MIDIWidget Lets You Control Just About Anything With MIDI

Developer John Staskevich created MIDIWidget to make it easy to control just about anything in the real world, using MIDI.

The MIDIWidget is a ‘brain’ for creating all kinds of DIY projects:

  • Robotic musical instruments;
  • Guitar amp and effect loop switching;
  • Light control or general-purpose relay control;
  • Studio recording lights or other DAW status indicators; and
  • Triggering a modular synthesizer or other instrument that can be triggered with a digital logic signal.

Each MIDIWidget output terminal can behave in one of several ways. Here are a few:

  • Note on/off: the output generates a “gate” signal corresponding to the duration of the incoming MIDI note.
  • Note, fixed-duration: when a MIDI note is received, the output generates a pulse of a duration in milliseconds determined by the user.
  • CC on/off: a CC “on” message switches the output high. A CC “off” message switches the output low.
  • CC toggle: the output alternates between high and low each time a matching CC message is received.
  • Start/stop: the output generates a start/stop signal based on MIDI sync.
  • Clock: the output generates fixed-duration pulses in response to MIDI sync. Several clock divisions are provided.

The MIDIWidget can also store a collection of output states as a preset. Presets can be edited, stored, and recalled via the MIDI messages of your choice.

Production of the MIDIWidget is being funded via a Kickstarter project. The MIDIWidget is available to backers, starting at US $48.

15 thoughts on “MIDIWidget Lets You Control Just About Anything With MIDI

    1. I think maybe these are intended for a different and perhaps broader user base than the Division 6 module (not that you couldn’t find other ways to use it as well). For what it’s worth Doepfer also has a similar product that can also do variable voltage output for things like CCs and velocity and such. It would be interesting to see if this board was capable that as well. If it could it would have the Doepfer beat hands down in terms of price and number of outputs.

  1. Does this have any analogue output? In other words, could we make a $~50 Midi/CV module for Eurorack etc? That would make it way handier for implementing into diy synths etc too

  2. Bit disappointed that there is no linux version. I guess that’s a deal breaker for me. Also, it seems like, at first look, that the software is written in Max. So porting it to Linux might be a bit tricky. (as in, you would probably need to rewrite it from scratch)

    1. a linux version of MIDI ? ^^

      the hardware doesnt run on windows nor linux, but on machinecode.
      just get a compiler and start programming.

      the source of this project is open source, kinda, because everyone that invests a bit of time, will see what he did here.

      but asking for linux tells me you dont really know whats going on there 😉

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