MIDI Based Theremin using a Raspberry Pi

This is a simple guide to build an electronic musical instrument. The MIDI notes are generated using a Raspberry Pi and a sonar sensor. Although the original Theremin is played using antennas, this one will use sonar technology as pitch control. The idea is to vary the distance between the user hand and the distance sensor, causing the pitch to change accordingly.

MIDI and the Raspberry Pi

There is a lot you can do with a Raspberry Pi, creating sounds (and therefore music) is one of the few Raspi weakness. Running Raspbian takes a lot of processing power and this is needed in order to run a synthesizer natively. The consequence is an awful latency and sometimes not even a sound comes out.

There is a way to produce sound that is simple and processing power efficient, this is using MIDI. This is a guide to use MIDI and generate sound with your Raspberry Pi. The resulting sound is not nearly as neat as a native synthesizer, but this will give you a glance of what you can do using Midi and your Raspberry Pi.