Fear the Weasel

After a bit more looking around on the net I found another similiar design. From what I gathered it had a UV LED on one side of the string and a detector on the other and measured the 'shadow' of the string. Your right about the ambient light thing though, seems to be one of the biggest problems with the pickups design. Optical aside then, does anyone have any idea how I could convert hitting a string into usable data. Just the fact the string has been struck to start with but also to get a corrisponding 'velocity' at some point hopefully. I was thinking maybe something along the lines of using the output of a normal pickup? (would need a different pickup for each string though to distinguish) Thinking out loud.. ;)

Hi there, I stumbled upon this the other day. http://www.opticalguitars.com/ I was wondering if anyone had any ideas how it worked. I'm thinking through the idea of building something similar and I'm a bit stuck on how to do the pickups. Basically I just need to figure out how to get a velocity from the strings (not pitch). Thoughts, ideas?

Sorry, if you look back I'm actually in New Zealand, 'stryd_one' is the one who's actually in Melbourne so I'm afraid I won't be able to make it.. ;) I'm going the PIC route for this project. I figure if I can learn this sort of stuff it'll open up a whole new bunch of possibilties for me. I love making stuff..... ;D Should be getting some necessary things to start building and programming in about a week....

Wow, a few replies since I last checked, I thought this thread had died. Thanks for all the advice and links guys. I've been trawling around the internet picking up all the info I can. I'm thinking of trying to use a PIC as I'd like to learn more about this sort of stuff and I tend to learn better chucked in the deep end... ;) That USB to Serial module is also the type of thing I was looking for. Thanks guys, will hopefully get started on this in earnest in a couple of weeks.

Cheers, for the reply. Melbourne eh? I've heard only good things about Melbourne when it comes to music and art, many Wellington people I know have moved there because 'Melbourne is just like Wellington, but huge!'. :D Alright, I'm gonna look into the parrallel port stuff for a start, then PIC stuff. I've seen a few case mod sites about LCD's and I'm planning the same sort of thing with that. Another reason why I'm shying away from the Midibox for this is that although this is just a hobby project I'm working on, I've had a fair bit of interest from muso friends etc. so if I ever get everything in my head working in reality (IF) it might be feasible to sell (on a very small scale). I'm quite familiar with the 'request to sell' topic but I hardly think a midibox with 4 encoders (maybe even 2 buttons in the distant future ;D) would qualify for an 'ACCEPTED' ;). Thanks again! :) (returns to scouring the internet...)

New Zealand. :D If your getting at using a midibox to do it...surely there's a way to connect 4 encoders to a pc that's more straightforward. I'm kinda interested in learning how these things are done, midibox is cool but so much of 'the basics' is done for me, even when I get my Midibox finished (different project) I'm not really going to know much about electronics and interfacing etc, just how to build a midibox. ;) I'm willing to learn stuff myself I just need a direction, at the moment I don't have even that. Has anyone done something remotely similiar using the parallel port?

Hi there, I'm hoping to do a bit of a project, the goal being to come away with some useful knowledge basically. I want to build a very basic interface on the front of my PC. Basically just 4 encoders which can be monitored by software and converted to midi. I considered a midibox but I really think this could probably be done a simpler way. Midibox is awesome, don't get me wrong, but parts are expensive where I am and surely Midibox is an overkill for this? I've had a lot of experience coding C/C++ (barely any with hardware) so I could do any conversion to midi in software but basically I was wondering how to get the encoder signals into the pc in the first place. Something with a PIC maybe? (I really don't know at all! :) :-[ ) Basically if I get something talking to the software I think I can manage the rest. Ideas, thoughts, suggestions?

Hi there, I'm building a simple midi based metronome and I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good sound generating circuit to give me a nice clicking sound. Something that could just be fed with a pulse from a DOUT and ouput at headphone level. Even better would be if I could have a higher pitched click for the start of each measure (could be fed from another DOUT). The midibox part is pretty much done and this is all I need to finish it off. :D Thanks!

Cheers! I'm pretty new to electronics (come from a programming background) so all this extra info is gold to me. ;D

Thanks! That's sorta what I gathered from the source code but just wanted to make sure. :)

Hi there, I'm in the process of building a Midibox that uses encoders. I plan on writing my own custom C code for the project so I've of course been going through all the current source code but there's one main feature of MIOS I don't understand. Multiplexing. Coming from a software background and not a hardware one I'm having a few problems understanding the concept of multiplexing LED's. How does this work? (in a hardware sense) Is the microcontroller going through each turning it on quickly then doing the same to the next set but so quickly I can't see the difference? Just a brief explanation would be very helpful. Sorry for my hardware newbieness and feel free to laugh out loud if my explanation is way off mark..... ;) Cheers.

Cheers guys. Tried moving the soundcard power supply around, no change. I don't have another firewire cable so I can't try that at the moment but should get one soon.

Hi there. pay_c - My soundcard is an Edirol FA-101 Firewire so should expect any problems there like you would with a built in one. When the laptop runs off battery (everything else still plugged in) there is no noise at all. However when the power adaptor is plugged in, lots of noise. Kokoon - Not too sure what you mean by 'common ground'. Every thing is plugged into the same wall socket if that's what you mean. Thanks guys for the suggestions!Â

Hey guys, this isn't really to do with my Midibox I'm building at all but I thought that since a lot of you are very knowledgable about electronics someone might be able to help me out.  My current studio setup is based around a laptop but I have found that when the laptop is running off the power supply instead of battery it introduces a LOT of noise. Very obvious when plugged into a loud soundsystem. I don't really want to just run the laptop on battery during preformances as these can be quite long and very draining on the battery (lots of harddrive use). Also I'd have to charge it between souncheck & preformance etc. Surely there is a way around this, lots if people use laptops during preformances.....  Any suggestions would be very welcome!! PS. 'DIYing' a PSU is not an option. I will fry myself. ;)Â

Cheers guys. These are gonna awesome when their done.....