How to use Bluetooth MIDI on the Raspberry Pi with RNBO

How to use Bluetooth MIDI on the Raspberry Pi with RNBO

I’ve been testing as many MIDI and audio interface devices as I can with the Raspberry Pi export target, since wireless MIDI is becoming a little more common so thought I’d share this in case anyone might be interested.

I picked up a Korg NanoKontrol studio 1 to try out with RNBO on the Raspberry Pi as it has wireless MIDI. Here's some steps to get MIDI going:

  1. ssh into your Pi using Terminal or PuTTY
$ ssh [email protected]

2. use bluetoothctl to discover your BT MIDI device

pi@c74rpi:~ $ bluetoothctl

3. Turn on your BT MIDI device and enable discovery mode
*for the Korg, this is just pushing the switch all the way right

4. Turn on the bluetooth agent, if not already enabled

[bluetooth]# agent on

5. Scan for devices

[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller DC:A6:26:4B:D3:52 Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device 48:EB:62:DA:CD:C4 nanoKEY Studio

6. Take note of the MAC address of your device, then just use the pair command to pair with it:

[bluetooth]# pair 48:EB:62:DA:CD:C4
Request authorization
[agent] Accept pairing (yes/no):

7. type yes - then use the trust command to automatically pair the device whenever they’re in range together

[nanoKEY Studio]# trust 48:EB:62:DA:CD:C4

Keep the cables in Max - and not all over the desk


Happy patching!

lys.//

lys.//

I'm an audio programmer, data scientist, grad researcher and media artist from Melbourne, Australia. I specialise in DSP and interactive coding for sound design across a wide array of platforms.
Australia