intellijel

Actually forget the keyboard, Look at their other concepts!! http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-tactus/

Checkout this keyboard: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ It's expensive now but it will help drive down the price of these really cool buttons. I bet you could take one apart and create your own button matrix (see the discussion in the sequencer forum). Anyone seen these for cheap anywhere?

Update on front panel costs using : I was slightly mistaken before: 256 round holes (128 for buttons and 128 for leds) is $80 via Schaefer 128 Square holes with tight corner radius in 3mmm aluminum: $107 (almost the same price as buying four of the crappy plastic ones from SF!!) So really not a huge difference in costs. If you are trying to make a perfect grid exactly like the monome then the SF buttons are the way to go. I would rather have a grid that had some seperation in it (like the LX1) since I think this will be easier to use and track for the controller applications I envision.

not a bad idea!

I looked at the Panasonic Light Touch Switches: http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T081/P1920.pdf None of them can take caps. Also the operating force on the ITT D6 series is not that bad (130g) compared to 80g for the Panasonic LTS. However, the Panasonic style ones are definitley another option. I am focusing more on making a grid with enough spacing so that I can put a stack of sliders on top of it that would line up (e.g. if the buttons matrix 16 columns wide, then 16 faders could be equally spaced so that one lines up with each column) It would also be cool to make a tiny matrix using the Panasonic LTS and just concentrate on density: make a 16x16 in a small footprint and use 3mm or smaller led. You can make up for lack of button caps with panel graphics.

That doesn't make any sense :P The monome buttons can't be coloured. I guess you are referring to illuminating them.

I agree with what you are saying but the korg electribe series buttons are more like the monome (smaller profile). The SF buttons are not the same, they are about 2-3 times taller, you are literally collapsing a cube when you press them down. EDIT - I just tried the buttons again and it is not like ollapsing a cube, more like pushing one.

Tact switches may not be the best feel but they are cheap! A huge factor is also being able to select colours for the caps. If any of the options you proposed have selectable colours then I would be down with using them. It's also important to look at the estimated life cycles and required push force specs.

huh?

Sparkfun buttons are bad!! They are expensive and huge (and hard to illuminate). Take a look at the Faderfox LX1 or Lx2. http://faderfox.de/html/lx1_front_view.html http://faderfox.de/html/lx2_product_page.html Those coloured round buttons are tact switches like this: http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/C081/P1935.pdf (D6 series) Here is the data sheet: http://www.ittcannon.com/media/pdf/catalogs/leaf/D6_31Jan.pdf The advantage of using round buttons is that when you are making panels for them, roundholes are cheaper and easier to make. Just for a test I made a panel in Front Panel designer with 256 holes (128 for the buttons and 128 smaller ones for adjacent leds) and it came out to less than $100. Other advanatges: -colour coding: each row or sets or columns can be specific sets of clours -easy servicing: tact switches are easy to replace. Button pads wear out over time -Tact switches are really cheap (so are the coloured caps). The monome has some cool aesthetic qualities and an elegantly simple design but I do not think it is that practical for more complex applications. So if you make a 8x16 panel with cutouts for 128 switches and 128 leds: <$100 Midibox brains: (core, din and dout) < $50 128 buttons wht caps <$75 128 duo colour leds <$20 PCBs $???? (I would guess for short run it would be about $75 per 8x16 board but we would probably want a modular system of 8x8 boards) Suitable case $???? Once you have the panel made and the switches/leds on a pcb, there are lot's of cheap ways to make enclosures: wood, bent up metal, etc. So in the end you can make the equivalent of a monome 128 for about $300-400 - and that's for one off costs. If there are group orders we can bring this down to about $250. On top of this it will have duo colour leds (which allows you to make red, green or orange), colour coded buttons AND the midibox brains (which are way smarter than the monome) will allow you to configure the device to generate or respond to whatever midi parameters you want. The monome uses OSC which is a great protocol but limiting (I can't wait until Ableton Live natively supports OSC...we can make waaaay cooler devices then).

Also, As per dicussion surrounding the Ralf Suckow/Robert Henke design for the monodeck II array of rgb leds/buttons: It would be a great idea to have a controller for seperately dimming the different RGB colours. Also a high power current source/sink.

ok so I looked at that project and here are my thoughts: I got suckered into buying a bunch of those sparkfun buttons, pcbs and crappy panels. The pcbs were terribly designed: no extra headers to easily cascade pcbs resulted in messy and cluttered wiring, no space for diodes and the buttons are huge, expensive and chunky. Also the plastic bezzels had many mistakes: (inconsistent hole sizes, poor cutting shapes etc.) A design based on tact switches with well placed rgb leds will be so much cheaper and require no specialised parts. Each indvidual can choose the type of tact switch actuator they like so long as the footprint is simmilar. Also I saw no mention of a group buy for the PCBs (which I may as well still buy seeing as I have those expensive sparkfun parts doing nothing right now)

hehe thanks! I guess I have been out of the loop!!

Ok so on the monome.org list they just put out a new batch of 8x8 monomes and it sold out in 2 minutes. This to me is a little ridiculous for a device that is in my opinion pretty expensive and with limited built in functionality. Meanwhile there is a simple but great design for a 4x16 matrix by TK that connects to a signifcantly cheaper brain (core) and can functionally do way more. However, there is no PCB yet. I have little experience doing PCB layouts but I know this design could not be so difficult (maybe I should try! :P). If someone did this up there could easily be a group order put together. This button array would be useful for tons of midibox controllers (see Robert Henkes Monodeck II) Any takers?

I have been talking with Ralf and he was kind enough to send me the files and details of the monodeck construction (modified code, problems they encountered and mods to the standard midibox stuff). The example of the 4x20RGB matrix was modfied to a 4x8 = 32 rgb matrix. Each colour was driven by a single SR so 4 SR's could control 3 colours and the column switching. The trouble is that they needed to create a special circuit to do the dimming of each colour. From what I have read, many people are trying to implement similar things. Look how popular the monome has been! There is even a standard library for using the max7219 with the arduino/wiring board. So either I find a simple way to dim the 74HC595's or else I will design something to use the max7219 (which i am sure can be easily adapted in the future for better chips). Electronics is progressing to quickly to make designs expected to last 10 years! If it stays current for a year I will be happy :p

do you mean use the led drivers (e.g. maxim7219) in lieu of the 74HC595 shift registers or in addition (use them only for the pwm)? If they are used instead of the DOUT SR, the difference is that they are 16 bit so the code that normally communicates with the 8bit SR would obviously have to be modified to deal with this. I assume this is not too difficult? The max7219 can also be chained like the SR but I can't remember what the limit is. The result will be more compact Dout boards with increased functionality! Only one resistor per chip to set the led current limit. Maybe a darlignton array would still need to be employed if building an rgb matrix with common cathodes. I remember TK opposing this before since he wanted to make sure that all the components in the Midibox were readily and universally available unlike specialized maxim chips. I still think it would be very useful to the community to develop (and layout) an alternative DOUT that uses enough maxim chips to drive a 64x64 matrix of rgb leds (that's only three IC's, one per each colour and with a dedicate dimming circuit for each ). Anyone quick with layouts who can do this? Maybe put together a bulk order to purchase boards? I know I would buy at least 10

Yeah I only want to modify the brightness of a 3 seperate banks of LEDS (e.g. need 3 pwm sources). Each bank may have 64 leds or more spread out over many 74hc595. Each SR will only be connected to one colour so that all like coloured SR can have the OE pin connected to the same PWM source. cheers, Danjel

there should be PWM ICs you can buy that can have there duty cycle set by either databits or a DC voltage. If I use the ones that are set by DC voltage then I can just use a spare DAC pin on the PIC. I have found chips that do this but they seem to be obsolete. There must be something I cna use but to be honest I haven't looked too hard yet ;) Also, maybe I do not need digital control. I can have a few small pots on my controller that I use to adjust the brightness of each colour with. If this is the case, there are some simple 555 based circuits that should work. cheers, danjel

Hi there, I am building this functionality into a big controller with lot's of buttons and leds (button/led matrix). The leds are rgb with the anodes of each colour connected to a single SR. So if I need to balance the different colours, I would adjust the pwm of the SRs that drive that particular colour. If I set up an oscillator to pulse the OE pin of the SR that should work. If I can find a suitable simple DCO that can receive control signals from spare dout pins (or pins on the core) then I can write a routine that will allow me to control dimming via software without having to send a constant stream of data.

I still need it to cycle through the pattern at a given tempo. However, I guess that should be a simple function to write. So you would suggest adding that functionality to the MIDIio128 software instead of trying to simplify the SeqV3 code? cheers, Danjel

I want to buyild something like a monome but it is totally standalone. My goal is to use a 4x16 matrix leds and switches (or 8x8) where each row simply generates a trigger. Each of these triggers ( a unique id for each row) would then need to be sent to the serial port of the PIC which will interfaces to an XBEE wireless transceiver. Do you think it is best modify the Sequencer code or will it be simpler to start form scracth? The device will only have the led/butto matrix interface, no other UI except for a single knob that will control tempo. So when you turn it on, it needs to boot into the approrpiate mode ready for use. I know how to easily do this in max/msp + dumb midi controller but making this standalone will be way more of a challenge for me. cheers, danjel

I have been toiying with whether to use the dout module or make my own using a max7219 led driver. The reason for using the max7219 is the built in dimming control of the whole matrix (built in pwm). How can I modify the DOUT module for this behaviour? Build a square wave generator and modulate on/off the connection between the cathodes and ground? Must be a simpler way? cheers, Danjel

Just curious if anyone has made a .fpd layout of the Seq V3 with the added buttons/leds: * Group Select LED 1/2/3/4: to display the selected group * Trigger Layer A/B/C: to display the selected trigger layer * Step View: either one LED which shows if step view 17-32 selected, or two LEDs which display if step view 1-16 or 17-32 are selected. cheers, Danjel

I have some money right now to get a sequencer. Although I have all the parts for the MidiboxSEQ, I just have not time to build it right now. I have always wanted a Notron (really badly) and there may be a chance to buy one but they are mega pricey ($1700+). Basically, the Notron should have been re-created by now but it hasn't. The p3 Has a lot of cool functionality but they totally missed the point with the menu driven interface..the Notron has complex combo functions but it is all tactile with no screen. Then you have beasts like the genoqs octopus bt $3K is an offensive amount of money :P The midi box with 4x16 button array seems to be the closest contender but it needs to be built. Anyone here own a Notron and has compared it to the midibox sequencer? Any other special sequencers I should look at? The biggest issue with the Notron is that i want to use it for live use and it is unstable (crashes/resets).

Question for TK: in the SEQV3 photo documentation of you making your button/led matrix, what did you use for those clear buttons that cover the led's? I can see how you glued led's to tact switches but then you put them into some kind of "socket:". Also, how do you like the verowire? Does that Verowire pen work well? They don't seem to be too common here but I am always looking for new and efficient ways to prototype circuits. thanks!