# dwhinham/mt32-pi

🎹🎶 A baremetal kernel that turns your Raspberry Pi 3 or later into a Roland MT-32 emulator and SoundFont synthesizer based on Circle, Munt, and FluidSynth.

Repository: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mt32-pi
Homepage: https://twitter.com/d0pefish
Language: C++
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: raspberry-pi, raspberrypi, bare-metal, baremetal, mt-32, ms-dos, retrogaming, retrocomputing, audio, synthesizer, midi, midi-device
Last push: 2025-02-04T22:46:21+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 25/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 5, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3516, "days_push": 575, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1707, forks 160 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:24.919176+00:00)

## What it is
A baremetal kernel that turns a Raspberry Pi 3 or later into a Roland MT-32 emulator and SoundFont-based General MIDI synthesizer, built on Circle, Munt, and FluidSynth. It boots in seconds with no OS, providing low-latency MIDI audio for vintage PCs and FPGA retro setups.

## Use cases
- emulate a Roland MT-32 for classic MS-DOS games
- turn a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated MIDI sound module
- play General MIDI or Roland GS music with SoundFonts
- add low-latency MIDI audio to a MiSTer FPGA setup
- use a Raspberry Pi as a USB or GPIO MIDI synthesizer

## When to choose
- you need authentic MT-32 or GM/GS sound for retro gaming on real vintage hardware or FPGA
- you want a dedicated, fast-booting synthesizer without Linux audio complexity
- you have a Pi 3/4/Zero 2 W and an I²S DAC or MIDI interface

## When to avoid
- you need active development or new features - the maintainer has stopped releasing updates
- you need high-quality audio from the Pi's PWM headphone jack
- you have a Pi 1 or original Pi Zero, which are too slow

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: maintenance
- function: audio-processing, embedded, simulation
- domain: embedded-systems, gaming-tools, audio
- platform: embedded, iot
- tags: raspberry-pi, baremetal, midi, mt-32, soundfont, fluidsynth, munt, retrogaming, synthesizer, circle, audio, retrocomputing

## Member repositories
- dwhinham/mt32-pi (main) score 25

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:24.919176+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:37:26.232953+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:24.919176+00:00, sha 9f04f348cefb)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.