How to play MIDI on the iPhone?

Question

As far as I know, there is not native or third party library available to play MIDI on the iPhone. But there seem to be quite a few apps that do exactly that. What are they using? Any clues?

Solution 1

I found this library that is available for licensing. Hope it helps someone else.

http://www.crimsontech.jp/eng/softsynth/

Solution 2

I've written a tutorial on how to play MIDI using CoreMIDI through an AUGraph here.

Solution 3

FYI for those going down this road: AVMIDIPlayer was introduced in iOS 8. Seems to work well on device, sim not so much.

Solution 4

This worked for me for playing midi file on iPhone:

import AVFoundation

class MidiPlayer: NSObject {
    static let shared = MidiPlayer()
    var musicPlayer: MusicPlayer?
    var sequence: MusicSequence?

    func play(file: String) {
        guard let midiFile = Bundle.main.url(forResource: file, withExtension: "mid") else {
            return
        }

        NewMusicPlayer(&musicPlayer)
        NewMusicSequence(&sequence)

        if let musicPlayer = musicPlayer, let sequence = sequence {
            MusicSequenceFileLoad(sequence, midiFile as CFURL, .midiType, MusicSequenceLoadFlags())
            MusicPlayerSetSequence(musicPlayer, sequence)
            MusicPlayerStart(musicPlayer)
        }
    }

    func stop() {
        if let musicPlayer = musicPlayer {
            MusicPlayerStop(musicPlayer)
        }
    }
}

and then MidiPlayer.shared.play(file: "midifile")

Solution 5

Check out the MusicPlayer class. Combined with the AUSampler audio unit available since iOS 5.0 you can build a MIDI player quite easily. (The link is OS X, but it applies for iOS as well)

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MusicAudio/Conceptual/CoreAudioOverview/ARoadmaptoCommonTasks/ARoadmaptoCommonTasks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40003577-CH6-SW13

About the sampler audio unit see: Simple embeddable MidiSynth for iOS?

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