Simple, Cross Platform MIDI Library for Python [closed]

I want to do build a small app that creates MIDI sounds. I've never dealt with sound in programming so I'd like to start with something that's basic and has good documentation. I want to stick with Python since I'm the most comfortable with it and don't want to overwhelm myself, initially.

My time is split about 50/50 between Windows and Ubuntu so something that "just works" on both platforms would be really helpful.

Any suggestions?

Solution 1:

The MIDIUtil Library (hosted here at Google Code) does what you want: write MIDI Files from a pure Python library. Once nice thing about it (and full disclosure: I'm the author) is that you don't have to keep track of lower-level MID events such as note-on and note-off: it handles them for you.

As an example to write a note, you would do something like:

MyMIDI = MIDIFile(1)
track = 0
channel = 0
pitch = 60
time = 0
duration = 1
volume = 100
MyMIDI.addNote(track,channel,pitch,time,duration,volume)

Hope this helps

Solution 2:

I was looking for a pure-Python library to generate a MIDI file, mxm's Python MIDI library is exactly that.

From this dzone snippet, there is a single-file version of the above library, smidi.py (gist'd here for posterity)

Usage is quite simple:

>>> import smidi
>>> m = smidi.MidiOutFile('out.mid')
>>> m.header()
>>> m.start_of_track()
>>> m.update_time(0)
>>> m.note_on(note=0x40)  # single note
>>> m.update_time(192)
>>> m.note_off(note=0x40) # stop it after 192
>>> m.update_time(0)
>>> m.end_of_track()
>>> m.eof()

Presumably works on Windows (as the original example uses C:\out.mid as the output filename), and I've tested it on OS X

Solution 3:

pyPortMidi is a Python wrapper of PortMidi, which is described as a "a cross-platform C library for realtime MIDI control". I haven't used it myself, but it looks very promising. Explicit mention of being able to send MIDI data in realtime.

Solution 4:

If you only need to generate Midi or process midi files, try mingus, It's a great package and it also allows much higher abstractions such as chords, chord progressions, scales and so on.