I've always wanted to do music stuff too, and the NTS-1 is the most approachable piece of hardware with the best software ecosystem I've found yet for doing effects and synths (I've tried Arduino / Raspberry Pi based stuff before).

The Korg SDK [1] comes with a lot of tools right out of the box (biquad filters, dual delay lines, wave types, access to parameter knobs, etc.) and their dev environment is really easy to install (you upload patches via MIDI sysex!).

The actual audio programming is wonderful - Korg's SDK gives you an pointer array of realtime values which you can manipulate how you see fit before they hit the audio out. Its simple (I made a auto pan in 10 lines of code [2]) but powerful when you apply buffers, etc.

[1]: https://github.com/korginc/logue-sdk

[2]: https://github.com/schollz/logue/blob/master/simplepan/simpl...

Shameful plug: If you don't need all the features of croc and just want to transfer files without installing anything, you should check out https://patchbay.pub

Thanks! That means a lot :)

For the Korg NTS-1, I am outputting something other than just note on/off events. The NTS-1 is somewhat unique that its arpeggiator computes arpeggio notes and timing onboard with three parameters: root note (the key you press), the chord pattern (major, minor, dim, sus, aug), and the arp pattern(up, down, up-down, random, etc.) and then generates the arpeggio. The root note is a simple note on, but the chord pattern and arp pattern are controlled through MIDI control change settings.

And the first question - also yes. But for synths other than the NTS-1 you'd have to send each note individually so you will more to do - e.g. keep track of note positions, determine notes in each chord, etc. I might try to do this too. As far as I know, the NTS-1 is the only one that has such a smart arpeggiator (probably because its monophonic and you can't enter chords easily...).