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Bela is an open-source embedded computing platform for creating responsive, real-time interactive systems with audio and sensors. It features ultra-low action-sound latency, high-resolution audio-rate sampling of sensors, a convenient and powerful browser-based IDE with oscilloscope, and a fully open-source toolchain that includes support for both low-level languages like C/C++ and popular computer music programming languages like Pure Data, SuperCollider and Csound.
Bela come in two sizes, Original and Mini, and is built on open-source hardware. Based on the single-board computers the Beaglebone Black and Pocket Beagle, Bela extends their functionality by integrating audio processing and sensor connectivity in a single high-performance package. On this Wiki you'll find all the information you'll need to get started making projects with Bela. To find out more about Bela and how and why it was built visit What is Bela?.
Here you'll find a step-by-step guide to setting up the hardware and installing the necessary drivers to get Bela up and running. Before running the example projects it's a good idea to familiarise yourself with how Bela works.
- To learn about the browser-based IDE visit Bela IDE
- To get an overview of coding in Bela visit Introduction to Bela Code
- To understand the hardware available on Bela visit Hardware Explained
- For a guide on how to build some basic projects look at the Experimenter's Guide
But, first of all, make sure you setup your hardware and software appropriately and you can build a basic project, by getting started with Bela.
There are two main ways of building projects with Bela:
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Building Bela projects with the IDE (recommended)
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Running Puredata patches on Bela (recommended)
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Interact with Bela using the Bela scripts (for power users)
Plus a handful of more experimental ways for the adventurous:
Here you'll find documentation for the built-in examples that will guide you through all the basic commands of Bela.