Portable Battery Powered Midi Sequencer/Recorder?

[Guest remix_me]

Couldn't find much info on this while searching the forum, so I was wondering what steps I would need to take to realise a simple portable midi sequencer?

Actually 'sequencer' is a bit of a stretch, all I need it to do is to hook up to the midi out of a keyboard and record the data. So I can record jammin sessions, and more easily learn new stuff from others.

I would need to transfer the midi recordings to computer. And make multiple recordings.

I think I would need to do without the lcd screen to cut down on power comsuption.

Any thoughts on how hard this concept is to implement?

[Steven_C]

wouldn't it be nice! ;)

maybe you might find something on ebay?

[stryd_one]

You don't need a sequencer so much as a recorder/playback device...

You can get them for like $20 off ebay... Battery power may be a different kettle of fish however... That one, I'll leave to the electronics experts round here :)

Alesis make a rackmount version and theres a few others by kawai, roland, etc etc etc... Look for old gear :)

[Nomical]

I got a Yamaha QY-10, which is a portable sequencer. It runs on 6 penlites (AA) batteries. It was sold (It fits) in a VHS videocase/box! That isn't very large, is it!

You can find them real easy on Ebay. I got mine for i guess.... 35 euro.

[Martin_Haverland]

I had this idea as well a while ago; even if i got such a piece (QY-10) i didn't liked the way it sounds and the way it BRAIN was in a decent way limited.

I also owe an electribe EM-1 (and yes, i've time to go here and read...  ;D...neary impossible...)

In the electribe community there's a very great interest to make their babys mobile...nothing to say against it but batteries are heavy... someone managed it very elegant with an RC-Car batterykit to get it working for 4-5 hours!!! (to be amused on his business flights)

BUT: if someone doesnt like the OS anymore - there's no chance to get another...and there will never be a chance to change it by yourself! chameleon and other products (a dedicated PC based Workstation/Synth or a vst-based PC based multieffect 19" platform, sorry lost the names somewhere ;D) are very seriously products of the future, well reviewed by the progressive recording studio community.

Think of PIC based hardware platforms like  a:

- Mobile MIDIb*x (SMD type style with LF pic)

(with small chip synth inside?)

or

- 19" MIDIb*x (MIDIbox "Studio" / Jsynthlib programmable)

- MIDIbox DJ (tribalbox-lots of lights-lots of buttons/coders/ribbons - heavy live action )

with some very DIFFERENT OS'es (pattern seqencing, midi recorder/looper, step seq, drumbox...),  scalable to the hardware platforms

but with compatible exchange format (sysex unified, exchangeable banksticks...)

This all is already possible with the mios platform -

it's all up to the design

I really would like to have "mobile" dedicated simple little midi machines, some more of them,  capable to act as a modular midi system, where every PIC Module can be loaded with all kind of MIDI sysex progammable apps like sequencer, arpeggiator, (one minisyth module), midifilter, splitter/merger, harmonizer, scaler etc in small boxes ready to be docked togeter (in analogy to analog modular systems) with a midi lag smaller than cubase :D

[Guest didifeed]

i think a power supply by battery should be no problem. i guess the box doesn't care if it gets the current from a transformer or batteries.

also the consumption should be no problem. thorsten recommends a power supply with about 500mA output(even if a lcd is used). so when you use AA-rechargeables with a capacity of 1500 mAh you can run the for 3 hours minimum.

but you can also get good baby size rechargeables with a capacity of 4000mAh what would mean that you can run the box 8 hours when it's consumption is constant at 500mA.

i think it's no problem to realize the power supply. you should ask thorsten about the number of cells. but i guess 6cells (6,8V) should be enough.

greez

(hope i didn't tell you bullshit  ;) )

[moebius]

Hi, remix_me

This link was posted a while ago to the forum:

http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~ogura/e_hobby/midirec.html

Site is in Japanese, but It's clear, that it's a really simple "midi recorder".. I'm not sure, if you can stop it, and then continue recording, for multiple takes.. but anyway..

Bye, Moebius