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SSl Blog Post 02 Hello again, Last time I wrote about the design process of my console. In this post I want to focus on the electronic part. In the last couple of weeks I searched for the right knobs, faders and pots for the project and I nearly found all I need. The pots were the simplest part. I opted for the Alpha 10k Lin https://www.musikding.de/Alpha-Potentiometer-16mm-10k-lin Each channel will have one motorized fader. Here I choose the PSM01-082A-103B2. https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail/bourns/psm01-082a-103b2/?qs=MAZTpT1IVl8rvdecO07rRA==&countrycode=DE&currencycode=EUR 14,76€ when I buy more than 25 is a good deal I think. The ones from alps are very pretty, but with prices over 30€ per piece they are quite expensive especially because I need 33. For the bus channels I opted for simple 60mm faders. Also 10k lin, not very investing. https://www.reichelt.de/schiebepotentiometer-stereo-10-kohm-linear-rs60n12-lin10k-p73870.html?&trstct=pol_1&nbc=1 The knobs where a little harder to find. For the Solo Cut and Rec knobs I want to have knobs with Leds which I can connect to an DOUT module separately. So I could press Solo on the console but deactivate it inside my DAW and the LED would follow my actions. After quite a bit of searching and some phone calls with distributors I finally found these. https://de.farnell.com/nidec-copal-electronics/cfpb-1cc-4w9/drucktaster-spst-0-005a-5vdc-panel/dp/3498758 The knobs inside the channel strip are still to be found. The need to be snapaction knobs with a white cap with the measurements of 5mm per side. I couldn’t finde the right ones even after quite some hours of searching. Maybe I’m just searching without the right search terms? Maybe someone of you knows the answer to that problem I didn’t start the search for LEDs just yet. I think and hope these should be easy to find. For the modules I chose STM32F4 for the cores, AINSER 64 for the pots and faders, NG MF for the motorfaders, DIN for the knobs and DOUT for the LEDs. I especially need quite a lot of AINSER modules and I’m still figuring out a way to connect more than two to an STM32F4. I found some blogposts but could get the answer out of these. They suggested it should be even possible to connect more than three? I obviously want to use as less cores as possible. This build will be huge either way. I can connect the MF modules directly to a pc without a pc. Thats what is written on the website. But how do I connect these to the pc? Via midi? There is no USB port on these modules right? And I also should cascade them. I need 5 modules. I want to use 33 motorized faders and that’s quite unfortunate because every mf module only supports 8. How do I cascade these modules? Also via MIDI? The last problem I ran into is the meter bridge. This could be a whole blogpost of its own… My plan was, or partly still is to use 10 7“ displays connected to a 10 times HDMI splitter, which tells the PC there is only one REALLY big screen. But after buying quite some displays to test out I figured out 90% of the screens for sale online are totally crap! Ok, I searched for quite cheep ones, but I need 10 of them and if I had unlimited money I would buy the original ORIGIN console… But I don’t have access to unlimited amounts of cash so I need a cheap display which works. The first one I ordered was the perfect size and easy to operate. But I only could see the image looking from one specific angle. Moving my head just a little bit the whole display would turn blue. The second one was advertised to be 7“, but the one that were delivered to my was only 3,5“…are you kidding me? Out of anger I searched for analog VU meters. I really like the looks of these and figured out these work with voltage. Is it possible to drive VU meters with a midibox module? Maybe with an AOUT module? So many more questions but I already wrote a whole book here…sorry for that. If you still reading in this point thank you very much! Have a nice day! Frederik

I'm having trouble getting leds to work properly with pro tools At the moment I have the leds responding when I press solo in pro tools, but the problem is, when I press solo on any channel it will turn on all leds I have assigned. I know that the problem is in the way I'm coding because it is only doing this in pro tools. The code I am using is this, which are the cc equivalent values to sysex zone select/port on: EVENT_LED id= 1 type=cc chn=1 cc=12 range=0:0 EVENT_LED id= 1 type=cc chn=1 cc=44 range=67:67 I can't get them to respond with sysex messages, whereas it does work for buttons. For example, this was not working: EVENT_LED id= 1 type=sysex stream="0xb0 0x0c 0x00 0xb0 0x2c 0x43" I have the buttons configured in a similar way as shown before with cc messages with ranges and they work, so I thought maybe this could work for the leds, but it appears that is wrong What would be the right way to do this?

I am brand new to midibox, I don't have any modules yet, as I am trying to figure out which ones to get exactly, I haven't found a sure answer to what I'm looking for specifically by looking in the forums and the general information on the ucapps site, maybe someone could help. I'm trying to make a controller for Pro Tools using 3 MF_NG modules , for 20 channels/faders total since it would be installed in an existing 20 channel console, but I'd also like to have buttons and leds for record enable, channel automation, as well as transport controls and automation selectors (read, write, latch, etc.) as well as leds for the record lights, which for me would be about 60 buttons, and 20 leds at least for the record enable lights. at least Ideally it would use mackie HUI, but I would be fine with using MotorMix if that works better. I'm trying to find someone here who has successfully made a controller with both motorfaders AND buttons/leds who could let me know what modules I would need My first thought was to get a STM32, and then connect the MF_NG modules and DIN and DOUT modules, but in the MF_NG thread there was a post that made me think that might not work. I posted the quotes below, they are from 2012, maybe this is dated? Would it be different since I am only using 3 MF_NG modules? Could I use just a STM32 or would I have to use an LPC17 and MIDIO128? If I did need to use the MIDIO128, would I have to use the LPC17 or could I use it with a STM32? My understanding is that the STM32 is an upgrade in a lot of ways to the LPC17, and doesn't require an external burner. My goal is to keep everything as simple as possible since i'm completely new to midibox. But since it's Pro Tools we are talking about, things can't be so easy.. Sorry for so many questions, any help is greatly appreciated!! Even if i had to use older modules, that would be okay! I just don't want to get/build the wrong components.. I also wanted to make sure this kind of configuration is something other people have gotten to work in pro tools Here are the quotes:

Hi all, I'm trying to configure my MIDIbox to work with FL Studio, and so far I've successfully mapped outputs from the box to control knobs and switches in FL. However, I haven't had any luck in sending feedback to the box to trigger LEDs to light up. FL has a plugin called 'MIDI out' which allows you to send CC, RPN or NRPN bytes to an external MIDI device. My firmware has only been configured to switch LEDs in response to note events. Does anyone have any suggestions how I can take CC, RPN or NRPN bytes being sent from FL and translate them into note events so the LEDs light up on my MIDIbox? Ideally, I'd like to configure FL so it sends out a separate CC for each LED (on channel 2, as 1 is used for my pots and encoders). A CC value of 0 would turn off the LED, while 127 would turn it on. Thanks