Should I bother with MidiBox?

[Bigga]

Hi All,

For a while I've been thinking about a project to accompany my DJ setup.

I want to build a box to trigger samples from a custom app on my laptop (currently in development). The box should have 32 buttons with an led for each (to indicate the sample is playing) plus a volume control for each sample (led rings on pots would be lovely!). Additionaly an LCD panel to display which sample is currently playing.

I know you can do some amazing things with MidiBox but is the above the sort f project that would be realisable with MidiBox? Is there a simpler(!) solution or am I on the right track?

It's worth mentioning that I'm learning all the skills to do this from scratch. I have no programming knowledge so am learning VB and I have only a little electronics knowledge?

Hmm now I've written it down it does seem like a foolhardy endeavour! Then again that's me all over!

I'd appreciate your comments, thanks.

[stryd_one]

Sounds quite do-able. How do you plan an sending the sample name to the midibox? Or will you program the name into the midibox from the user interface?

You should have a look around the links up the top of this page ;)

[Bigga]

Sounds quite do-able. How do you plan an sending the sample name to the midibox? Or will you program the name into the midibox from the user interface?

You should have a look around the links up the top of this page ;)

I have no idea how I plan on achieving this though. If there are no straightforward ways of doing it. I planned to use a usb LCD panel and incorporate the functions for it in the software.

I've had a good read of the wiki. Aside from the LCD functionality is the rest of it doable? is 64e the right version to use for this?

Thanks for your help.

[nebula]

Well, an LED to show which sample is playing may or may not be doable.  If you're talking about using the buttons to start AND stop samples, then yes, you could have an LED show that the sample was started but not stopped.

But if you are triggering one-shot samples in your laptop from a MIDIbox, the MIDIbox has no way of knowing how long the samples are, so the LED's on/off status would be meaningless.

I don't know how much experience you have with this type of stuff, so I'll add: don't take on a MIDIbox project to save money.  You probably can't build something for less than it would cost to buy a cheap commercial controller off-the-shelf, especially if you need to buy basic hardware, tools, supplies and parts.

Advantages to building a MIDIbox (and DIY in general) are:

- customization (you can make it look and work exactly as you want it to)

- community (people in the forum will help you learn, so just by building you are contributing, and then you get bitten by the bug and want to help others, while other people learn from the help that you got), and

- pride (the satisfaction of realizing your own design, using it, and showing it off).

[Bigga]

Well, an LED to show which sample is playing may or may not be doable.  If you're talking about using the buttons to start AND stop samples, then yes, you could have an LED show that the sample was started but not stopped.

But if you are triggering one-shot samples in your laptop from a MIDIbox, the MIDIbox has no way of knowing how long the samples are, so the LED's on/off status would be meaningless.

I don't know how much experience you have with this type of stuff, so I'll add: don't take on a MIDIbox project to save money.  You probably can't build something for less than it would cost to buy a cheap commercial controller off-the-shelf, especially if you need to buy basic hardware, tools, supplies and parts.

Advantages to building a MIDIbox (and DIY in general) are:

- customization (you can make it look and work exactly as you want it to)

- community (people in the forum will help you learn, so just by building you are contributing, and then you get bitten by the bug and want to help others, while other people learn from the help that you got), and

- pride (the satisfaction of realizing your own design, using it, and showing it off).

You've pretty much stated my reasons for wanting to do this. Apart from one.

As far as my research has showed (and I've been looking for a few years) there isn't either a dedicated hardware or software solution to my problem. Which is that whilst I'm DJing off my laptop I'd like to be able to trigger 32 different samples. Ideally one button could start and stop samples (some are 3-5 secs long). I was hoping that with Visual Basic I'd be able to build an applicatin that would 'tell' the MidiBox when the sample was playing to control the LEDs.

Incidentally I've been wondering whether I shouldn't just keep it simple say 32 buttons with 32 pots and 32 leds. Would this setup work with the 64? I'm guessing it would.(?)

[philetaylor]

As far as my research has showed (and I've been looking for a few years) there isn't either a dedicated hardware or software solution to my problem. Which is that whilst I'm DJing off my laptop I'd like to be able to trigger 32 different samples. Ideally one button could start and stop samples (some are 3-5 secs long). I was hoping that with Visual Basic I'd be able to build an applicatin that would 'tell' the MidiBox when the sample was playing to control the LEDs.

Incidentally I've been wondering whether I shouldn't just keep it simple say 32 buttons with 32 pots and 32 leds. Would this setup work with the 64? I'm guessing it would.(?)

If you are creating the software to actually 'play' the samples then you could have the samples triggered by a 'note on' from the midibox and then the sample player could send a 'note off' when the sample has finished. It could also send a 'note on' when it starts playing as a bit of a feedback loop (this could be used to trigger the leds).

This is not exactly 'trivial' to achieve and would also require C (or assembler) programming knowledge on the midibox side.

Cheers

Phil

[Just Phil]

does the custom app have anything special about it or is it just to trigger the 32 samples????? if its just an app with samples that are synced to bpm you should consider using something like max/msp (or PD) or even reaktor... much easier to program then vb with this kind of software you can send information to and from the MIDIbox to control led's and use the midibox to launch samples in max... pm me if you want to discuss this idea further.