My controller (take 27)

[GaryG]

There is a solution for outputting midi over USB directly on the Arduino but you need to hack the FTDI chip and i'd rather have the connection to/from the Arduino going as fast as possibly to avoid latency though that's hardly an issue here. But still...

I took the lazy route and just bought one of those cheap midi/usb cables. Works fine, no drivers, no hacking the FTDI...

Also a reason i'm interested in the Teensy, can be a class compliant usb midi device without any kind of hacking or extra hardware.

[synthgeek]

Also a reason i'm interested in the Teensy, can be a class compliant usb midi device without any kind of hacking or extra hardware.

Interesting...

[jupiter8]

There is a solution for outputting midi over USB directly on the Arduino but you need to hack the FTDI chip and i'd rather have the connection to/from the Arduino going as fast as possibly to avoid latency though that's hardly an issue here. But still...

I took the lazy route and just bought one of those cheap midi/usb cables. Works fine, no drivers, no hacking the FTDI...

Yes indeed it does but i most likely is going to have several microprocessors connected to the computer and it's cheaper and less cables going thru USB.

Also a reason i'm interested in the Teensy, can be a class compliant usb midi device without any kind of hacking or extra hardware.

Same here.I intended to buy one but he no longer accepts Paypal (had some trouble with them) so for the moment i can't. He did say he's going to again someday and then i'm ordering one. The usb support on that board is really interesting.


Did some more experimenting today with another friend who knows nothing about electronics and pretty much nothing worked. When we quit i just realized we had done it all wrong from the beginning. The other fella is coming over soon so hopefully in a few days i have some good news. I'm pretty sure i know what the problem is but need some help figuring out the electrical knickknacks. No magical smoke so far,that's always something.

[synthgeek]

Just in case you miss it, this may be of interest to you:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=296783

[jupiter8]

Just a quick update before i go to sleep. Did some real progress today. A friend came over and did most of the work.I got really tired of the birdsnest of wires and decided on perfboard instead. After some initial weirdness (some really peculiar readings of the AD converter) we finally got it working! It's working perfect now. All encoders and buttons work.

We haven't fitted the display yet as we ran out of solder but had that working earlier so i see no problems with that. I need to make another case for it but i scored a bunch of VHS cases so i got plenty of those. Scored some free keyboards as well which i plan to make buttons of.

[synthgeek]

Lookin' good!

I got really tired of the birdsnest of wires...

Yeah, that's my least favorite part of this hobby. I actually kinda enjoy the board layout & soldering part, but once that's done I wish I had some magical faries that would come out & do the panel/finishing bits.

[mztk]

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[mztk]

ah ok so it's an arduino project.
would be good if it had an interface where you could
decide what type of message it can send.
eg reprogrammable sysex controller.

[justin3am]

Most of the pre-fab DIY MIDI solutions that I'm aware of (Doepfer, Highly Liquid, etc) don't support encoders. With pots you use an ADC to convert voltage to data but with encoders it's a bit more complicated. Encoders send out pulses as you turn them (different encoders will send out a different amount of pulses per revolution), you can then use these pulses to tell your software/firmware to increment or decrement a value. Since values aren't dependent on the position of the encoder, values are relative to whatever is receiving the data.

Jupiter8 I assume you are using 2's complement format to communicate MIDI values?

[jupiter8]

Most of the pre-fab DIY MIDI solutions that I'm aware of (Doepfer, Highly Liquid, etc) don't support encoders.

The Highly Liquid one does actually. Good thing you mentioned it because i looked for in another thread. Not sure it supports sysex though.

Jupiter8 I assume you are using 2's complement format to communicate MIDI values?

Huh ???

[justin3am]

Most of the pre-fab DIY MIDI solutions that I'm aware of (Doepfer, Highly Liquid, etc) don't support encoders.

The Highly Liquid one does actually. Good thing you mentioned it because i looked for in another thread. Not sure it supports sysex though.

Good to know, I'll have to look into that.

Jupiter8 I assume you are using 2's complement format to communicate MIDI values?

Huh ???

Re-reading what I wrote I'm equally confused. I think I hit submit before I completed the thought.
Our firmware doesn't generate absolute values for encoders, rather we request a value from the software we're controlling and then we send a message to the software to increment or decrement value depending on the direction the encoder was turned. The 2's complement thing is necessary for representing negative values (to decrement the software value) or else the software value would just increase no matter which direction you turn the encoder.

[jupiter8]

Yes finally!! I've admittedly been a bit lazy lately but now it's working. LCD is working and all knobs work as expected. No pictures i'm afraid for the moment but it isn't much to see anyways.

[jupiter8]

Ok so now that i got that working (apart from making a case and making software that does something more exciting that stopping and starting Reaper) now what ?

How about buttons and lots of them ? Yay!



Closest one i reckon would make a cool transport control with scrub/jog wheel and 2 joysticks for scrolling/zooming.

One in the background to the right i figure could be a (select x) where the ten button buttons are what you select (track, fx send,etc) and then x is the 32 buttons above it. The last one i don't know yet but i can think of a few things to say the least.

[jupiter8]

And a last one.



This one i was thinking of having a big center channel like some digital desks have. So the 12 rotaries would control one channel. Different modes could be 4 band parametric equalizer (finally i'm so sick of adjusting eq by mouse) compressor, 12 sends etc.

EDIT: Yes the rotary on the top right is shorter than the others. I ordered two sets and obviously they were different lengths. To add insult to injury i managed to take a long one for the controller so there's an odd one there too. Yes this is überannoying.

[jonnyG]

überannoying.

Don't beat yourself up - when I was building my Shruthi-1 synth I managed to solder the first pushbutton to the wrong side of the pcb.

Am enjoying this thread mightily btw.