midi2audio 0.1.1

Description:

midi2audio 0.1.1

Easily synthesize MIDI to audio or just play it.
It provides a Python and command-line interface to the
FluidSynth synthesizer to make it easy
to use and suitable for scripting and batch processing. In contrast,
most MIDI processing software is GUI-based.

Why?
First, FluidSynth has a CLI which is not so straightforward to use. The
goal was to make it easy to use as possible by making some parameters
implicit.
fluidsynth -ni sound_font.sf2 input.mid -F output.wav -r 44100
vs.
midiplay input.mid
midi2audio input.mid output.wav
Second, we can have as easy interface scriptable in Python.
FluidSynth().midi_to_audio('input.mid', 'output.wav')


What it is not?
Note that is it not a Python binding to all the FluidSynth commands. If
needed check out these packages instead:

fluidsynth
pyFluidSynth



Requirements

Python 3
FluidSynth
some sound
font(s)

You need at least one sound font. Normally you’d install them manually
or via a package manager. midi2audio looks for its default sound
font in ~/.fluidsynth/default_sound_font.sf2. It can be a symlink or
an actual file.


Installation

pip
You can install this package via pip.
pip install midi2audio
Or for development (changes in code take effect without reinstalling):
git clone https://github.com/bzamecnik/midi2audio
pip install -e midi2audio


OS X
I’d recommend adding the non-default libsndfile which supports output to
FLAC and wide variety of audio formats. Otherwise only WAV, raw and a
few other will be supported.
For Mac OS X we provide a script
install_fluidsynth_with_soundfonts_osx.sh
to automatically install FluidSynth with libsndfile and a basic sound
font (Fluid R3
GM) and
symlink it so that it’s recognized as a default sound font for this
module. Note it it install installed via pip as another entry point.
install_fluidsynth_with_soundfonts_osx.sh
Or install it manually:
brew install fluidsynth --with-libsndfile
mkdir -p ~/.fluidsynth
ln -s /path/to/my/sound_font.sf2 ~/.fluidsynth/default_sound_font.sf2
Check the script how to install a few additional (nice but bigger) sound
fonts which are not installed by default.



Other OSs
Check you package manager and link your default sound font as descibed
above.


Usage
Basically you can either play a MIDI file or synthesize it to audio.
FluidSynth allows non-realtime synthesis which is faster than the
playback.
Note that the audio format is determined from the audio file extension.
The libsoundfile supports a
lot of formats.

Python
from midi2audio import FluidSynth
Play MIDI:
FluidSynth().play_midi('input.mid')
Synthesize MIDI to audio:
# using the default sound font in 44100 Hz sample rate
fs = FluidSynth()
fs.midi_to_audio('input.mid', 'output.wav')

# FLAC, a lossless codec, is supported as well (and recommended to be used)
fs.midi_to_audio('input.mid', 'output.flac')
Change the defaults:
# use a custom sound font
FluidSynth('sound_font.sf2')

# use a custom sample rate
FluidSynth(sample_rate=22050)


Command line interface
A shell sugars midi2audio and midiplay are provided instead of
more verbose python -m midi2audio.
# play MIDI
$ midiplay input.mid

# synthesize MIDI to audio
$ midi2audio input.mid output.wav

# also to FLAC
$ midi2audio input.mid output.flac

# custom sound font
$ midi2audio -s sound_font.sf2 input.mid output.flac

# custom sample rate
$ midi2audio -r 22050 input.mid output.flac



About

Author: Bohumír Zámečník ([@bzamecnik](http://twitter.com/bzamecnik))
License: MIT, see the LICENSE file


Shoulders of giants
Thanks to the authors of FluidSynth for a nice command-line MIDI
synthesizer!


Support the project
Need some consulting or coding work regarding audio processing, machine
learning or big data? Drop me a message via
email
or LinkedIn. Or just
say hello :).