matrigs

really having a hard time here with my first sid. every time i launch it i get a lot of random signs of the screen and everything goes totally bogus. i have checked every connection twice and even the voltages are fine. but one thing that might be wrong - i'm using an old v2 core board (but with the 4685 equipped. is the v2 core compatible at all?

i'm curious why you try to make it that ultra-compact. i have to admit that when i first started my live controller projects i tended to pack everything on a very small space, but now things have dramatically changed. i mean - it depends ond what music you are playing - but anyway i cannot believe that it will be comfortable to use such a knob packed space. and i could i magine that it's nearly impossible to quickly use a send to some delay and turn it back down in one move... at the moment i have 3cm space betwenn my knobs in every direction. and still (okay i have 1cm knobs so they are quite big) it seems it would be nice to have a bit more space.

can anybody tell me if the following thing is possible: when you select a track in logic control and you go tho the "devices" page something similar to this will show up on your screen: 1. MIDI | 2. AUDIO | 3. MIDI ARPEGG |ABSYNTH |REVERB |DELAY (let's say that those are the devices of channel 1) now when you choose one of the devices and click the desired button the following will appear: TIME | GATE |TRIGGER| WTF? 1/4 | 80 | 10ms | 100 (assuming we choose the apreggiator function - yes the wtf? function is fictional :>) now i would want to recode the thing a bit so i would have something like this instead: ARPEGG |ABSYNTH |REVERB |DELAY TIME | GATE |TRIGGER | WTF? so know i could just press the according button of the desired device and tweak on and not having to step back in the menu as it is in the original logic control emulation. i actually doubt that this is possible because the cc's related to the buttons change their assignments but maybe someone knows anything about this ?

a small step for me but a big step in making this project - today i put the first pcb with those mounted buttons and it fits !! YEAH

semi serious :> my friend invented the name as a joke about robert henke's midi controler which is call "monodeck"

WELLBUYING TC002-N11ASGGRGXX http://www.trim-pot.com.pl/pliki/99e0_tc002.pdf

- massive v.1 has been redesigned: needed: - more channels - less control on the channel - crossfader - in the massive v1 i f**ked up with the holes of the illuminated buttons - they are mounted on pcb's which have holes in mills but i have measured the space between the holes in mm. so the buttons tended to jam in the holes. - when i was designing v1 i accidently made 9 rows of knobs which, as you can count, is impossible to fill with only one core - lcd is not needed - no encoders so, after a few design changes - finally the frontplate of v2 arrived: bigger: also this small piece of plastic arrived - what's that for i will describe later on the won't be blue - that's protective foil - the plates are qhite like in the v1. tomorrow i should get finally my high quality faders (nor alps nor philips - but i have beta tested them with great results: the fadercap is a simple reloop mikser fadercap which you can get for about a buck a piece. as i was getting a bit tired of pcb mounting those illuminated buttons (besides - the feeling of them isn't really good. the tend to jam and the click they make when pressed is wearing off) i found another model, frontplate mounted, with led and cubic! and they feel so accurate and durable - i'm sure they can hold off some extensive hitting! the internals of the box actually remain the same, as will do most of the knobs. i only had to make 2 more ains and 2 more dins: the crossfader will be a standard reloop mixer crossfader. it in fact has 100 kohm but with some resistor-hacking it works flawlessly. the casing will be wooden, i just have to find a manufacturer for it. besides, as the plexi is slightly transparent i came to the idea that i'll mount a few under the plate to have the whole hting illuminated. tomorrow i'll get going with the faders - there's a though month coming :>

so, the question may seem a little weird but my local store will get 10k linear faders for me in january and i need some quick solution for my live sets until then ! the problem is that the store provides just two other models: 10k log or 20k linear. now my question is - what option is better (assuming that nothing else comes into mind ?) - they are used for volume so maybe the logarhytmic ones ? (please don't answer things like: buy from another store or anything like that just stay focused please...)

actually i was alwasy jealous that those big companies have access to parts not available commonly like nice illuminated buttons or faders.

don't want to be cruel but it seems a bit nonsense to me to post pics of a serial made midi controler on a messageboard that is meant to make something like this by yourself.

although i would highly recommend buying a small lcd (2x16 is sufficient and very cheap) that you would connect only at the assembling stage and then disconnecting it when you put everything in your desired box. with analog inputs (pots) there is a lot of trouble shooting to do, especially grounding issues. the lcd will show you quickly that something isn't alright. on the other hand - you can also launch midi-ox on your pc and troubleshoot from there.

you can edit all options from your computer screen with this little tool http://www.midibox.org/mios_tools/vmidibox64_18f_v1_0b.zip you can change the global midi channel on there

so - as far as i did understand it there have to be made no additional hardware changes in the cores to use those new PIC18F4685 chips to get ready for all new projects? can there be used any other versions of the pic18Fxxx without limitations - i realised that the PIC18F4685 is not available in poland.

an external controller would use up a second core

thanks for the reply ! i would need those controls: tuning, resonance, cutoff, env. mod, decay, accent. but i really don't want to squander your time if you say that this is so time consuming. maybe i just make my friend a "normal" box and wait until v2 then. i presume you suggested the "knobs" page in v2 that it will be able to provide me with the controls i need. one question though - can i already stuff a pic18f4685 into my new core and already make those new changes to the sid module and then just wait for uploading the new software? thanks

i want to make a monophonic 303 style sid for my friend. generally i would want to add the normal control unit with a 2x20 lcd. but i would also want to add a few encoders for controlling the most important "303ish" controls like cutoff and resonance so that, wherever you are on the control unit screen you can control them on the fly. could someone give me a hint on how to do that? i guess i just have to change something in the cs_menu_enc file but i'm a bit confused. thanks for the help.

thanks for those few replies! i was just thinking about one thing: the company that makes those plexy-frontplates for me claims they are using lasers that have an accuracy of 0,2 mm - that's not very good. on the other hand machines for making pcb's are much more accurate than that. i'm just a bit afraid that the laser of the frontplate company won't handle measures like 2,54 mm exactly.

well - i wanted to ask you a question: you see i had a big problem with my last project. for maximum comfort, i counted 3 cm between every row of knobs. now with the knobs, i didn't have any problems. but the buttons made me think. they are stuffed from the bottom on vector plates like this: now when i tried to stuff them through the holes in the frontplate i realised that something is very wrong and that it won't match no matter what. i measured again and and realised that this problem was because of the conversion of mills to mm on the board, and that there is no way of stuffing the buttons in the holes so that there will be exactly 3 cm between them. so now i have to make a decision - either i'll make my own custom pcb projects for those buttons OR i'll change the project of the frontplate so that it will be in mills and not mm. the thing i'm asking you, the builders is how do you do your stuff - do you make a frontplate and then project the pcb's or the other way round?? (on most of the projects i have seen in the gallery there are parts stuffed on "normal" pcb's so i guess you project the frontplate in mills then?) ((or maybe there are some special pcb's in mm? but then i guess the parts wouldn't fit...)) thanks in advance

just found this pic in the LCD section but as far as i know (or found) there is no option to show these knobs on the screen with the lc app... so what is it? is it online?

i guess i'll try to open just one ain and then check every singlle knob. it would be cool if there would be some software app which would automatically shut down the knobs that got undgrounded. but i know that's impossible. but one thing i'm thinking about - maybe a little "smooth" plugin could do wonders for a few midiboxes. like with your issue that it sometimes bursts 127 when you turn a knob beyond 0. the app wouldn't let peaks like this through. of course the latency would be a little higher but not much.

i'm using the bare 64 ain 128 din 128 dout app so everything software wise should be fine. there is one last option actually that i could check but this is quite work intensive and will take me a couple of hours. the thing is - to make my connections more comfortable i don't solder the output pins of the pots directly to the ain boards but i use some special cables that are used in motherboards. one one side you have a connector like this: and on the other side 3 cables. it's very comfortable because you have just to solder one end and then you put it on the according pins of the ain. however - i remember that sometimes the cables were faulty and i had to replace it. the problem is now that i have such a great amount of midi junk that it's impossible for me to check which cables are faulty and have to be replaced. i mean i can actually try to solder all pots directly to the ain without those cables but this will be a very time consuming part and if it won't work i assure you this midibox is going to crash. it's weird though... is this problem so common? isn't there anything that can be done?

it's confusing me that i have made a few dozen bridges to different grounding points so i'm 100 % sure that every single pot is grounded. i HAVE all ains closed so i still don't get it. so you have like all your pots linked serial and then just grounded them with one wire all ?

i am really getting confused with grounding - i guess i'll make my next box just out of encoders and buttons without any analog inputs because this s driving me crazy !! i have 8 rows with 8 pots connected. the grounding and the +5 is connected serial horizontal in every row so when i connect the ground and +5 to just one - the whole row gets it. but as i had problems with grounding before i've gone further and made 3 bridges vertical so i have connected all rows together. now i have used 3 different grounding points on the core (one of the ain pins, one of the din pins and one at some random place) and guess what - random midi messages !!?? my question is - is so much grounding like i described above actually necessary? because maybe i'll ground myself to death and the reason will be something much more simply. just tell me how much you have to ground your pots to make your box work.

that won't work mate. the buttons can be quite near each other - it's even better this way because you have to make only small connections to between them to connect everything in serial. but the thing that bothers me are the encoders. you understand that you somehow have to turn the knobs right? the encoders this close together are completely not controlable. i have raised the space between the pots in my own controller to 3cm verticaland horizontal from each other and it is still verey fiddly to move a pot that is located in the center surrounded by other pots. i'm also not able to put label stickers above them which i did in previous controllers which were maybe bad looking, but very very helpful. a numeric keypad can be used of course - but when you want to use it in the mios itself you'll have some extensive programming on front of you. either way i recommend planning your box the other way round - first find some good parts that you will use (and that you can afford), then you buy a piece of vinyl or pvc or plexi, drill some holes and stuff every part so you can see if the distances between them are actually comfortable. THEN you can start planning the board - not the other way round. oh and it would be highly recommende that you post what this is actually being meant for. ableton? doubt that. ffor example what do you need that numerci pad for ??!!

expensive because you need a separate core for each box but the reliability is much higher - remember these are diy projects - when one of your friends pulls his cable to hard the whole system is down. when you have separate boxes you can be sure that the system is intact even without one piece of gear.