ibanman555

Ok. Thanks for explaining this... back to the drawing board...

Great! I will look into integrating the 2803 into my circuits to assist in proper brightness. Additionally, would it help for me to provide +5 voltage to the circuits from an AC or DC power supply (toroidal) to help the current draw? You'll need to excuse my noobiness, but what I am looking to achieve here is a meter 32 leds tall. Times 64 of those. When you say "8x16" or "16x16", you are referring to the number of LEDs high X wide, correct? Later this evening I will sketch up a diagram of what I hope to achieve using the 8 (or 3?) DOUT boards. The reason I ask is because I can place 32 LEDs on one DOUT board. Then, Make the matrix using another DOUT board giving me 1,024 LEDs, in theory. Then add an additional DOUT board across, giving me the total 2,048 LEDs capable. So, 64 meters across, 32 LEDs tall. Is this possible, or am I configuring this the wrong way??? Thanks for your help!

Hey all, I am branching off of the plan a little, after doing some research regarding LED matrices. I was unaware at first, that using the Midibox NG is capable of handling a 2,048 LED matrix! Since this is possible I may truly be able to produce a viable product for those of us who rarely need it. I am still not entirely familiar with how I would set this up, I'm still learning. Given the fact that I can chain 8 DOUTx4, I can have 32 stereo channel meters, which is most ideal. Ultimately it would be a 32x64 LED matrix. Some have said this is a cheaper and more effective approach. I will be trying this against my CV method as well. I have a few concerns however. Using this specifically programmed matrix for metering, I would need to have consistent brightness regardless of how many LEDs are lit. And if I wanted all 2,048 LEDs lit at the same time (this won't ever happen), that needs to happen as well. I see that the DOUTx4 uses the 74hc595 as serial registers, but read that a better option for handing the current required would be the hef4794. This would require a redesign however. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for the positive outlook Novski! The advantage of course would be that I would have the external metering, but as you mentioned, there would probably be the disadvantage of latency, first with the MIDI output and then any latency from the AOUT. In the same respect, I could just as easily connect an analog VU meter as well, if that was something I wanted to do. Either way, I am curious to see how this would work out. I've attached a schematic of the metering circuits themselves, right now this will work if connected to an audio source. The PIC16F88 is used with CD4094's to allow anywhere from 20 or more LED's at a time on a bar graph. The other option I am trying to understand, is that since there is a microcontroller in play, maybe I could do away with the CV portion of this project. Could the PIC16F88 be programmed to receive the MIDI metering data (or that data translated to serial data) instead of the actual audio to drive the meters? I personally don't know yet, but I imagine it's possible. This could possibly give me more accurate metering and reduce latency. Right now, I am converting my controllers RS232 output to MIDI and back again, so I know this is an option. I hope TK has some input as well, I'm still new to all of this but learning a lot quickly.

Hi, I'm gonna dig this one back up... I'm hell bent on getting metering working here, and I have some equipment coming to help. Unfortunately, it appears that the popular thing to do in this situation is to make up an LED matrix for external metering. Well, I've seen alot of people work with it and their projects, but I think there is another way... tell me if this is absurd... In the past, the only way to have real "analog" metering was to output each channel of audio to each channel, and use an "analog" VU meter, be it the needle kind or the LED kind. There's got to be another way. I am using the HUI protocol, and there is documentation showing what exact midi messages are being sent for 8 channels of metering. HUI only supports 32 channels, in groups of 8. Now, let say my DAW (Pro Tools) is outputting 8 channels of metering data via MIDI. I should be able to convert those MIDI messages to any type of message I want, but I need to get it out of the MidiBox NG and into a voltage. A variable voltage. The metering data 'velocity' is what changes, so theoretically, a low velocity could output a low voltage, or hi velocity could output hi voltage to say... the AOUT NG, which would drive an analog meter. For some reason I can see this working. Any thoughts?

Ok... good point. However, I'm unfamiliar with LED matrices but will look into it. I see that 8x8 matrices are fairly popular, and I was looking for at least 20+ LEDS per channel for higher resolution. I see MidiNG can support 16x16, but then I would need another 16 for all 32 channels :^/ This is where I decided the CV option would be better, as the LM3914 chip can support even 100+ LEDS on a channel, providing really high resolution.

Hey All, So I haven't posted in quite a while, I've managed to get my current 32 channel control surface working well with Pro Tools. The next step is to interface the missing components of my control surface (SSD1306 displays, rotary encoders, and VU Meters) using the MidiBox NG core. Next project is the meters, so please, if you have any info to help me understand if this works, feel free to chime in. I have PT sending all meter MIDI messages outputting via HUI into a translator program. What I would like to know is, If I configure the core to receive those messages, and convert them to CV outputs using the MBHP AOUT NG, theoretically I could send the voltages to an LED VU meter circuit using the LM3914 chip (8 channels). Can the NG core receive midi messages from 8 channels and convert them to 8 CV output channels in this type of application?

Pro Tools 10 (and 11 I would imagine) has protocols for Command8, HUI and Motormix. I chose HUI for now but willing to work with any others if it means getting metering.

I won't quit... As far as I understand... the Pro Control is just that. A controller. There aren't any actual I/O on that surface. However there is still metering. Another surface, Icon Pro... can interface with Pro Tools and also has metering. I wonder how they managed to get it working.

I am not sure of how to get external metering via pro tools either. This is where I hope for assistance.With the ES/8-100 I am converting RS232 to MIDI using Hairless Serial>Midi program. From there, I am using MidiOx to change the values to something Pro Tools recognizes. I have moving faders, mute solo and select functioning properly within Pro Tools with the existing surfaces. Control 24, C24 and Pro Control interfaces all have meters per channel... so how can we make our own to work the same way?!

Ok... as far as the meters are concerned... I'm a little confused. Using one DOUT circuit, I can get 8 channels of 16 LED's per VU meter?? My apologies ... I think I understand... with DOUTx4 I can get 16 channels of 11 LED's for metering??

Sorry... ES/8-100

I now have 4 JL Cooper ES/-100 control surfaces and a JL Cooper MCS3 transport surface. They all terminate to RS-232 connections, but I've converted to MIDI and reprogrammed where it was needed to function with Pro Tools properly.

Hi Everyone, I initially intended to build my own complete 32 channel DAW controller for Pro Tools utilizing the NG core. However, I found a much higher quality fader surface for a steal of a price I am integrating now. These lack encoders, displays, meters and a 'timecode' read-out... all of which I am hoping to build and add to the exsisting surface myself. Im hoping someone could shed some knowledge on what parts I would need in addition to the NG core to complete this project. For 32 channels, what is the max # of leds I could program for VU meters, per channel? 32 encoders, and 32 displays (preferably SSD1306)? Thanks so much for any advice!!

Thanks, that's what i was thinking too. I only ask because I really like the meter itself and would like to use it on my build. I assume there is no way to integrate it for midi input...