nocontrol

Hi Duggle. Thanks for your advice. i just had a look at the discovery boards from STM. I think I may go down the STM32F4 Discovery board route, as at the moment for me. learning to program for emebedded electronics is my present objective. rather than building. I think that one of the discovery boards has a couple of buttons, a potentiometer and a LCD display built in, plus an area that has a number of GPIO pins to hook up other electronic components on a bread board. Probably all i need to start. And if I enjoy the programming, then I may take it to the next level and design and build the hardware. For learning programming for the STM discovery ARM boards, the IAR kick starter pack looks the best although fairly expensive.

Hey, I was wondering, if, before getting involved in the hardware design and development stage of creating my midibox project. Perhaps it would be an idea for me to simply buy a prototype board that will work off the shelf with MIOS which I can use to experiment programming up code to use to control my DAW such a Logic etc. I know there are loads of prototype development boards on the market, some with basic electric components built in that can be used as the basis for testing out code. Can anyone recommend a prototyping / developmental board that is compatible with MIOS, which can be set up easily to connect with PC/MAC to interface with Logic Pro and that has electronic components built in such as buttons, led's, rotary encoders, an LCD Screen and even a fader? Alternatively I guess i could buy something like the STM32F4 discovery development board and buy some electronic components to use with the board built in header pins and use a bread board with the components i mentioned. Cheers Justin

Hi. I am fairly new to Midibox and embedded electronics but am keen to experiment. I was wondering if anyone uses a breadboard during their project development. I was also wondering if the Midibox format is suitable for connecting components such as faders/buttons/switches etc direct to Midibox modules without any extra components or if extra components are generally required in order to make them compatible with the Midibox modules componets such as resistors etc. Thanks for any help

Hi again, and thanks again for your advice replying to my message. Sure, I kind of understand what you are saying. I think I will probably buy the basic NG set up from Smash TV. and a breadboard with some encoders, buttons faders etc. One good thing about Logic is that it has what logic call the environment layer which can be used to do all sorts of strange experimental things. One useful thing that the environment also allows you to do is create a midi monitor which visually outputs MIDI control messages in a notepad type of display this is really handy for creating midi controllers as you can then use this information when programming the MCU that controls the control surface. It may take some of the stress out of working things out as you wont have to look for this information else where. I am not sure if the same plug ins in Protools use the same messages, but being midi controllers messages, probably, well at least partially. so this could be very useful and helpful. Cheers

Hi John. thanks for replying to my message and thanks for the advice. I think you are right, I didn't realise that Midibox has changed so much, but most definitely welcome the changes. I think that new ARM MCU is much better and gives much more options, not that I have much experience on MCU's or programming / electronics, however, I have read a book or two and taken a look at the market and the ARM MCU's certainly appear to be very popular and have much more General purpose inputs and outputs and memory. which is really good for our purposes. Presently my studio setup is fairly minimal, centred around an "In the box" DAW multi-tracker ( Logic Pro and basic Protools) I also runs Virtual instruments, Native instruments for sampler / synths etc. The plug ins that I plan to make control surfaces for are mostly ones used for engineering rather than creative or composing, I would like to make control surfaces specifically for use during mix engineering. As not having a pro level desk is a bit of a hinderance during mix engineering and a tactile control surface for the plug ins that you use would give you the same control as the pro engineers have when mixing in a pro studio on pro level equipment. I presently favour UAD and waves plug ins for most of these types of jobs, although I do also like a couple of others from other manufacturers that I do not yet own. such as the newish lexicon reverb plug ins etc. To start with, I perhaps should try to make a control surface for one of the more simpler plug ins (simpler in terms of how many buttons / encoders are required to control) and, if I can afford to, and still have the enthusiasm, I would like to perhaps make more complex ones for the other most used plug ins. If the programming doesn't already exist, I perhaps would be willing to try and code this myself either in C or Arm Assembly language. Although one step at a time. Actually, at this point, having little applied experience, I would be pleased to be able to make a control surface for even the basic logic plug in sets, just to see if I can. As long as it doesn't cost me the earth. and build on my experience and then move on to progressively harder projects. But sticking with plug ins to start. :-) As I said before, I have just finished a course in basic electronics and have brought a fairly good soldering iron that has a fairly accurate temperature control, which wont fry the sensitive components. So I now am looking for a way to use my new knowledge and think that perhaps Midibox is the ideal starting point, in that I can get hands on without having to do too much science but still can get my hands dirty with the practical and making useful things in the process. Cheers

Hey. I am a begginer to Midibox, although I have just finished a home study course in basic Electronics. I am planned to make my first Midibox Midi Control Surface soon and would appreciate some help choosing the correct version of MIDIbox for my project. The control surface that I plan to make will be used to opertate a plug in in a DAW and has the following requirements: 21 endless encoders 14 toggle buttons 42 LED (with some of the LEDs being mulit colored) Some of the LED's will work in conjunction with the toggle buttons, i.e. when a specified toggle button 1 is on, then LED A will turn RED. When Toggle Button 1 and 2 are both on, then LED A will turn yellow. etc. (although this isn't the exact set up). Some of the LEDs will be used as an audio meter taking its settings from the DAW. Is Midibox64E right for me? Please help. Thanks