dengel

Remember that you'll have to make a PCB for the contacts, or use brass tape on a board or something similar - this is Just for the top part of the switch. I'm going to see if we could get a sample of other keypads that they've made so that I can gauge the feel. You know what? I found that perhaps a different way to go would be to reduce the size of the center post, and use those panel mount micro-pushbuttons instead, which would give a more mechanical solution and eliminate the extra cost of the contact pills. That, and a lot of people like the slightly clicky feedback. Whatcha think? Edit: Weird, the carbon pills don't seem to add anything to the cost

Yeah, the buttons could be cut and placed in any configuration that you could wire up - you'd just make a REALLY simple PCB (you could probably just draw them to the PCB with a silver pen, or cut them out of foil and glue them to the PCB if you can't afford to make real ones). I redid the layout just a bit - increased the button diameter to 13.5 to accomodate the PCB mount LEDs, with 25 mm spacing between buttons. Let's see - 1000 units, which would yield 8000 buttons, would cost 1340 bucks So that comes down to about 1.34 a part (including the tooling) or 16 cents a button. The first 20 people willing to throw down 70 bux would end up with about 400 buttons. Or, we could get 100 units for about 700, which would yield 80 buttons per person. They then keep the tooling for 2 years, and future runs would be much cheaper.

Not sure why the "Blue LED's" and uv leds are so popular anyway - Red, green, and amber are easier on the eyes. That said, after traveling through the translucent material, the blues would probably be OK. I'm happy to see that at my electronics store at least, the blue and white LEDs have warnings on the packs to not stare at them, similar to lasers.

That would be great if you find the source. On the unit cost, it would be more like $1.30 per 8 buttons. These 8-button sheets could be cut apart and used in any confuguation that you could make a pcb for, so you wouldn't be limited to the grid pattern.

Yes, it definitely is - but the buttons have the advantage of having that nice rubber look and feel, as well as the simplicity in mounting them to the panel. It's just expensive to place that initial order! Any news you get from your friends is welcome, though.

You know, that is absolutely awesome - I hope the prices aren't bad - because they have a damn option to Auto-create a rubber keypad! How awesome is that? Edit: AND there's a clear with conductive pill option! Hopes dashed: (955 bucks, but that is for an 8x2 grid and 95-105 pieces, which is about 1600 buttons). Additional parts are 2.63 apiece, which is reasonable, I suppose. But this is just the keypad with pills. That said, the majority of the cost is the tooling; if you order 1000 parts the unit cost is 1.33. That's not really so bad. Edit: I realized the 8 x2 grid was too big anyway. Tooling costs get lower the smaller the unit is made, so I reduced it to a 4 x 2 grid - 100 parts can be produced for 750, and the cost only doubles for 1000 keypads. Best is they are still clear with a 5 mm conductive pill. Backlighting these would be easy as pie! I designed them to stick 2mm out from the surface of a 4mm thick panel, and to have 1.3 mm of travel to activate. The texture is set to smooth-textured in the software settings... Here's the buttons in DXF: http://www.mytempdir.com/611693 And a pic: Anyone want to do a run? Come to think of it - let me get this to my CNC friends - perhaps they can tool it cheap, and we might be able to just pay for the parts to be made somewhere local here. Last edit before sleep: The price point is best at the 4x2 grid. reducing it to a 2x2 only takes 100 bucks off the cost, and only 20 cents off the unit cost per 1000.

Yeah, nerd - I have had the same issue. At the moment, clear or translucent caps seem almost impossible to find. I'm even having problems finding them on any equipment that I could scavenge from. I have the following design, that I got a fabricator to give me a quote on - It was 2000 for just 10-20 pieces, meaning these little 4-switch banks would be 100 bucks APIECE, with additional pieces likely costing a couple bucks each. And that was for PROTOTYPE tooling, which could only produce about 1000 buttons total, at which point the ridiculous cost would have to be paid again. Moxi is trying to make lighted round pushbuttons for the community - you should contact him if you are interested too. Also, I tried one other thing that was a bit unorthodox: Using Hot Glue Gun Glue sticks. They come in 1/2 and larger sizes, and are rubbery. They also disperse the light well, but even at room temperature seem to have a bit of tackiness to them if you squeeze them hard :(. Here's what I sent to him: That said, the interiors of keyboards are made of these same types of dome contact switches - perhaps you might be able to modify them?

Nope - the device specs show that it is a USB 1 device. Stupid of them, to be sure. I was hoping it might be fast enough, but it really isn't. It's a shame really, because the form factor isn't too bad, and they packed alot into a small space. On a positive note, being able to finally use a MIDI controller on my software allowed me to make a few changes to some plans, so I guess that was a positive thing. Incidentally, I sent a note to Behringer RE this problem - no response.

Echoing Stryd, this was my first thought. That looks translucent, not white, from the pic. Here's hoping! Why does it seem like no manu has seen the need for translucent, backlightable buttons? Whenever I see some product with them, they are always custom jobs!

Guess I should not that I meant "mentally juggle", not beat-juggle. When I play live, I just have too much in mind than to worry about whether a control is assigned to one deck or the other. Hell, if you have the space and the money and time, duplicate all you want! At least it'll be all yours!

I sort of see where he's coming from here. I like to have duplicated controls seperated by the mixer functions, just because I don't like "oops" moments where I control the wrong deck. It's already bad enough that you have lost that connection to the record label to double check what track you are on. Some of us ex-vinyl guys have a hard time juggling the single-interface-two-decks thing. For instance, you can technically mix a full set with just one Denon S-5000, but I would HATE to do it. Perhaps if the transport section could take on either a green or purple backlight or indicator light to reference which deck was being controlled, or a LCD label?

I'm the same way - I plan on using my controller to essentially replace a record box and a bunch of heavy equipment. The only reason I mentioned the scenes is that by just having a scene up-down button, and then a clip start/stop on each channel, you can eliminate the dragging step completely and stay completely controller based. All it would take is 10 total buttons to free you from the mouse. The funny thing is that until I had a Midi controller, I didn't realize you could use live this way. This is why I have dropped my huge clip-lauch grid and rearranged my panel with some extra goodies I now have room for. In any case - Looking great!

http://www.breskin.com/writing/intro1.htm I'm a big fan of recycling things, and this guy makes several good points in this article about LED xmas lights... http://www.inirgee.com/catalog/dome__focused__shape_521410_products.htm

RE Sasha, yeah,was only referring to Rowan using it as a dj tool rather than as a prod. tool. I'm interested in those switches as well, if you have any for sale. Agreed that the "Maven" is kinda passe. At my local store, we have tact switches with tiny green LED's in them. Unfortunately, the guys stock NO CAPS of any kind. I don't want to do panel mount, since the PCB mounted switches look so much better.

Great thinking. I thought Ableton won't allow one control to have multiple button assignments, though? Are you planning on this as a production controller or as a live performance controller, a la Sasha/Van Dyk? I assume that you'll put your scene selector controls in the Xfader assign piece? Otherwise, I don't see how you'll select clips to launch. One other thing I did on my design - I have buttons for "Track Select" and "Toggle between Track and Clip View" on each channel. I also see that you left out looping controls on this panel, and effects sends. Those might just not be important to you; much as the eq frequency controls aren't to me. The thing is, The "Toggle" button has to be a keyboard button - because it is permanently mapped to shift-tab by the SW :( .

Rowan, on the Xfader assigns - How do you get those discreet? I have only been able to map this control as a toggle between A,B, but not seperately. Kinda annoying, actually, but I just haven't seen the setting in Live5.

Behringer BCD 2000 Review (Using 1.0.0.6 drivers): Well, I went ahead and was the first in Houston to get a hold of the Behringer BCD 2000 Midi Controller. I'm writing this to give my initial impressions of the unit, and give a plug for making things yourself. The product build quality is actually quite good, and built on the same platform as the BCR and BCF items. It is vastly superior in layout, look, and feel to many other controllers out there, even ones much more expensive. It is roomier than the Hercules, without being unwieldy. The problems come in on the details of operation. The BCD is a USB sound card and midi interface in one (similar to the Hercules). I suppose for economics sake, they used USB 1.1, and included DX and ASIO drivers. This first iteration of drivers is, in a word, terrible. The ASIO drivers periodically drop audio or stop the functioning of the app (not a latency issue nor a processor issue - 2.8ghz and 1gb ram p4 dell laptop is the test platform, with XPsp2). Sometimes the drivers fail completly, requiring one to switch over to the DX driver to get sound. On a fast machine, that might even be acceptable - except the DX drivers cannot use the second stereo channel, so you can't monitor anymore. Only rebooting seems to get the ASIO back. Occasionally the midi functions of the device just stop sending, and you cannot get the functionality back - even by power cycling the unit. I even got a BSOD once, with the dreaded "IRQ not Less Or Equal" error in the bcd2000.sys driver. I have a pretty clean and plain jane system; this level of unreliability just kills the fun of the unit. Secondly, the interface was built TOO much with the included B-DJ software in mind. Either physically or at the driver level, many switches on the unit perform as toggles, even if you wish them to be a single momentary press. This makes mapping certain traktor commands almost pointless, as the buttons require a dual press to function. Most of the buttons with LED's function this way - for instance, the Cue and play buttons. This is absolutely ridiculous, as the designers should have allowed the software to handle these functions, not the hardware. With the BDJ software, the buttons work fine, but no DJ playing live would use it. Why they didn't emulate Traktor instead, and create a sub-$200 Unit that would have been loved by pros and bedroomers alike, I can't say. The Audio quality isn't great, but it doesn't suck either. The Headphone amp is actually quite clear and powerful, and the headphone section's PFL mix and master/phones cue split are welcome features. Not reviewed is its ability to route 2 additional analog sources through the back of the unit, although for grins I may try that out later with an Ipod just for kicks. In conclusion, I have to say that people like Drin, Rogic, and Yves who have made their own are doing the right thing. Building your own takes time and effort, but in the end you have a product that you made yourself that works the way YOU decide and that you can honestly say is unique. Every mass-market item is in effect a compromise. Behringer decided to make a controller that could be great, but is instead only servicable. Perhaps with a driver improvement and a firmware update (and a more full-featured control panel app) this would be an ideal cheap backup controller or a great bedroom controller or Travel controller (it is VERY compact, and could fit well in a big laptop bag). But as is, it's bug riddled and unreliable, and for that reason I think it is going back and the money spent on parts for my custom controller! Rating: :'( for unrealized potential and poor drivers, ??? for BDJ-oriented instead of Traktor-oriented functionality, and a 8) for cost and build quality. Don.

Checked in today on the store, and see a shipment coming soon to Houston, TX! Thanks, Smash - I hope that's mine. EDIT: Smash, I have modified my design a bit, and so It turns out that I need two DINx4 boards after all (added some encoders to the mix). Can I add another board to my current order still? Don.

Without Giving some indication of what the things do, It's honestly hard to tell. One thing you might want to try is to use something like MidiOX and watch the commands that come across when you activate things via midi. There are even programs that will turn midi events into KB events, so you might consider testing by seeing if you can get Ableton to "type" something, which would be evidence of a midi return event. Remember though that the folkshere are MIDIBOX experts, not Ableton experts. Have you searched at the Ableton forums, or asked the question there? That might be a better place to ask Ableton specific questions. Oh, and for the RTFM crowd, the official docs don't have as much tech info as one would like. The answer might not be there.

Haha! I just wanted to make sure that there were no mystery parts that I didn't order and would find myself needing. Since this is my first electronics project basically ever, I'm a bit concerned about getting things right. Thanks Moebius for the confirmation. Actually, I no do math so good ;). Don.

Throwing in my 2 cents, it depends on how much you can keep track of in your head, and how good you are of double-checking your instrumentation. When doing live performance, I like things to be single function, because you need to be watching and analyzing the floor, not LCD's and whether this bank of buttons is in mode 1,2, or 3. Pots with stops do well in this situation.

Mirroring Drin's scratch comments... One other thing - I think that those tempo reset buttons are setting you up for some massive ohshit moments to happen when you accidentally reset one and the train comes on. Might want to reposition - or, if MIOS can do this, require that they be pressed for a time, or be pressed 3 times in a row or something.

Rowan, you and I seem to work Live quite similarly (with one exception; I like to have a ping pong delay on FX 1X, it can be really nice for blending tracks really smoothly). Check my thread if you haven't and see my 8u layout - Might give you some ideas.

Yes! I have finally ordered the following from SmashTV (all as kits). 1x DINx4 2x AIN 1x Core Which should give me enough stuff for 32 buttons, 64 Pots, and the core - correct? I don't plan on running an LCD on the unit, so I think that (minus the buttons and pots, etc) this is all the PROCESSING stuff I need, right?

I'll need vias and what not too - the dual layer boards seem pretty tough to get right, I've heard...I might just have to suck up the cost of this one. Maybe I can get around the vias problem with bridges instead - that sounds like a plan! Then I can get a single layer board to work. Yey!