Rebirth, une MidiBox.... deux possibilités.....

[Basile]

Bonjour à tous,

Eh oui encore un Noobie  ;) ... avant de ma lancer dans la réalisation d'une MIDIBox, j'aimerais savoir si certains d'entres vous savent si il est possible de controler Rebirth par MidiBox et le cas écéhant comment vous avez fait pour faire dialoguer les deux (Rebirth et MidiBox)???? :-/

Voilà merci d'avance...

Basile ;)

[robin303]

I hope you understand English, I can understand a little French but I cannot write it  ;)

I have succesfully played around with Rebirth and my midibox64. It is great fun and works very, very well!

There are standard controller numbers for all the common knobs and faders. For example: cutoff, resonance, volume, 'send' amounts, pfl, echo, distortion etcetera. Really almost everything can be controlled! If you take a look at the midi implementation chart in your rebirth manual you can see which controller and note-on numbers are used.

It's also possible to program the patterns of the 303's. For this to work, Rebirth must be set to the "program synths" setting. You can program your box in a way that it will do this automatically (with a meta event). Now you can assign buttons to the step, back, up, down, accent etcetera buttons of either one of the 303's. Voila! Remote programming. Note that remotely programming the 808/909 is not possible in Rebirth.

Last but not least, very handy for live performing or jamming, you can trigger patterns from the midibox. By sending specific note-on message via midi, you can select the pattern for each one of the four modules.

However, the midi implementation for pattern selection kinda sucks in Rebirth. You have to first send an A,B,C or D note-on message and after that a 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 note-on event.. Because I didn't like this I have written a very handy meta event (a piece of code that you put in the ram of your midibox). This enables you to select patterns by turning a knob instead of pressing a button (like it works in Reason). If you're interested I can post the code of this metaevent here. I also have configuration files for you, once you have built your box!

Hope this information is usefull and that you can read English  ;D

[Basile]

Whow you're impressing me!   :o

Well, i've got a little experience in the diy community! I've made a lot of DIY FX pedal for guitar, but I'm a allready noobie in MidiBox. So if you could let me known which modules I have to make I will very thankfull!

I've got one more question: Do I need REWIRE soft to control Rebirth with a MidiBox64? I think taht your post give me the answer...

Well, I'm very enthousiatic about make this midibox. Please can you describe indetails what modules I 've to make , how many and the code that I've to implement in the PIC? I will be very interested in a step-by-step desciption of the work that this project needs....

Thanks for your answer! God bless you!!!

Basile

[robin303]

You won't need REWIRE. You must be able to attach a midi device to your computer, that's all! Then you will set Rebirth to listen to remote control commands on channel x. And you set your connected midibox64 to output data on channel x.

Okay, but how to start on designing a rebirth midi controller?

First of all you will need to figure out which rebirth knobs you can control via midi by looking at the rebirth midi implementation (one of the documentation pdf's). Let's start for example by looking at what you would need to control the first TB303.  ;D

TB303-1 Pots/Faders: Pattern selection, Tune, Cutoff, Reso, Env.Mod, Decay, Accent, Pan, Level, Delay Amount... That's 10 pots/faders.

TB303-1 Buttons: Waveform, Pitch Mode, Clear, 13 note buttons, down, up, accent, slide, note-on, note-off, back, step, distortion send, pcf send, compressor send, pattern on, mix on. That's 29 buttons.

But do you need all these buttons? What do you want to control? Maybe you don't want to program the 303's from your midibox, in that case you can loose all the buttons related to programming and just stick to the ones needed for live performing on your box. So that's waveform, distortion send, pcf send, compressor send, pattern on, mix on.

You must also define the number of pots/faders/buttons needed for the second 303, for the 808 and for the 909. In other words, you need to make a complete overview of the needed controls.

When you're done with that you can start sketching/photoshopping or use front panel designer (http://www.schaeffer-apparatebau.de/English/FPD_index.htm) to make a design. Try to make the design intuitive, so will be able to know what buttons controls what without the need for labels and all... This is all creativity  ;) You could for instance make two rows of 10 pots to control the two 303's. And under this the layout for controlling the 808/909. I would, like the program does, keep the master section to the right, put pcf controls under this, put delay controls under this etcetera. In other words, keep the basic location of controls the same as the onscreen counterparts.

When done designing, think about if you want/need to have an lcd screen, motorised faders, a midi-thru... And then we will know what hardware you'll need. The amount of modules depends on the amount of pots/faders/buttons that you are going to need.

[Basile]

Thank you for your advices! I decided to concentrate all the control on the 2 TB303, i let the other stuff on the screen of my IBM T30! I really want to make my midi controller designed for live performance.... So I'm thinking about which controls I need... Also, thanks for the front panel designer!

Well, now it's time for a litlle brainstorming  ::)

Thanks for alll ;) It's a pleasure!! I'll send a new reply if I need some help! Voilà

merci, thanks, danke or whatever but I really appreciate your help! Thank you!

Best regards

Basile

[robin303]

Ok, you are welcome!

Oh and don't forget the stuff on the right side of rebirth. Personally I love tweaking the PCF, Distortion and echo controlls when doing 'live' performing!