Make a custom 26 button Live controller the easy way :)
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:54 pm
I've seen a few people lamenting their inability to create / afford a custom controller.
Here's the simple way to make a USB based 26 button controller with a shift key to give you 52 buttons !
What I mean is a controller something like this ...
or perhaps a little bit like this
but built much worse, obviously
you can combine these with a small cheap midi dial box if you need some potentiometer control in addition to the triggering a button matrix provides.
basically you just have to 'think outside the box', instead of labouring over programming up a basicstamp for MIDI or blowing an eprom for usb ... we simply canibalise an existing controller board - a little soldering is required ... but nothing too frightening!
By dismantling a cheap USB keyboard (or one with a few keys missing) you can get the 'keyboard encoder' out. Make the most of their bulk discounts on cost and decent construction techniques. (IE nice soldering
)
a selection of keyboard encoder boards
That is the device that sends rational data to your computer and Live, all pre-programmed and ready to go. A lot easier than making a midi box, which required something similar to a BasicStamp chip and a bit of programming knowledge.
Obviously you will need to source a load of nice buttons or perhaps you prefer monster size triggers ... and a box. Plus it wont build itself ... so you need at least a little practicality.
But if you are interested - read this article:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 427,00.asp
It is geared around building a 'game' controler , but it suits our purposes exactly.
I plan to use one to complement my doepfer Drehbank.
Here's the simple way to make a USB based 26 button controller with a shift key to give you 52 buttons !
What I mean is a controller something like this ...
or perhaps a little bit like this
but built much worse, obviously
you can combine these with a small cheap midi dial box if you need some potentiometer control in addition to the triggering a button matrix provides.
basically you just have to 'think outside the box', instead of labouring over programming up a basicstamp for MIDI or blowing an eprom for usb ... we simply canibalise an existing controller board - a little soldering is required ... but nothing too frightening!
By dismantling a cheap USB keyboard (or one with a few keys missing) you can get the 'keyboard encoder' out. Make the most of their bulk discounts on cost and decent construction techniques. (IE nice soldering
)a selection of keyboard encoder boards
That is the device that sends rational data to your computer and Live, all pre-programmed and ready to go. A lot easier than making a midi box, which required something similar to a BasicStamp chip and a bit of programming knowledge.
Obviously you will need to source a load of nice buttons or perhaps you prefer monster size triggers
... and a box. Plus it wont build itself ... so you need at least a little practicality.But if you are interested - read this article:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 427,00.asp
It is geared around building a 'game' controler , but it suits our purposes exactly.
I plan to use one to complement my doepfer Drehbank.
