xtalk

MIDI cross-talk cancellation filter and plugin host for real-time MIDI applications in Python.

It should work on Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

Usage

See xtalk --help for the list of available options.

xtalk --list will display all available MIDI interfaces that you can work with.

For crass-talk cancellation you can either specify a basic set of parameters on the command-line or use advanced filter policies. The policies enable users to specify which MIDI notes cause what cross-talk MIDI notes, so that ideally only those are filtered. A set of example policies can be found in the policies folder.

The currently available plugins can be found in the plugins folder.

Installation

On Linux systems:

1. Install all required dependencies according to their installation guides or with your favorite package manager: python3 incl. venv support, python3-pip and python3-rtmidi.
   E.g. on debian-based OSes: sudo apt install python3 python3-venv python3-pip python3-rtmidi
2. Clone this repository and copy it to a directory of your liking.
3. Use cd to change to the repository directory.
4. Optional: If you want to use the most recent dependencies, run rm -f pkgs/* && pip3 download --destination-directory ./pkgs pynput setuptools.
5. Run the installer via ./installer install.
   You can check the ./installer help output for further options.
6. Run xtalk via the ./xtalk script, which was created by the installer.

A note on other OSes

All of the python code is cross-platform, i.e. it should also work on other OSes such as Windows or Mac.

The installer routines however are specific to Linux, i.e. you'll have to figure out the installation yourself.

Uninstall

1. Run ./installer uninstall.
2. Remove the repository and uninstall the dependencies installed during the first installation step.

Copyright

© 2026 David Hobach

xtalk is released under the GPLv3 license; see LICENSE for details.