akai-midimix

Web-MIDI wrapper for AKAI Midimix

This package makes it simple to access your AKAI Midimix's state in browser, using the web-midi API. In essence:

1. Get your hands on an AKAI Midimix
2. Plug it in your device through USB (works on smartphones too!)
3. Open up a web browser running your website with the library's code
4. Profit!

Install

npm install akai-midimix

Alternatively, you can just copy the index.js from the repository into your project and import that.

Initialization

import {MidiMix} from "akai-midimix";

const midi = new MidiMix();

midi.connect().then(() => {
    // run some commands right on startup (e.g. turning on the LEDs)
    console.log("Midi connected!");
    midi.m1 = true; // will light up the m1 button - see below for layout
});

midi.addEventListener("cc", data => {
    console.log("CC dial/slider turned", data);
});

midi.addEventListener("keydown", data => {
    console.log("Button press", data);
});

Cleanup

Call midi.destroy() in your cleanup routines - it will remove all system-level event listeners as well as any listeners you might have attached. This is especially useful if you are using hot-reload in your project, as otherwise the event listeners will just keep piling up.

Names for the buttons and sliders

The midi has 8 columns, each column has 3 dials, 2 buttons, and a slider. In addition, there are the bank left, bank right, solo buttons, and the "master" slider.

To keep things simple, we are making use of the columns. Event data will contain both, the original code (in keyCode field) and the symbolic field (in key)). "c" stands for "continuous control", "m" for mute, "ms" for solo, "r" for rec, and "s" for slider.

c1    c2    c3    c4    c5    c6    c7    c8
c1a   c2a   c3a   c4a   c5a   c6a   c7a   c8a   bank_left
c1b   c2b   c3b   c4b   c5b   c6b   c7b   c8b   bank_right

m1    m2    m3    m4    m5    m6    m7    m8    solo
ms1   ms2   ms3   ms4   ms5   ms6   ms7   ms8
r1    r2    r3    r4    r5    r6    r7    r8


s1    s2    s3    s4    s5    s6    s7    s8    master

Reading dial/slider states and toggling the LEDs

Note: There doesn't seem to be any way to find out the initial state of the knobs when you connect to it. Luckily, that's what the "Send All" hardware button is there for - once connected, hit Send All, and the midimix will send an event per knob, and the library will have their state, too. Alternatively, the state for individual controls will be set when you physically poke them.

With the caveat above in mind, to get the dial state, simply go midi.c1 and so on.

All the buttons, with the exception of "Send All" and "Solo" have an LED that you can turn on. Simply set the value to true/false accordingly to the button: midi.bank_left = true.

Events

Use midi instance's addEventListener(eventType, callback) and removeEventListener(eventType, callback) to subscribe to the events. Events:

• cc - fired on slider/dial turn. The event data is {code, keyCode, val, prevVal}
• keydown / keyup - fired when any of the buttons are pressed and released (with the exception of "send all"). The event data is {key, code, keyCode}, where key is the symbolic name, code is the hardware code, and keyCode is key again, but in PascalCase. The event data is intentionally set so that you can have single handler for, both, midi, and the keyboard.

Licence & Thanks

This code is licenced under the MIT license, so you can do with it whatever you want for whatever purpose.

There is barely any documentation out there, so these two resources were essential on writing this tiny lib:

This link was good to get rolling: https://webmidi-examples.glitch.me/

This google doc has reversed-engineered data on the messages, without which I wouldn't know how to turn the lights on. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zeRPklp_Mo_XzJZUKu2i-p1VgfBoUWF0JKZ5CzX8aB0/