Controller question

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Hi.

I'm pretty new to this... Or I've been around for a long time now, but I haven't done so much diy stuff yet, so I have some questions ;).

I'll try to make you understand what I need in a short and simple way, but no promises :P

When I play on gigs I usually play along with finished programmed drums from Linplug RM IV plugin. So Then I use one keyboard to add a Bass arpeggiator and another keyboard to add some solo synth from Pro53 or something... Sometimes I have pre-programmed a pad sound too, and the rest of the band takes care of the rest like additional drums, electric guitars, bass guitar etc. So the results are something like Rammstein or something... don't know a better way to describe it... maybe heavy metal and techno (or something similar) together. Only difference from Rammstein is that we play christian music :P

My problem is that I need "wheels" to control the filters in the synth plugins (or added vst/dx effects). I have one Radium64 controller keyboard. And that has got two seperate wheels for pitch and modulation. My problem is that I haven't got enough of them. Usually I use the Radium64 and a Roland E-500 I bought 8 years ago together on gigs. Sometimes I use a Korg DS-8 I got for free together with a ZoomPlayer2020 to play some awesome guitarsolos that just can't be played on a guitar :P. My point... The Roland and the Korg has got joysticks instead of wheels... So I can't leave the modulation controller in a position and then leave it that way without programming it in Cubase instead of using the joysticks.

So I was thinking... I need a controller board besides the keyboards/synth with 4 modulation wheels on it. The pitch wheel isn't that important... I think it would just cause trouble if I could leave the pitch wheel in a position and then leave it... would sound real out of tune if I was unlucky and forgot to put it back to zero.

So I need the four modulation wheels - or maybe more... depends on cost, how much work there is too it etc... I don't like to work like 10 years on a project that never finishes :P. As simple as this:

A board with 4-6 modulation wheels stacked on top of the keyboards that controls 4-6 synths at once. Is this doable? I've learnt one thing browsing the net for DIY projects and that is that nothing is impossible :P.

Someone has some tips on where to begin, what I need or something. For all I know there is one of these nice boxes from TK who already does that... Strange if not... But the thing is... I don't want a huge MIDIbox or something. I want only the modulation wheels and maybe if not too much work (and costs) a display to show me info about what wheel is controlling what synth or something... don't know... just ideas at this time. I can understand programming if I want it hard enough - did some programming 1000 years ago, but I probably forgot it now... So I could probably without problems mod software already made to fit my needs, but no way I could make it from scratch now :P

Thanks for any ideas, and I appologize for the long post! Thank you for reading!

Kind regards,

Ingebret

[pay_c]

You´re using these here very much, he?  :P (  ;)  ;D )

Back to topic: No, not any problem at all. Modulation wheels are nothing else than pots just with a shorter angle (something like 90° perhaps). The complete wheels should be sold somewhere, just google for it a little (try typical stuff like ALPS, Radiohm etc) - perhaps it will be a little hard to find them. If you find pitch wheels: They are TOTALLY the same (!), only with a little spring attached which can (in most cases) easily be de- and remounted. So in the end you only got four pots.

For the app: Either the old MBPlus will do for you http://www.ucapps.de/midibox.html or the newer (and actually supported!) MB64 app http://www.ucapps.de/midibox64.html (which I recommend MUCH more than the old version).

The rest is much of reading! www.ucapps.de

But kind of everybody here managed to build his box(es), so you will do fine, too!  :)

Greets!