Text controlled MIDI through Ableton

Answers

• colouredmirrorball

  April 2017

  Sounds possible.

  • What does this sequence of notes look like? Is it like C3 = a, C#3 = b, D3 = c and so on (sequential), or is it something like c d e = a, d f# a = b, a e c# = c, ... (chord equals letter)?
  • To clarify: the MIDI notes need to be recorded in Processing and displayed on screen as a sentence?

  For MIDI I tend to use TheMidiBus library which allows you to listen to a MIDI device and run a callback function when a note is received. Your code can be something really simple like

  String sentence = "";
  MidiBus bus;
  
  void setup()
  {
      size(800,600);
      //select the first available device (probably not the one you want)
      bus = new MidiBus(this, 0, -1);
      fill(255);
  }    
  
  void draw()
  {
      background(0);
      text(sentence, 10,10);
  }
  
  //The MidiBus library will call this automatically when a new note is received
  void noteOn(int channel, int pitch, int velocity)
  {
      sentence = sentence + getLetterFromNote(pitch);
  }
  
  String getLetterFromNote(int note)
  {
      //convert a MIDI note 0-127 to a letter
  }
  

  You will need a MIDI device that links Ableton to Processing. If you're running Ableton and Processing on the same computer you need to have a virtual MIDI device. I use LoopBe1 which is free for one device. I think OSX has a native virtual MIDI device (but am no expert).