Axel

Hi Thorsten, haven´t been around here for some ...eh.. years, mainly because my LC emulations are still working nearly perfectly and do what they are supposed to do (help making music?!). Once in a while i have problems with some faders moving slowly or not completely reliable, so this new development could reanimate my former Midiboxeritis. To avoid sleepless nights thinking about it, i have a quick questions right now: Is it necessary to use the new STM32 Core to provide the Midi I/O for the new MF Core? Best regards, Axel

Done (in short...) ;) Axel

Hi Sounduke, i´m just betatesting Live 5, it now has full MCU support for up to one main unit and 2 extensions. It works really great, i think Ableton made the last step to make Live a better alternative to the established programs (Logic, Cubase etc.). So if you are working with Live i´d recommend upgrading to V5 and building a Midibox LC. You just have to configure it as a Mackie Control. I´m using the standard RSAON faders, they are ok. Axel

Hi Thorsten, nice to have you back...! I just sent a lengthy posting to Jajah Wisemix (..what a name!). I hope he will contact you. Many thanks also for the MF mod (see the other thread), Axel

Hi Steve, good to hear it´s working for you, too! My faders are touchsensitive, so you didn´t misunderstood..., but as i said, i can live with this. Best regards, Axel

Hi Steve, the same for me, but works after adding MIOS_MF_TouchDetectionReset to mios_vectors.inc. I just replaced the first "reserved" line. After a short test this morning it seems to work perfectly (although i didn´t use Touchmode 2 before). One thing i noticed was that more then three faders won´t let them be moved at the same time, but i think i can live with this... I will do a test with all three LCs this evening. Many thanks to Thorsten, Axel

Hi, There´s a guy on the ableton forum who has written a software to use a Yamaha 01X with Live 4 in Mackie Control emulation mode. It´s in beta stage now but you can control up to 64 channels, use the dial for scene switching and it even drives the displays! Problem is, it´s only half working on a Midibox LC (in Mackie mode), i.e. the displays are not working. As the guy has no MC for developing, he cannot really look into this problem, but i´m sure Thorsten should easily be able to tell him what to do... ;) You can meet him in his yahoo group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mcclive ) or answer to his thread on the live forum ( http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12303 ). You can also send me a pm if you don´t want to register at the ableton forum or the yahoo group, i´ll make the contact then. Thanks, Axel

Hi Steve, i also had this on my LC´s. It´s a lot better since i build a well stabilized PSU with 5 A for my 24-channel box. Other than that i tweaked the calibration and voltage settings settings (need some patience for that...). The failures are now down to maybe one out of 50 bank changes, still i´m a bit worried because it´s very irritating if a fader fails in a complex mix..., so if you come to a better solution, please tell me... Axel

I cannibalized the buttons from my old analog console, they are not really cheap if you buy them new. I replaced the bulbs with LED´s, which i found easier than adding a driver circuit. Just carefully remove the glass of the bulb and solder the LED directly to the bulb socket. Axel

I got the Hartschaumplatte from a building store called Hornbach, but i think it´s available at other diy stores too. It´s similar to ABS (but softer) or Forex (but not so soft)... i hope these names are the same in english... The faders are from alps. Axel

Hi vdKroon, the modules are made of a material called `Hartschaumplatte`, which is very easy to work with, i.e. you can make the fader slots with a cutting knife. The grafics are printed with an ink-jet using HQ foto paper, cutted out and glued to the base material. The problem is to get the button holes into the paper. I´ve done this using a stand drill, but that´s definitely not the ultimate solution... Maybe i will make some aluminum modules with professional printing in the future... Here some pics: www.fast-cars.de/Midibox/LC24_029.jpg, www.fast-cars.de/Midibox/LC24_027.jpg, www.fast-cars.de/Midibox/LC24_035.jpg, www.fast-cars.de/Midibox/LC24_037.jpg, www.fast-cars.de/Midibox/LC24_046.jpg Axel

Hi Brad, I assume you are talking about the ones shown here: www.devlin.co.uk/main.html or www.devlin.co.uk/users/devnews.html#prod8 It´s a company in UK, so it should be easy for you to find out the pricing and availability. One problem (if not the prize...) might be that they are detented, so they won´t make use of the high resolution provided by MIOS, but maybe it´s possible to remove it. Axel

Hi Dan, of the 5 possible ShuttleXpress Buttons i use only two at the moment (´mute selected object´ and ´set locators to selection´), they are sitting in one row with the LC controls directly above the transport. Maybe i reconfigure some buttons later, i.e. i never use nudge mode, so this will be a potential free button. More than this it´s one of the advantages of the modular concept that it´s possible to make i.e. a complete new transport section in an easy way. As i have a small mixer beside the box i don´t need any mixing features in my box, i just want to switch between some inputs (DAW master, cd, monitor, mixer...) by pressing a button. At the moment i think about a high quality rotary switch, i think this would be the best way to maintain the integrity of the analog signal (i once build a switching circuit with FlipFlops and CD 4066 CMOS switches for my guitar setup, but that sounded quite crappy). The meters are the standard LC meters implemented by Thorsten. They are useful for saying ´Hey, there is a weak/strong signal´, but they have quite a big latency, so they won´t compete with a K-System Meter... ;). Despite of this they are looking really cool providing a touch of a real mixing console... Axel

Thanks for your comments! I build this box mainly because i sold my Soundcraft console which served as the housing for my old (now dead...) midibox. As it would have cost about 450 Euros to get the complete panels with all holes etc. made at Schaeffer, i decided to make a hybrid construction with the Schaeffer panels only providing frames for the selfmade modules. Beside the reduced costs this has the advantage that i can modify the modules in a relative easy way in the future (new features, colours, buttons...) without spending money on a new panel. I used 2x24 displays because i wanted the box to be compact and to reduce the overall costs, i.e. i got the blue displays at autronic-melchers for about 15 Euros each (ok, the other day i got 5 2x40 at ebay for 10 Euro alltogether...). Because of the smaller spacing i couldn´t use ledrings, so i just put 9 leds in a line. I could live completely without them as i´m always looking at the display parameters. If you use any other number of leds than eleven you have to change the ledring patterns, which is a little tricky... In order to have some analog controls for recording and monitoring, i added a simple passive volume pot (a quite expensive one from Alps) and a talkback unit based on a simple mic preamp from Conrad. There is also a switch to listen to the artists monitoring signal. I have provided some more I/Os for other things, but they are not used right now cause i first have to find a solution for a switching logic. Perhaps someone can help me out on this? The jog/shuttle control above the cursor buttons is a ShuttleXpress (www.contourdesign.com) which i put completely into the box. Configured to horizontal and vertical zoom it provides a much more comfortable way to navigate in the arrange than the original LC buttons do. It also has 5 free assignable buttons for functions the LC protocol lacks. I also put a complete midisport 4x4 into the box, so there are only two USB ports going out. The power supply shown in the pictures has been changed to stronger one. It´s important to provide at least 1.5 A for each set of 8 motorfaders to get a stable function. If i´d have to build this again i would definitely spent some time to make a complete set of pcb´s integrating buttons, encoders and leds with a simple and solderless connector system. That´s because i spent most of the time getting the vectorboards cabled and connected which is not really the funniest part of the job... Best regards, Axel

Hi Dan, as Frank said, you do this in lc_hlp.inc under LC_HLP_MsgCursorPos. You can position your messages just by counting the characters and spaces (retlw 0x00 + x for the first LCD, retlw 0x80 + x for the second, x goes from 0 to 39). By default lc_hlp.inc gives the arrangement of my controller (two 40x2 displays). It´s also possible to shorten the messages, i.e. to have 8 channels on a 40x2 LCD with 4 characters per channel plus a space between each. To do this you have to push the not-to-be-displayed characters to a non physically existent position (i.e. retlw 0x00 + 40). I´m just saying this because after working for half a year with my 16 channel controller, i noticed that it is quite confusing always having to shift the faders in a big arrangement. Now i´m planning to build 32-channel controller which would be too large (and expensive) if i´d take 2 LCDs per 8 channels. The most obvious drawback of only using 4 characters per channel is that you possibly cannot differentiate between some parameters of FX and softsynths. On the other hand i have noticed that i make very rare use of editing synths and complex FX with the controller because it´s no fun to scroll through 100+ parameters to find the one to be edited. BTW, Logic 6 users don´t have this problem anymore: in 6 it´s possible to add some parameters as automation tracks to the arrange; this parameters are then shown on the LCD in a special track view. Sorry for spreading the topic... ;) Axel