drin

Hey stryd! Great work, and I'm looking forward to working on this in whatever way I can! -drin

But times change, right Moebius? Sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse... :D -drin

I can't speak for Smash, but I suspect he won't have any objections (Tim? Is this where I get flamed? :)). As a suggestion, it might be a good idea to document your rerouting and add it to the Wiki for others who decide to take R2 boards and put DIL headers on them instead of the current SIL. I'm pretty tired of soldering wires and shrinkwrap on them myself. :) -drin

I may be incorrect (and please correct me if I am), but I don't think SmashTV publishes the eagle layouts for his boards. He usually makes a GIF image available on his website but not the corresponding eagle file. You can always make the current DIN version from the file available on ucapps, but if you want Smash's version you're probably better off just buying the bare PCB from him and populating it yourself. -drin

The winding or scrolling bug has been present in Traktor since 2.0. NI has been informed by multiple people and there's a thread about it on their community forums. Doesn't mean they'll fix it though... :) -drin

Nas, that wasn't my point, and you're pouting again (or so it would seem). All I was saying is to take the time to LEARN about things before posting that you don't understand them. The documentation on UCapps, the forums and the people on them are an invaluable resource. Just learn to use them appropriately instead of complaining that no-one will help you. You'll be a welcome member of the community when you try. That's all that's asked of you. Try. I'm done. This is a waste of energy. -drin

And it looks pretty too. :) -drin

No you didn't. You clearly said you'd "just get told to go and read UCapps and the info isn't there". That "just" makes your statement a whine, not a constructive comment. The info *IS* there, and all you have to do is search for it to find it. Assuming it isn't there simply makes you look lazy. I know next to nothing about electronics myself and I've successfully built a MIDIBox by reading and learning. You could do the same by showing some patience and reading before asking for help or complaining that no-one will help you. If I could make a recommendation, why not say "Hey guys, I'm trying to find out if component XXX will work in a MIDIBox, but I don't know much about electronics. Could someone help me to understand how component XXX works, and perhaps give me a pointer in how I might make it work in a MIDIBox?" That's a MUCH more reasonable approach than simply whining that no-one will help you. This community is a great place because by and large it's filled with people who WANT to learn how electronics work if they don't know already. They're willing to learn, to research and to explore and find out how they work. Only then do they ask questions, rather than just wandering in, not doing any legwork and assuming everyone's waiting to answer their every question. If you want to become a valued member, READ, LEARN and EXPLORE. Then feel free to ask from a position of some education. I suspect you'll get much farther that way. -drin /ok, rant off

I didn't. The two buttons on either side of the channel 4 gainfader are the cue and sync buttons for that channel. As I stated in my original post: It was a mistake made after too many hours working on the box without a break. Nope. I'd like to emphasize this is in no way a scratch mixer! I wouldn't trust Traktor 3 to scratch my nose, let alone try to scratch mp3's with it! If you've used it you'll have seen that there are 4 decks - it's really intended as a beatmixing application, despite what NI claims Final Scratch will let you do. Scratching with it is just a bad idea in general. The xfader and gainfader components in the Kombine are intended to be used for beatmixing, not scratching. Thanks! Much appreciated. :) -drin

Hmmm, let's see... o 2 minutes on the Infinium Technologies website, 30% of which was spent downloading the fader sell sheet. o 90 seconds on the ucapps.de website, most of which was spent on a search for 'fader requirements'. Yup, the answer's there. Perhaps instead of whining you should actually consider taking people's advice when they recommend reading? When that's suggested it's usually because the answer is there and people figure it'll be better for you in the long run to learn how the MIDIBox works rather than simply have someone else give you the answers. -drin

Back when I was in University a lifetime ago we used to have an end of the year party called the 'Terminal Bash'. Since we were in computer science it made sense at the time. The highlight was buying raffle tickets then waiting for your number to be called. If you were lucky enough to be selected you got to take a large sledgehammer, axe or pickaxe and swing it with all your might at a monitor. It usually took 8-10 blows of an axe or pickaxe to open up the screen! Amazing just how thick the glass really is... -drin

Thanks. Actually, all four of those switches light similarly, but since you can only select one deck at a time they're mutually exclusive. -drin

I left the existing switches in place, figured out their pinout (not too difficult) and used six new microswitches with similar pinout on a new board. They're wired to the original switches and mounted through side panel holes. -drin

The intention is to let DJs carry it inside their (big) vinyl case. It made more sense to us to have a flat top rather than take up more space with a sloping lid. Right here. :) Thanks again Alex! -drin

Many thanks to all those who have responded with positive comments. Much appreciated! At this point it's a custom part. I went to our local giant Japanese hardware store (called 'Homes') and found large flat plastic washers with an inner diameter that would let my switches sit comfortably resting in the washer. The diameter of the holes I drilled in the front panel is 3mm smaller than the washer diameter so the washers rest underneath the front panel. The washer is epoxied in the front panel hole and the switch is glued into place in the washer. A custom circuit board rests underneath the switches and each switch has a corresponding LED on the board. Confusing explanation, I know. Maybe this will help: There's a separator between each switch/LED combination to stop light from bleeding from switch to switch. That's what I did. Removed the casing from an external Quattro, removed the Omni I/O port and power jack, rerouted power, the headphone jack, the six front panel switches and the MIDI jacks to the appropriate places and mounted it in the case with appropriately drilled holes. Thanks again guys! I'll post more as the project nears completion. -Adrian

Hi everyone! At long last here's an update on the status of the Kombine controller, designed exclusively for Traktor 3 running in Xone:92 emulation mode. The unit is based on Thorsten's amazing MBHP and MIOS, and has at its core SmashTV's wonderful boards. It's designed solely for Traktor use and optimized for that purpose. More on that later. Please keep in mind as you read this that the unit as shown in this post is a PROTOTYPE - the final version will have a few changes, described below. The case is fabricated from 1.5mm aluminum sheeting. I'm in Japan and don't have easy access to a sheet metal bender so I opted to screw sheet metal together with corner brackets. The final version will have a proper case but this works for now. This is the empty case seen from above. The front of the case is at the top of the picture. All standoffs for MBHP boards are in place. The case itself is 12" wide by 14" deep by 4" high. Since the prototype is intended for our own use, we opted to include an M-Audio Quattro inside the case. It won't be included in the final version because everyone has their own idea of what sound card is best. Can't please everyone so we'll leave it out entirely. The back view of the case with Quattro installed. The power supply switch and jack are also visible. The Audio Out 3 jack has also been rerouted to a standard 6.35 mm (1/4") headphone jack on the front panel, allowing the DJ to plug in either on the front or the back. The Quattro has six important front panel switches. These are 1/2 Input Level, 1/2 Output Level, 1/2 Direct Monitor, 3/4 Input Level, 3/4 Output Level, and 3/4 Direct Monitor. These have all been rerouted to small switches on the left side of the case. The Quattro power switch is left permanently on, since the unit power is supplied via the rear power switch. The fully populated case. LOTS of room in here! The Quattro switch rerouting can be seen on the left, as can the perfboard power supply in the back right corner. The front panel was decided on after no less than 14 design iterations. We worked long and hard to come up with a panel that suited our performance needs with as few controls as possible. For this reason a great deal of control sharing is implemented. If you look at the track gainfaders you'll notice track 4's cue and sync button holes are placed differently than all the other tracks. That's what happens when you're drilling holes after 14 hours of work on the unit. I drilled the 'Effect Freeze' button hold too high at 3am and had to move the track 4 cue and sync buttons as a result. Remember, boys and girls - PROTOTYPE! :) When fully populated this control sharing is visible. Two shift buttons are present on the panel (rectangular red buttons), allowing buttons to be unshifted or shifted as required. The transport controls for four decks are combined into a single transport panel, and the deck affected is chosen through selecting one of the four ring lit buttons at the bottom right. Each deck maintains its own cue, sync and effects controls as well as gainfader. The top right buttons control cue points and loop setting/moving. While this last image shows the fully populated box, some of the components will change between now and the final version. We plan on changing the buttons used for the cue points and loop panel to be more flush with the front panel and more ring lit buttons will be used. The box itself is running MIOS 1.8 with a custom C application on top of it. When we complete optimization and debugging of the code the source code will be released to the forums. To make front panel swapping easier all panel components are wired to custom built daughter boards which are mounted on the back side of the panel. These daughter boards then connect to the MBHP boards via SIL ribbon cables. Front panels can be removed quickly and easily using this method. It also reduces the sheer number of wires running from the front panel to the MBHP boards (shared power and grounds for pots are one wire each per 32 pots, for example) and allows for much simpler implementation of Thorsten's recommended star configuration for pots. I'll be happy to post the Eagle schematics if anyone's interested. The entire unit is powered via a 9V AC 2A wall wart. I originally planned on a somewhat different scheme but after talking to Northern LightX (thanks Alex!) I opted for this unit. The Quattro requires 9V AC @ 1A so I simply run power into the Quattro and into the core. Yes, I made sure the 7805 was in place and put a HUGE heatsink on it. :) The 5V Dc available out of core:J2 I run to a Power LED and also to a USB 2.0 port I mounted on the right hand side of the case. It's power only, no data lines. Why? Well, after years of working in dark DJ booths, looking at black mixer faceplates and getting tired of carrying a flashlight with me I finally decided to do something about it. The Kombine will allow a DJ to plug in a gooseneck LED light to illuminate the front panel! I looked at nine or ten different LED lights and it looks like none draw more than about 100mA, with most running in the 20mA range. This should be well within what's available out of core:J2. Still remaining are the code optimization and documenting, TKS template creation, front panel graphics and labels and testing. I'm using Press-n-Peel Wet to create the graphics and labels for the front panel. So, that's it to date! Any questions or comments are welcome. I expect to have the unit completed within about two weeks. Then it'll be sent off to my partner in California who'll test it out for a while. After that it's off to a DJ buddy of ours who happens to be a beta tester for Native Instruments. -drin

Nope. Each encoder requires two DIN pins, making an encoder two DINs. If you read the site under the DIN link in the left hand menu you'll find http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp/mbhp_dinx4_16enc.pdf, which shows the encoder connections to a DIN board. Given your numbers: Component DIN 12 solo buttons 12 12 mute buttons 12 2 up/down buttons 2 4 transport buttons 4 10 Trigger buttons 10 1 Jog dial encoder 2 16 encoders 32 7 buttons 7 Total 81 That's if your jog dial encoder is NOT a push switch when depressed. If it is, add one more DIN. I'd second what stryd_one said, and you'll hear it from almost everyone here - read more. Read a LOT more. When you've done that, read some more. When you think you know how everything works read a bit more. :) -drin

It's still there. There's a tab labeled 'MY MESSAGES'. When you have a new message it has a '(1)' beside it. If you don't have any new messages, no number... -drin

Hi Don. I've been doing interface design in software for almost 20 years now, and I know the importance of requirements definition, thanks. However, there comes a point when the heart of the project has to be tackled. My own feeling is that going ahead and having the panels CNC cut, the vinyl cut, all those things, is getting ahead of yourself at this point. You've designed it, great. Now set the design aside and build the box. When you get near completion decide if your design still fits your requirements and then get the panel made. Having gone through 14 iterations on the interface for our upcoming controller I can appreciate the effort you're going through. Just don't get so far ahead of yourself that you find you've painted yourself into a corner by the time you've completed the circuitry portion of the project, which by the way is not quite as cut and dried as you made it out to be. If it was these forums probably wouldn't be as full of "help me!" messages as they are... -Adrian

Hi Don. Nice design, and not to rain on the parade or anything, but... Have you built any of the circuitry yet? It's worthwhile to have the interface designed, and really nice to make sure that everything will fit where you want it to, but there's such a thing as putting the cart before the horse. Maybe it's time to start actually building a core, AIN, DIN, DOUT, all those good things? It was pointed out recently in the forums that many people have great intentions and announce grand projects, but without actually getting in there and seeing them to completion a lot of them seem to end up as simply nice images for everyone to look at. No offence meant, and not to belittle your efforts to date, just curious if you've started the *real* work yet. :) -drin

I clicked refresh 45 seconds ago to find new posts and all of a sudden the forum changed. It looks great! To whoever did the work - congratulations! -drin

Not useless at all! I'm enjoying the thread. :) And the 7805 and 7809 eliminate the ripple voltage from the caps, right? (As well as dropping the voltage appropriately) See, I'm not too old to learn a new trick! :) -drin

Hi Michael. I'll be posting pictures this week. The prototype front panel was completed and tested today. -Adrian

Funny, that looks like an Eagle layout, not an X-ray. ;D -drin

I was 15. :D -drin