building a midi controller body of knowledge - inside

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:44 am

cool. keep us updated. i very interesred in the midiboutique stuff. as that is my chosen board.

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:26 am

im just in the testing stages with this now. heres the mock up of the design for test. i just have some midiox issues to overcome and we should be ready. heres a link to a pic

http://www.scien-audio.com/controller.JPG

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:53 pm

ok

im playing about with midiox and have encountered some issues...

nothing from the buttons seems to be triggering within live. the sliders and rotaries are all fine and working. it must be something with the mapping of the program change to control change mapping.

the reason i have gone with the control change messages as the sliders and rotaries are sending these out and they are working well.

even how things are set now i cannot get a one shot functions such as scene or clip launch to work. there are five buttons assigned to launch buttons. these should work with a single press of the button, but im not getting anything. they are mapped in live. the midi in signal is working but they dont fire.

any ideas?

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:10 am

ive cracked it and got it to work using only midiox. ive mapped the push buttons for mutes as note on and differnet key numbers. works a treat i just had to change the incoming messages around.

leonard · Post by **leonard** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:40 pm

did you need to program the ic's for these yourself or did you buy them pre-programmed.

(that looks prretty cool, btw).

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:57 pm

everything is pre-programmed and hard coded. i wanted to keep it simple for my first time out [im pretty weak with electronics]. i could have told the guy up front which midi messages i wanted for each control and that might have saved me some time with midiox, but it seems to be working fine now. except its made from cardboard.

the face plate should be finished after christmas, this is a little bigger as to leave more space around the controls.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 1:05 am

Looking forward to seeing the non-cardboard version of this.

Out of interest, what MIDIBoutique parts did you use? And what's your overall cost likely to be?

Cheers,

Robb

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:51 am

im not sure of the board number and name, as it was a new one he was bringing out at the time. its the one with 48 inputs. this was one of the requirements when i asked. if you drop jordan an email he is really sound and a great help.

all up with all the rotaries, sliders and buttons etc around 550 euros.

probably not the cheapest, but it all work straight out of the box and he did all the assembly for me [wiring loom the lot], just sent him the cad file. what you see is how it came.

i have to make the box yet. im still waiting for the face plate. as its a home job by a guy i know, its taking ages, but its only going to cost a slab of beer. so i just have to wait.

massiveheadpain · Post by **massiveheadpain** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:30 am

I've been working on the design of my controller for about a year now and have finally finished finding all my parts. heres some links to help.

www.midiboutique.com - This is personally the best solution for me. Doepfer boards are way to expensive for my needs and midibox is too technical and time consuming (though it is very flexible) the midiboutique boards are assembled and tested just like the doepfers and can be chained together for easy expansion. I have 2 MCE2440 each allow 40 potentiometer inputs and 24 buttons. 2 of them chained allow up to 80 potentiometer inputs and 48 push button or toggle switches. The boards will cost about $400 USD.

www.futurelec.com - This is a great site with the right type of potentiometers (linear - 10K) another great thing is there is no minimum qty order. They also have some nice silver and black aluminum knobs.

www.mec.dk - These are super high quality push switches with built in leds in pretty much any color. Im going to use these for my clip and fx rack triggers. and they last for a few million actuations. they only take a 10mm surface area so you can have a lot of these. These will be from $3 - $5 USD each!

www.frontpanelexpress.com - They offer a free CAD program to design the front panel for you controller. Once you design it they can build it. My front panel just for a plain aluminum with no egraving and all the necessary cutouts will run approx $100 USD.

One thing I dont want to run into is a controller that is not somewhat futureproof - every version of Live offers something else I want to be able to control. So with that being said, my controller will have many un assigned knobs. Another thing will be plastic overlays (like the xone 3d) that can be changed whenever I want. I found companys that will to any type of overlay in any colors and text. This way I can have an overlay for Djing, one for Production, and some for Plugins and soft synths. This is great especially if my djing template were to change drastically due to a newer version of live - I can just make a new overlay and Im not stuck with the permanent option of etching my front panel.

Here are some sites that can do overlays:
http://www.industrialnameplate.com/overlays.htm
http://www.bwind.com/insta.html
http://www.lgintl.com/front-panel-overl ... screen.htm

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:36 am

cool this is the kind of stuff i want in the thread and the reason i started it, so everyone can benefit from the leg work we have done already.

hopefully this might get made into a sticky.

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:09 pm

just ordered my front panel from frontpanelsxpress $95 + P&P - unbelievable! should be here on 2nd feb. what a find! thanks for that.

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:50 am

heres the first pics of the semi finished build. just have some wiring issues to overcome and the base to build.

http://www.scien-audio.com/controller01.JPG

http://www.scien-audio.com/controller02.JPG

http://www.scien-audio.com/controller03.JPG

someone401 · Post by **someone401** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:25 am

Hi, Thanks for the pointer to this thread, nuperspective. Your controller looks great.

I am new to midi and have been contemplating a controller. What do you think of this?:

http://www.smartcontroller.com.au/miniM ... oller.html

There are a couple of different types available, and I do not really know what to look for in a controller.

Thanks in advance, Robert

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:46 am

it really depends on what you want it to do. it might be best start off with an idea for a design and then see what boards are available to suit the design. if look through this thread there two or three main board makers around - midiboutique being the one i went for as they had a 48 input board an that worked for me.

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 12:37 am

right im on the last stages of the build. im getting the base unit made, but im realy struggling getting the right fader caps for the sliders. ive tried everything RS components has to offer and nothing seems to fit.

anybody got any websites / suppliers where i might be able to find something to fit my needs?

you can check out some pictures here:

http://www.scien-audio.com/controller.htm

the spindle sizes are around 1.00 / 1.50mm wide, 4.00 / 4.50mm thick & approx 15.00mm high.