Bela is an open-source platform that combines the processing power of the Beaglebone Black embedded computer with the timing precision and connectivity of a microcontroller.

Built for speed

A dedicated hardware and software environment provides hard real-time performance with 1ms latency while retaining the capabilities and power of a 1GHz embedded computer running Linux.

Connect everything

Use Bela's stereo audio input and output to create musical instruments and audio effects. Connect to the physical world with Bela's 8 analogue inputs, 8 analogue outputs and 16 digital I/O pins. You can also use ethernet, USB (including MIDI), SD card storage and other features of the BeagleBone Black.

Embedded

Bela's compact form factor means that it easily integrates into portable interactive objects. It's a self-contained processing platform that eliminates the need for a laptop. It's also easily battery powered so completely mobile.

Code your way

Code in C/C++, Pure Data, or Faust. Bela features a browser-based IDE, with full C/C++ and PureData development capabilities. Includes powerful features at your fingertips, such as an in-browser oscilloscope, code examples, and much more. You develop it, Bela runs it.

Open source

Bela’s hardware and software are both open source, and Bela benefits from the innovation and support of its worldwide community of musicians, designers, makers and tinkerers.

Who is Bela for?

Bela is for anyone who wishes to develop powerful and responsive embedded interactive audio applications. It is particularly suited to electronic musicians and instrument designers, but is also useful for artists, makers and other embedded hardware programmers who want to take advantage of its ultra-low latency audio and sensor processing capabilities.

Performance

Bela is designed with audio in mind. It uses the BeagleBone Black single-board computer which features a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor and 512MB of RAM. It runs a custom Linux audio environment that gives you buffer sizes as small as 2 samples, producing latency as low as 1 millisecond from audio in to audio out, or even down to 100 microseconds from analogue in to analogue out. What's more, every analog and digital pin is automatically sampled at audio rate, providing precise, jitter-free alignment between audio and sensors.

What this means for you is that your digital musical instruments and interactive hardware just got a lot more responsive and expressive: Bela's speed and timing precision allow for natural, intuitive and immediate gestural control. Digital instrument design has never been this elegant.

Using Bela

Connect Bela to your laptop via USB, bring up the dedicated on-board IDE in your browser and you can start coding right away in C++. Custom developer toolchains are also supported through a set of build scripts. Bela supports a lightweight and simple Arduino-like API that allows you to focus on the core functionality of your code. The IDE also includes a browser-based oscilloscope to visualise and debug your sensor and audio data in real time.

Alternatively, build patches for Bela in the powerful computer music programming environment Pure Data. We use Heavy Audio Tools from Enzien Audio to convert your Pd patch into optimised C code which is compiled to run natively on Bela.

When you are done developing you can unplug Bela from your laptop, power it with a battery, and embed it in your project, be it a musical instrument, interactive installation or kinetic sculpture. No laptop required.

Audio: 16-bit stereo audio I/O at 44.1kHz Audio power output: 2x 1W 8ohm speaker amplifiers (available when powered from DC jack) Analogue In: 8x 16-bit analogue inputs at 22.05kHz Analogue Out: 8x 16-bit analogue outputs at 22.05kHz Digital channels: 16x digital GPIO at 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz Analogue I/O is also software configurable to give 4 channels at 44.1kHz or 2 channels at 88.1kHz

Bela is an ongoing open source project and a growing community. If you'd like to see more projects...