Claire

Anyone want this pile of boards for 50 euros? Shipped anywhere in the world free If not they will be cut up and turned into jewellery by a person that makes such things...

I have some boards for a project that I decided to not begin as I don't have time. I started developing a control surface project but realised I wont finish it in time to use it so I ma getting a ready made surface... sorry! I know its not in the DIY ethos to be so lame, but I'm spending more time building and less time playing! These are Novski's design 5 x https://vlrlab.com/led/18-ledmatrix.html usually sold at €16,50 ea 31 x https://vlrlab.com/diy/19-meterboard-low.html usually sold at €4.40 ea 31 x https://vlrlab.com/fader/8-faderboard.html usualy sold at €2.90 ea 2 x Assembled Motorfader NG boards SOLD I spent about €100 on all of the Motorfader boards so would love something back but I am unsure what is ok and what is not to ask for. I am not a business or anything but some recouping losses would be nice? These would work with the Motorfader NG Modules for sale now sold. I'm afraid I cannot devote time to this project and would happily send these to a MidiBox user who would complete the project. Free shipping anywhere.

That's the ticket. Thank you... you boys are good! I'll have a read and see what I need to do to get it running finally.

That is brilliant news! Thank you. Its just been sitting here for a few years unable to leap that last hurdle. I looked for Stribe but found an unlinked mention in the Wiki but that is all.

@Smithythe Arc was a tough, fiddly repetitive build, as was the Stribe. I have a finished 2 x Stribe (the Curious Inventor variant) in the wings which I really need to ask @TK. if he still has any documentation for Midiboxing because its so complete it is just waiting on an Arduino and for me to finish the Multiplexing/SPi shield... and for the people that made it to get me the Max/Msp patch, but they have disappeared. Midiboxing it would be a hardware solution that would break it free of all that Puredata/Max Patching and laptop or proprietary nonsense. I really want to be a finisher from now on.

I really like the use of RGB LEDS. 2 x the Soldering gets you an awful lot more. Will you be eventually publishing files that I can use and incorporate? I decided on doing away with a laptop and am looking into incorporating an Intel NUC/SSD/EMC for the DAW into the enclosure. Having just spent a day researching eDP interfaces on 5th Gen i7 NUCs, passive cooling and totally affordable iPad "retina" displays. I'm not out of the drawing phase as yet. I think I will probably keep using my iPad as a secondary Lemur control surface too. The Inheritors stuff is nice. I am currently listening to him on Marhaba (the collab with Maalem Mamoud Guinia & Floating Points) He is quite cute to look at too and I think him in a dress suit 1930's tux would work wonders on him.... as it does almost any man. I would sit my Arc on top like James did -- admittedly though I cannot afford the toys he has which is why I DIY most things.

I am about to put in an order for bits for my control surface project but trying to save a bit of money here and there so you may have these faders lying about not being used. I also like the notion of parts reuse or restoration. PM me if you have any for sale and what you would like for them. I don't need you to have all 16 (althought hat would be grand) so if you only have a few drop me an email anyway. I am based in Scotland, UK. Claire

I am considering adding more buttons as a variation of 2 x BLM4x16s: 4 small 4mm LED buttons to the right of each fader and 4x medium ones above, (8 per channel) this would do away with the need for a separate ableton or monome-style grid so I can do clip launching from the desk with no need for a secondary controller. By making the button in this way I can reassign them to other more "normal" mixing desk duties when needed. The plan is to carry as little extraneous equipment with me when I need to. It all depends on the amount of I/O I have available to the STFM core and the MF_NG faders. Additionally there is are the LED meters to the left of each fader. Its tight but I am trying to make a largecontrol surface but keep it small. LP4 be aranges as 4 vertically stacked per channel/fader (whhere you would expect arm/write/mute/solo to goes) LP6/LP16 can be sample trigger (a la Ableton) or assigned to control/mute/whatever plugins, logically arranged below the encoders. Its a halfway house between a traditional DAW control surface and a pure performance surface like Julian's Protodeck. Not much out there that seems to be ready made. These are quite nice. A bit $pendy but discounts are available. They also make a nice oval key cap (G Cap) so I can really get the buttons close and compact but with some air between them. (https://eswitch.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/the-new-tl6215-series-tact-switch-offers-right-angle-mount-and-ip67-ratings/)

The light shapers I made were made from black and white acrylic essentially any solid colour to help keep the LEDs from diffusing as they would in clear acrylic like you have there. I envy people with their own Laser Cutters and Machine tools. I have always dallied with the idea of buying an Epilog Laser a 3d printer and a CNC Mill but I think I will probably join a Makerspace with access to these tools if I need to progress that route. Most of the time I use Schaeffer as I can rapidly work with their software. Because of this the way I think I will work is work on CAD cut card then make a channel strip. Make sure it all fits and when I am certain it does then mill a whole top sheet. I might try to machine using studs to minimize screws on top. But this is a ways off yet. I still have to work out how many DINS/DOUTs and so on I am going to need. and how it all hooks up into the Core

No, thank you for sharing! It always amazes me how much hard work people share so that people like me might ride on their coat tails... One of the things I have to do is determine affordability when machining. That many small LED rings machined into a top aluminium plate is going to get expensive so I look at ways of implementing it in other ways, in this case the whole ring area could be machined out with a small lip and a plastic disk of smoked plexi pushed into the hole. Ponoko have done "light shapers" so that led shapes are perfect. This is something I did on a Monome Arc build I did while back

No, thank you for sharing! It always amazes me how much hard work people share so that people like me might ride on their coat tails...

Ok all good reasons. If a new build happens I'll hopefully be on it. I do think you are being a teensy hard towards SMD diodes (but yeah I had a tray of SMD LEDs go that way...ugh). They are just as common as through-hole and just as cheap from experience, but I'm weird and find SMD 1205 and 0805 to be easier than through hole... and so many parts are now in TSSOP over PDIP -- I'm probably in a minority like that... When I get an Eagle file I usually look for ways to convert through hole parts into SMD, it helps make things very slim profile for Skiffs and so on and I can get bigger boards into Eagle's Freemium size (I really really must get a proper licence some day). If you ever have a waiting list for boards I'll be get on it. Thanks for the detailed response

Just a question really: why through hole diodes? When building monome kits (the new ones, the slim, grid kid 128) I found the migration from through-hole diodes to SMT to be really very helpful on repetitive tasks (tin pad, heat pad, slide diode into pad, solder other pad: repeat). OK you trade the fiddlyness of small easy to incorrectly invert diodes but there is no bending cutting and board flipping and because of the low profile of SMT parts diodes can go on the silicone side easily enough if needed. @latigid on are you going to make this board available again? I have my work cut out with a project at the moment but I'd be interested in getting back into grids at some point but monome is going in a direction that is a bit eurorack-centric for me and the max-msp/serialosc/computer side of things seems to be slipping a bit. It would be nice to see this branch out to other applications other than the SEQ, has it been used anywhere else that you know?

I am actually salivating

just noticed these are 32 segment RGB? Impressive. Do you have any more details or are you going to be a big tease and leave us wanting more details?

like like like like

Yeah I just altered the text to be more legible. Thanks will message. Thanks for the support. Incidentally I assume its ok to write Powered By MidiBox -- wave the flag and all that.

So I start with a shopping list, It may not be attainable but this is what I would like. The bits of the SSL Nucleus I liked without the sound card and with just the mixer parts in a classic jog wheel and transport division. The allocations may change so I would like two lots of OLEDs the lower 16 for the channel name -- the upper 16 x for encoder feedback and so on. Encoders would be RGB with LED segment rings Buttons would be LED Lit and can be Arm/Mute/Solo/Bank or used as triggers for multiple events in the DAW (I think this is possible with scripting). I thought about adding an extra dual LCD (a la Nucleus) for live channel interactions and Logic parameters but to be honest this is busy enough. The window in the middle is for a PunchLight USB track and SMPTE timer that I have and would like to use. The buttons could be lit in colours so they can also mimic Ableton Push type triggers but to be honest I fancy making the Button Grid after this and keep as a purist DAW console design. I assume 30mm spacings between fader, tight but doable. Buttons are 11mm holes with 20mm transport buttons but it can change at this point the layout is what I like and can work with. Jog wheel needs to be bigger. Its smaller than a Nucleus so Quark... either that or its for my favourite Ferengi Layout

Here we go. I will start to ask lots of questions now. I have ordered the STM32F407G-DISC1 and the three PCBs from SmashTV. Its nice to be having a big yet modular build again. I will want to get my DIN/DOUT sorted soon. I gues the best thing to do is think about what I want in addition to the channel strips -- and where it goes and then decide on layouts.

well more a "break-in" for the MB-MF-NG to bring the disparate connections together for 8 instances of something like this: https://vlrlab.com/fader/8-faderboard.html but yes, assuming I can get the board to align a small board to stack on the MB-MF-NG is what I had in mind and remove the chance for snapped soldered wires... ,

I think the overwhelming part is done for now. By using @novski's parts and a few other parts from others I think I can easily snap together a pretty good control surface without too much hardware fuss (I think we have all been swamped by a rats nest of solder breaks and snapped wire and I am trying not to do that especially if this surface will go into live situations!). The only bit I might have to draw up is a board for going between the MF_NG (joining together J2, J14, M1-M8 and J3-J10) and his neat little fader-mounted connection PCBs which saves messy soldering and the possibility of a wire break -- unless anyone has already invented one? I don't like reinventing wheels.

@Zam good catch! Amended order xClaire

Fortunately I have a selection of candidate motorfaders from a desk that was extensively damaged (and was the impetus for this build after I decided the SSL Nucleus was not for me). I desoldered them and tested them and continuity works fine... (look like 10% or better P&G OEMs but with standard pinouts). Got to love a salvage project. I made a few eurorack builds with Eagle and once you can navigate the system it all seems ok but kicad is also ok. I had a fantasy of doing this build all on one 2mm HASL board for slimness and weight but then moto faders kinda nix slim. So I think I might have to go with bolting everything to a front panel approach as most people seem happy to do but ribbon cable buildup happens hard and fast with midibox. I will use Schaeffer/.fpd files as I know their work well. I'll order a STM32F4 core board (kits seem sold out) and a STM32F401VCT6U MCU (gone down considerably since I last looked) and will slowly extend outward adding what I need and want. I do like the idea of 16 x oled scribble strips and LED metering next to the fader is delicious. Step by step.

Yes I am new to MidiBox (but not new to builds, DIY Mutable Intruments) Eurorack builds and Monome and so on and I have been reading the bewildering selection of choices which are now getting clearer in my head. The newer replacement to MB-MF-NG http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_mf_ng.html board looks interesting assuming I can chain two together for 16. The choices are absolutlely bewildering but after a few weeks of reading I seem to get the idea, a bit. I can see a lot of mix and matching but with care it does not seem too daunting.

Hi there -- first post so here goes (deep breath) I am looking for advice on the best encoder ring project to start my mixing control surface build with? I decided to build a mixing console control surface as a winter project. I have a lot of time on my hands and I decided I would like 16 motorised faders arranged as a channel strip with 3 x illuminated pushbuttons (usually set up in the DAW as trigger sample/mute/trigger effect) and 4 x encoders (pan functions/eq/effect send volume/effect return volume) 1 OLED (visual feedback/scribble strip). I do a lot of dub mixing with field recordings and bounce between Logic and Ableton but am thinking of leaving Apple and going Linux with Reaper... a DAW I have been using more these past few months. I used to have a SSL Nucleus but to be honest it was a lot of money and it had a lot of features I never used and was rather expensive and big. I am hoping to make something compact and less expensive. The Avid S3 springs to mind. Encoder wise I was looking at the different boards and @Fairlightiii boards seem compact but I don't know what happened to the project. It seems to have gone quiet? @novski are also nice but there is a lot of space needed above and below the board. @fantommxr is just a single board but I could buy an eagle licence upgrade to build a bigger board (than is allowed with freemium). Ideally it woul dbe great to make a custom board minimizing the rats nest of wire that happens with such things! I was going to build each section at a time. Get it working then move on. I have had too many grand projects get swamped by buying too much. So what is the status of encoder boards? Are there eagle files out there I can use or are there any people selling the fairlightiii boards? Whose boards do you recommend? Anyway Hi!