Today I wanted to followup on last week’s topic and test if you can use just a MIDI controller and a Raspi running MODEP for solo performances. Turns out you can!
This assumes that you have a working MODEP (or Mod Duo/Mod Duo X/Mod Dwarf).
I’m using a Beatstep Pro as my controller. Out of the box it sends MIDI data over channels 1(Sequencer 1), 2(Sequencer 2), and 10(Drum). If we take in our MIDI input and route it to three “MIDI Channel Filter” plugins, and then configure them to listen on each channel, we now can assign each channel to a different instrument.
Let’s start with a drumkit for Channel 10. I use the “FluidGM Drums” plugin, which is a simple Soundfont player, and choose the 808 kit. (I wish there were more kits for things like 909/707/606/etc, but this will work.) No matter, I guess we’re playing house music today!
For Channel 2, let’s get some house-like piano chords with “Airfont 320”. By using the “MIDI Chord Builder” with the “MIDI Enforce Scale Plugins”, I will never be out of key. This track will play itself! :-)
Finally, for Channel 1, we need some kind of lead. TAL Noisemaker with a prebuilt patch will do the trick.
We route all of outputs into their own stereo gain knobs and then to the stereo out so that we can mix each instrument.
Here was the result!
As you can see (or rather, hear)- it doesn’t take a lot of effort to get all kinds of sound out of this little device!