Sinnsyk

You could look for an old midi-keyboard and rip off this part...

perhaps, if u are doing a MBHP project anyways, why not do a more featured one. If u take 1 week more in ur planning, u can make something that's usable in the future too, and not only at this moment. What if u change ur music style, u will be very happy that u made a bigger midi-box with more features... think about it, and don't make something too simple/small

I'm gonna ask smashTV if he could order a few for me and other people, and then add it to a package from his own webshop. I hope he agrees, it will save me the double costs for a shipment. I will make a topic in the dutch part for shipment, but first I'm gonna party some more (geslaagd -> 6v)

Connection on your panel is just a LED-hole? In that case, this is awsome :P Has anyone used this in his midibox yet?

Je zou eigenlijk eerst in hout je gaten moeten boren oid, zodat je later in het metaal geen fouten maakt. Vaak zie je midiboxen met scheve gaten etc, en dat verpest toch wel min of meer het uiterlijk van je complete box. Iemand nog tips over hoe je het beste kan boren?

Looks very cool! Did u buy one yourself? I would like to have one, but since that shop is in the VS and I'm living here in Holland, it will cost me $ 26 + $ 11 dollar to get it here. That's a bit expensive. I'm hoping for mr SmashTV that he can order a few for me and then ship it with a bunch of boards and encoders, I am planning to order stuff at his shop anyway... damn shipment-costs :-[

Why not making 1 core in the case with the pots, and connect your floorboard with a cable (male female plugs) to the that case with the Core and the buttons (and the DIN & DOUT)? If u are the only user of your midinstrument the cables will not be thát long, and it's possible to connect without losing too much voltage and values. _______________________ buttons & pots CORE & DINX & DOUT _______________________ | | cable | _________________ floorboard with only 2 buttons and some leds _________________

Little idea, what if u connect a potentiometer to the arm? If u move the needle, it's value will change and you could connect the potentiometer to track length or whatever...?

Foto? :P En waar heb je t laten maken? Ik zoek zelf nog ergens een frontpanel, maar omdat ik geen kolomboormachine heb ben ik bang dat de gaten voor de encoders etc niet recht in 1 lijn komen, wat het geheel minder mooi maakt.

Conrad (netherlands) has 45mm Jog Wheels. Try your conrad, or other electronical store. They must be available somewhere...

Ik zou zeggen, zoek eens een 19" flightcase. Voordeel van een koffer, en door (wat flightcases bijna altijd hebben) een compleet afneembaar deksel ook op je buro te gebruiken, en met een of andere aanpassing (extra klemmetjes oid?) ook in een 19" rack te monteren.

Thanks :) So I need to do it with some software, I guess. Final question: If I have 8 encoders grouped in 4 groups or something, can I still add some ungrouped encoders for basic functions, like the BPM, that don't switch if u switch a group. I'm still a total n00b with MIDIbox, but hopefully I'll create something usefull for this community someday :P

Yes, I know that there are the special functions :) I was planning to use them for the function button 1-5 But, I was wondering, can you group 'buttons' and encoders at the same time? Does a parameter contain 1 button or 1 encoder? So, you select group 1, and the encoders and buttons are acting like preset in group 1, and then u switch to group 2, and then the encoders ánd the buttons are acting like they would do in group 2. I have 18 encoders and 18 buttons.. any suggestions?

I think you should really look into a MIDI box 64E At the tutorial page on uCaps, there's a small box with 16 encoders & led rings. Only 8 buttons & a LCD finish are doing the trick. With those 16 encoders, you can control up to 128 virtual encoders. Not too expensive, and a cool way of using the minimum of hardware to controle a maximum of software. My advise, as I am trying to say, build a simple thing, but make sure it can control more than u need. Some day, u are going to change ur mind, and think, o uhm, I want to do it this way today. And well, with ur original plan, that wouldn't be possible, and u'll end up frustrated and build another midi-box. But, if u create something cool, and something that's effective (less knobs, more options), u will be able to do whatever the heck u want with ur box, with some simple changes! The possibilities with the 64E are almost endless, so don't hold yourself down, but build something that will be re-usable in the future.. 8) Is going to cost you some time now, but will save a lot in the future.

Hello This is going to be my blog on creating my MIDI-controller. Since I've met Ableton Live, and became aware of midi-controllers, I've been looking for a good one for ages. But, too expensive, not completely well-designed, etc etc. I came up with uCaps a few times, but didn't really realize what it was. But then, there was light. And now I'm planning to make one myself ;D Oke, first, I've been thinking about a panel and the number of buttons/encoders/faders etc I will eventually need. I thought it would be a good idea to keep the number of parameters to control as flexible as possible, so that if you change music style, you don't need to rebuild your MIDIbox. I was reading the MIDI64E pages, and a kind off cool thing flashed into my eyes -> encoder-groups & virtual encoders. So, even now I have a basic design of the fader-section of my mixing-DJing-instrument, I am wondering: Can I group buttons, together with some encoders (with knob build in), to control like 4 groups of controls? I have a 6 channel mixer (with 6 faders), and I want 3 encoders / channel. The encoders will be from SmashTV, with a button build in. The encoders will have LED-rings (yes, a lot of LED's -> 6 * 3 * 12 = 388 LED's), and a button with a indication LED (toggled or not/pressed or not/etc). Every channel will have a mute and a cue button, but they are out of the question. At the left side of the panel, I want to have 4 or 5 buttons, to switch 'encoder-groups'. In that way, pressing button 1 at the left, and turning encoder 1 and 2 on channel 2, change 2 settings on channel 2. But, if I then press button 3 at the left, encoder 1 and 2 on channel 2 control 2 other parameters on channel 2. Etc etc etc. Note that, the buttons that are build in to the encoder (if u push the encoder down, a button will do his job), have to be grouped as well.... and that's my unknowing factor here. I sure hope that my tiny little plan is possible, or I will have to come up with something else... PS: Today 3 Aluminium travelcases arrived, for better mobility I'm going to implant my midibox in there. midibox.JPG

Hm, I've been thinking about my design, and I came up with some question marks :) I've got a 6 channel setup (quickly made with paint), and as u can see I have 5 buttons at the left. I want to switch the 3 rotary encoders to 5 different groups (with a LED indicator), so that I have 5 * 3 virtual encoders / channel. I was thinking about some buttons/channel too, but then I was wondering, can I do the same 'grouping' trick as with the encoders? If that's possible (I guess, with some coding?), then I want to use the encoders from smashtv with the build-in button. A led would indicate the state of that button in a different colour as the led-ring. That would be another 5 * 3 virtual buttons as well.. Is this possible/do-able? midibox.JPG

I keep learning every day I spent my time here ::) I just saw you ordered some 100 mm faders from Voti, how's the quality of these?

Pardon me, but on every page about the PCB's I see in big screeming letters that you should not mount chips directly on a PCB, but use some chip-sockets for that. Why are you not using sockets?

Ik zelf ben bezig met een midibox in een aluminum koffer, lekker handig mee te nemen, na gebruik gewoon dicht te klappen (stof en sooi veilig), en er hoeft alleen een front-paneel in gemonteerd te worden. Ik weet niet wat je er mee gaat doen, maar misschien een idee?

Hehe, nice. As I can see on this picture: (http://www.gavle.to/~wise/MIDIBOX/loop_test1.jpg), you use little buttons with plexiglass like-button caps. Where did u buy these? And how do they look once in a case? I'm looking for various ways of mounting some buttons in my own project, but the online shops and stores around here don't have much choice for cool-looking buttons. So was kinda planning of making something myself.

Thanks for your answer :) Hehe, if u have 8 banksticks, you have 64 banks, so 64 * 128 = 8192 parameters. I don't think any instrument has that many parameters, and if it does, searching for the one you want to change takes ages. :P I'm gonna work on my design, now that I know how many pots faders and leds I can use. Thanks!

Hm thanks. But it got me thinking. If it sais: MidiBox 64, I would expect a maximum of 64 inputs, buttons ór encoders. Can I connect 128 buttons to a MidiBox 64E, if I need that? Or does the MidiBox 64 handle 64 real-input-devices, and the only difference is that a encoder uses 2 inputs, but shows up as 1? And do you know an answer for this?

Yeah, well, there are some examples of setups, but I can't answer this question with that examples. At least, not for sure. I keep crossing over from the MidiBox64 to a MidiBox 64E, and I can't really define what the 'real' differences are, only that you can handle encoders with a 64E. But you can connect up to 64 Encoders, but then you don't have any room left for buttons, or faders & pots. They need a AIN, but can you connect 4 DINX4's and 1 AIN? I really don't know ???

Hej, it's has been 4 days since your last post, and I'm kinda checking this topic everyday to see if there were any update (I'm interested ;)). But how did it go? Any progress?

Hi Let me raise a question too, it's basically the same, with a slightly different setup. I've checked the midibox 64E pages, and I came across this little peace of text: # the superb solution: use 8 "group select" and 8 "bank select" buttons to select also the banks with a single touch (SFB "FF 01 00" to "FF 01 07" and "FF 02 00" to "FF 02 07") # the deluxe solution: use 2 * 8 additional LEDs and map the appr. DOUT shift registers to the group and bank number. So, if I understand this well, I can connect up to 128 virtuel encoders (with max 64 real-live encs), to control 1 bank. But, if I switch a bank (with a bankstick or the internal banks), can I control another 128 virtual encoders? Is this a way to connect up to numberofbanks * 128 virtual encoders, and control them with 1 - 64 real-live encoders? In that way, you can control more parameters than you can think of, if u use a few Banksticks? Or is this not true? For my soon-to-be-build midibox 64E, I want to connect 40 encoders, and preferrably as much buttons as possible. I don't know if it's possible, but I've read somewhere on uCaps that you can connect pots and faders as well with an AIN module. But, what's the maximum of connectable faders, knobs, pots, led's, LEDrings I can connect when I'm really freaking out and go berserk with connecting knobs pots faders leds ledrings and encoders? And how many DIN AIN DOUT modules do I need then? My own calculation told me that I needed 80 DIN's for the Encoders, that's a minimum of 3 DINX4 modules, right? I can connect like 48 buttons at the remaining DIN's, if I make a 4th DINX4 module, and put it on the chain. The next problem, I want to have a few faders as well, so I need to connect a AIN module as well. And at least, we need LED-rings (LED's are cheap and I have money, so), and that will be a minimum of 3 DOUT modules as well. But, for the buttons, I want to have some leds that indicate the state of that button, so I need to connect some conventional Led's as well. So, that will be another DOUT module. I have read a lot on uCaps, but I can't find a real answer to this. Well, as u see, I did some thinking and guessing, but I would like to know for sure before I order some parts and find out that it's too much for 1 CORE module.