tuOMas

SOLD

Hello, Been busy for a while, but yesterday had some time with the box and made a little progress. It turned out that switching the polarity of my PSU fixed something in the box. All the menu buttons work now(exec, left, right, snapshot) and I can move around the menu and make changes. The pots work with no problems like before, but now I'm getting jitter from some of the buttons. This shows as constant midi events in MIOS studio, and in the leds that are connected to the jittering buttons via the DOUT shiftregister mapping tool in the midibox64 editor. The leds are flashing, but when a connected button is pressed they stop flashing while the button is held down. Does this imply a soldering mistake? A grounding issue? What causes DIN jitter? Would it be of any help if you guys could see the list of random events the box is sending? And how could I get those events "printed" from MIOS studio? Thanks, and as always, any help is highly appreciated! -Tuomas EDIT: attached a pic of the midi events coming out of the box... EDIT 2: All the buttons work, but some of them also jitter. I will try to find out if this has anything to do with any specific shift registers.

Hello, So, after some testing and checking, I've found out that I've made an embarrassing mistake earlier on. I'm using a split cable for the connection between the CORE and DIN/DOUT modules. Somehow I connected these two wrong, so DIN was connected to where DOUT should be and viceversa. I'm telling you this, because it might be important. The DIN and DOUT connections are identical, except for that middle pin. Is there a possibility that I broke something, when I made the wrong connection? I've switched the cables now and got SOME buttons working. After powering up, I get the Copyright/version number. After that I get something that looks like this: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0 0 0 0 x x x x 0 0 0 0 x x x x The x's are jittering and that doesn't feel right. The button that I have connected to the "EXECUTE" pin, works and after pressing that, I get the text: SAMPLE BANK DISPLAY. The left and right and the SNAPSHOT buttons do not work. Some buttons light up a led, while others dont do anything. MIOS Studio is getting random midisignals, similarily to when AIN inputs are not grounded. So, I'm making progress, but not sure if it's of the good kind. :) Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated. -Tuomas

Hi, guys The box is running stable now, powerwise that is. I got a new adjustable voltage PSU, and 9 volts with 1,5 amps seems to work ok. Still no luck with the buttons...I checked connections and they all seem fine. Don't really know what to do with them... -Tuomas

Hi, I fixed the pot polarity, but now for some reason 4 of the pots still have inverted values that show up on the LCD. Will look into that... Buttons still not working...I fixed the leaking ground issue, and made sure that the buttons have the star-grounding in bundles of 8. What could it be? maybe something wrong with the din modules? The power issue is still there also, I think I need more current, since I'm using 24 leds and a backlit LCD. Anything else then insufficient current, that could be causing the leds and LCD to "blink"? That's it for now, any help would be really appreciated. :) -Tuomas (edit) Forgot to mention, when I powered up the box after fixing the stuff I mentioned, it seemed to go on a bit longer before the leds started blinking. And right before the blinking, there were some random midi messages on the LCD, similarly to when AIN inputs are open. Just thought it might be worth mentioning.

Hi guys, I completed the assembly of my midibox today! I fired it up and the leds lit up. First thing i noticed, was that the pots and faders worked, but the pots were sending inverted values(I was sure I had the polarity right...) The buttons did not seem to do anything...should pressing a button show on the LCD? I did not have time to do much testing, but I noticed that the frontpanel might be grounded accidentally, through the button assemblys panel screws. Could this be the reason that the buttons dont work? Also, after 2 minutes or so after powering the box, the leds and the LCD started "jittering". Could this be a power problem, or perhaps something else? I will send a few pics in couple of hours. -Tuomas (edit) sorry for the crappy pics, will take better ones, when I can borrow a decent camera.

I'll be going to a festival for the weekend, so the box will have to wait for a few days. :) Here's some more pics. Have a nice weekend everyone! -Tuomas

What's up guys! I received the panel couple of weeks ago, and after a quick inspection, began attaching components. I had been very anxious about everything fitting nicely, and was pleased to notice that only the hole for the LCD needed a little bit of sanding to fit the module. Otherwise I am very pleased with the panels. Great quality. The week I've spent building a wooden case for the midibox. I got some old oak from my father, thats been drying since the 70's, and used that to build the case. I'm not fully satisfied with it, mainly bacause I had to finish it at home, where I dont have proper tools. But it turned out ok anyway. I just lacquered the box, and it's drying, but here are a few shots before staining and lacquer. There's also two bad shots showing the frontpanel assembly, or the point where I've gotten it. Next up, is fitting the modules inside the box and finishing the wiring between the modules and the panel. -Tuomas

I was reading this: http://www.midibox.org/users/tor_arne/midibox64_walkthrough/potsbuttons.html And on the bottom it says to bundle the buttons in the same way as the pots. I think I will go with the bundles. It's a bit more work, but I want to be sure everything works nicely. That tutorial is like 10 years old, so maybe the soft/firmware has improved since? hmmm...what would TK do? :) Thanks! -Tuomas

Hi Pilo! Haha! "Weller, from father to son." that could be the companys motto! Thanks for the help, I'm guessing it's the same deal with leds? I started thinking about this after reading about the "starlike" wiring of the potentiometers. So, only the pots need this special treatment? Thanks for the help really appreciate it! -Tuomas Hi Dubmixmaster, I have not yet tried the midibox with any DAW software. But I will post my findings when I do. :) I do not know about Cubase, I have only used the LE version and that was like 5 years ago. Nice to see there are others who are into dub music. :) -Tuomas

Hi guys, Got my front- and rearpanels last week, and im almost ready with the frontpanel's assembly. One stupid question came up though: When looking at this PDF - http://ucapps.de/mbhp/mbhp_dinx4_32buttons.pdf - I get the feeling that I can only connect 16 buttons in one "bundle". This seems weird, but in the pdf there is one groundline for every 16 buttons. So, do I have to bundle the buttons in groups of 16 as shown in the PDF, or can the same groundline run thru all the 64 buttons? Thanks! -Tuomas

That's exactly what I meant! You said it better than I. :) Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can get back to work. cheers, -Tuomas

Hi Stuart. I'll have to look into the ControlSurface Scripts, thanks. Will both of these be an option, if I just go ahead and connect the leds to the dout module? cheers, -Tuomas

Cakewalk Sonar 8 and Ableton live 8 lite.

Hi guys, I'm ready to order my frontplate, but there is still one thing I'm not sure about. I'd like to have leds that show if a mute/solo button is pushed. I understand one way would be a midi message from the computer that turns on the led, but I'm not sure my DAW supports this. So, would it be possible to have the led toggle on and off, everytime the button is pushed, without incoming midi message? Can the MB64 program do this or would I need to make some kind of a circuit for the leds & buttons? I hope you understand what I mean. :) I tried searching, but could not find an answer. cheers, -Tuomas