    while not ble.connected:
        pass
    
    print("Connected")
    while ble.connected:
        midi.send(NoteOn(70, 127))
        print("NOTE ON")
        time.sleep(1)
        midi.send(NoteOff(0, 0))
        print("NOTE OFF")
        time.sleep(1)
    
    # If disconnect, wait for reconnection
    print("Disconnected")
    print("Advertising BLE")
    ble.start_advertising(advertisement)

Setup Windows for BLE Midi

As said on this Adafruit tutorial, BLE Midi support on Windows are unfortunately not well supported.https://learn.adafruit.com/wireless-untztrument-using-ble-midi/windows

I didn't manage to make it works without using additionnal software.

However you can add BLE Midi support using MidiBerry and LoopMidihttps://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/midi-ble-tutorial/all

Connect your BLE device

First you need to connect your board to your computer, it should appear as CIRCUITPYd06c

MidiBerry

MidiBerry connect a Midi / BLE Midi device to another Midi device.https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/midiberry/9n39720h2m05?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

We didn't make an virtual midi device yet but we can test if everything works correctly using Microsoft GS Wavetable

In Input use CIRCUITPyd06c (not CircuitPython usb_midi_ports).In Output use Microsoft GS Wavetable

You need to restart midiberry each times you change your python code

It should play a piano note, each second.

LoopMidi

LoopMidi create a virtual midi device, we can route our BLE device to use it with any music software.

Create a virtual device (I named it BleMidi but by default it is called loopMIDI port)

Go back to MidiBerry and connect your circuit python board to your virtual midi device.

Test your device with Helm

You should now be able to use your board on any music software, for example, Helm, a free synthetizer software.It detect automatically your midi device so it should be easy to try it.

https://tytel.org/helm/

Going Further

Now you can start building your own wireless midi devices.

I'm using an MPR121 pads, they only require 4 cables (SDA/SCL/GND/VCC) as it uses i²c.

Here is my code I used on the video, i'm also using the APDS9960 Proximity Sensor to control the pitch. https://github.com/maditnerd/circuitpython_ble_midi