RX midi input

[Jim197b@hotmail.co.uk]

Hi all, probably most specifically Michael. I’m trying to implement midi in a build of Kreiff’s cosmic loop design which uses the audio hacker as the basis for a Lofi sampler and I wondered something.

I’ve got a midi circuit which is basically a really simple midi in using Notes and Volts diagram which uses a 6n138 a tiny amount of misc stuff and runs to the RX pin. However.
Basically Kreiff’s design uses the remaining unassigned digital pins (0-5), specifically the RX pin as both a digital pin for hardware (specifically a button) and more traditionally as serial debug.
As midi would want to talk via serial and would need to be wired to RX I figured – “hey, there’s another RX pin if I used software serial” but obviously the audio hacker shield is quite intensively wired through the other digital pins so I can’t make use of software serial as it is.
So…
After doing some head scratching and seeing your easy expander I wondered if using a 74HC595 shift register would allow me to move the digital pins 7-13 to new pins allowing me to take control of software serial on say pin 8?
I’m not at all well versed with coding, I’m much more of a hardware man so any help and I would be eternally greatful!
Thanks in advance!

[Jim197b@hotmail.co.uk]

I should have probably noted that I’m currently using an Uno but honestly the more I think about it the more I’m thinking I could actually solve the problem by using a mega instead and using a different pin for software serial, then it would just be a case of modifying some of the code?

[Michael]

I’m afraid an I/O expander isn’t going to help here, as the Arduino pins used by the Audio Hacker are for high-speed SPI communication with the memory, ADC, and DAC. You can use the analog pins as digital pins, too, so you should be able to do software serial using any of the analog pins.

[Jim197b@hotmail.co.uk]

But using the Mega should be an easy work around for this right?
With Kreiff’s design all the UNO’s remaining analogue and digital pins are used but if I’m reading the specs of the Mega I’ve got plenty of extra pins and I could add in another couple of things I have in mind as well as soft serial on a different pin.

[Author]

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