motor fader only midibox - some questions...

[electric]

hi all,

very cool diy community. you guys are doing some very cool stuff. much props. have some questions about building a fader-only box. if i can get the unit working i will end up dropping the faders into a small console for volume automation (but hopefully be able to use them for other things in the daw environment also).

i have some questions to help get started:

1) what fader (brand and part#) is the best for working with the midibox project? price is not really an issue as long as its not astronomical. (like 400.00+ or more a fader). i need a fader thats quiet and accurate..  has anyone made a box yet where the fader automation was comprable to the commercial moving fader products? (in noise levels and position accuracy). if so please let me know what fader you used.

2) the daw i would be using with this is cubase sx 3.0 . is this ok?

3) what are the modules i will need to build to have 17 channels of faders? this is my initial list. do i need anything more? feedback would be great.

-(3) core modules

-(3) mf modules

-(1) pic burner

-(1) jdm module

-(1) lcd module

4) the main reason for building these would be volume automation. i could ideally use the faders to control any midi parameter in my daw , correct?

5) i want individual faders to be able to be powered off. if this possible?  (eg 12 moving and 3 turned off)

any feedback appreciated.

electric

[SounDuke]

It is still possible to find commercial controllers stuffed with motorfaders that are more reliable in accuracy and noise level than Midibox. But I think that a little noise is something you can forget when you can entirely customize your controller and (last but not less important) you DO know how to repair it if something breaks (and with some commercial controllers this happen, believe me). And who knows, improvement seems to be an everyday routine in the midibox world!   

1) I think the ALPS rsaon are the best compromise, but the panasonic EVAN is faster (sometimes too much). Check ucapps.de info about MF modules for comments on tested models

2) As long as I know, Cubase SX has a midi out interface capable of sending updates to the faders. Should be OK

3) I think you can save a MF module if you need only one more motorfader by building on a vectorboard the circuitry nedeed for the    17th fader. In addiction to this, maybe it could be better to build a DIN module for the touch sensors (17 inputs for the 17              faders) very useful to put the motor in idle when you need to tweak. Also you need the 4 buttons to navigate through the            menu. The pic burner is a replacement for the jdm module, check the respective descriptions and choose one or find someone        who can burn the bootstrap for you

4)  Sure, it is correct indeed.

5) With touch sensors or cheap thumbtacks and appropriate faders modes it is completely doable

Hope it helped good luck