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Home | Product Categories | Breakout Boards | BOB-09598

MIDI Breakout

sku: BOB-09598 RoHS Compliant

Description: The MIDI Breakout board gives your Arduino or any other microcontroller access to the powerful MIDI communication protocol. The MIDI protocol shares many similarities with standard asynchronous serial interfaces, so you can use the UART pins of your microcontroller to send and receive MIDI's event messages.

The MIDI Breakout provides both MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT connections, as well as a MIDI-THRU port. The MIDI-IN port is opto-isolated to prevent ground loops. The MIDI Breakout board can be mounted directly on top of an Arduino like a shield, connecting the MIDI-IN/THRU to the Arduino's hardware RX pin and the MIDI-OUT to TX. All of the Arduino's digital and analog pins, as well as power and ground busses, are broken out as well. The RUN/PGM switch allows you to program the Arduino over serial without having to remove the shield.

Note: The MIDI Breakout does not come with the three through-hole MIDI connectors soldered; these connectors are included with the product, however.

Dimensions: 2.25 x 2.10 " (57.15 x 53.34 mm)

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Pricing

In stock

14.95
13.46
11.96

52 in stock

price
10-99
100+



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images are CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

ASCII version


Comments 18 comments

  • Quazar | about 2 years ago 1

    Just FYI – it looks like you swapped the “kit” photos for this product and the MIDI Shield (DEV-09595). That is, the 5th picture on this page and the 4th picture here: <http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9595>
    Cheers,
    – Dean

  • GB | about 2 years ago 1

    I don’t mean to sound harsh, but PLEASE next time you turn this board can you put on the non-inverting buffer as specified by MIDI.ORG? I know it looks like an optional part, but it’s there not just for it’s current sink ability but also protection of the CPU for when people plug the wrong cables into the wrong things. Sometimes the shortcuts just aren’t worth it:
    http://www.midi.org/techspecs/electrispec.php

  • pasbel | last year 1

    where are the rx and tx pins, I don’t see them on any pictures

  • jipumarino | about 11 months ago 1

    Hi, is this compatible with the USB Host Shield from Circuits@Home?
    I would like to use my USB-only controllers (AKAI LPK25 and Korg Nanokontrol) as full MIDI controllers.

  • Member #220623 | about 10 months ago 1

    Are the holes next to the ones labelled D2 – D13 connected to ground?

    • Larsi | about 7 months ago 1

      Yes, these are ground pins. This is okay, because you can use the internal pull-up resistors, but I actually prefer the GVS (Gnd +5V Signal) layout for all proto boards…

  • Zinc | about 9 months ago 1

    How stackable are these? I’d like to use these with a mega and have one of these hooked to each of the four uarts. Better to just use a proto board?

    • Larsi | about 7 months ago 1

      The MIDI connectors are pretty tall – so stacking is not easy, but possible. Also the RX and TX are hardwired, so unless you cut some traces it will be impossible to connect them to a different UARTs.

  • nrj | about 7 months ago 1

    Can someone tell me what the difference between this and the 20$ MIDI shield is?

    • Larsi | about 7 months ago 1

      The MIDI shield is pretty similar to this MIDI Breakout, but it has additional features (2 LEDs, 3 buttons, and 2 pots)

  • nrj | about 7 months ago * 1

    I am having trouble receiving MIDI messages with this, sending works fine, and I’m wondering if it is because I didn’t connect the MIDI thru jack? I didn’t bother to connect it because, first I don’t need it, but also because the jack is blocked by stackable pin headers. Is the MIDI thru jack required to complete the circuit? Or does my problem lay elsewhere?

    • Larsi | about 7 months ago 1

      No, you do not need the MIDI THRUH jack to receive MIDI. I usually use it without it.
      Make sure that the switch is set to “PGM” when you program the micro (or disconnect your MIDI) and it is set to “RUN” when you use it (if it is set to to “PGM” you will not be able to receive MIDI messages).

  • bennard | about 6 months ago 1

    Im using this board with an Arduino Pro 5V (DEV-09219).
    In order to get it to work with the Arduino Pro I had to bypass the 1k resistors on the RX and TX lines (D0 and D1) on the Arduino Pro. Im not sure why the resistors are in-line to pins D0 and D1, because they are not in the Regular Arduinos, nor are they on the Pro Minis.
    It worked perfect with my Uno and my Duemilanove.
    Im mentioning it to save some other sucker a few hours of troubleshooting. UGH.

  • Pete Brown | about 3 weeks ago 1

    In the schematic, it looks like pins 4 and 5 are reversed for all the MIDI connectors.

  • Pete Brown | about 3 weeks ago 1

    In the schematic, it looks like pins 4 and 5 are reversed for all the MIDI connectors.

  • Pete Brown | about 3 weeks ago 1

    (sorry for the dups, browser kept telling me the post didn’t work)