amidiminder

ALSA utility to keep your MIDI devices connected

The problem

• Using aconnect to reconnect your devices and your software gets old quick.
• If you power cycle a synth... you've got to aconnect it again.
• Bandmate "helps" by unplugging a USB cord to untanlge and plugs it in again: Now you're controller is disconnected.

The solution

amidiminder is a program that runs as a service. It will:

1. Reads a rules file of connections you'd like made.

2. When the MIDI devices & software - amidimider will automatically connect them according to the rules.

3. It also Watches any connections you make with aconnect or that your software makes, and remembers them too.

4. If any MIDI port goes away (power cycle, pulled USB cord, etc..), ALSA will silentlly remove the connections... ... But when the MIDI port comes back - amidimider's got your back and will connect them right back up again just as they were.

Building

Prerequisites:

• g++, 6 or later
• make
• libasound2-dev

sudo apt install g++ make libasound2-dev

Clone this repo and run make:

git clone https://github.com/mzero/amidiminder.git
cd amidiminder
make

Outputs:

• build executable is in build/amidiminder.
• deb package is in build/amidiminder.deb.

Install

Installing the built deb package will install a systemd service that runs amidiminder at startup.

sudo dpkg -i build/amidiminder.deb

That's it. — It's installed. — It's running — You're done!

Configuration

amidiminder reads a rules file from /etc/amidiminder.rules. If you edit that file, you can first check it is legal:

amidiminder -C  # checks the rules and then quits

Then, restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart amidiminder

Rules Format

Example:

nanoKEY2 --> Circuit
  # connects the first port for each device as shown

bicycle <-- Launchpad Pro MK3
bicycle <-- Launchpad Pro MK3:2
bicycle:synths --> Circuit
  # the port direction can go which ever way is convienent for you
  # ports can be specified by number or by name

Credits & Thanks

Related work

amidiauto by Blokas Labs.

Open source code used

https://github.com/CLIUtils/CLI11 CLI11 1.8 Copyright (c) 2017-2019 University of Cincinnati, developed by Henry Schreiner under NSF AWARD 1414736. All rights reserved.