Kombine controller update

[drin]

Hi everyone! At long last here's an update on the status of the Kombine controller, designed exclusively for Traktor 3 running in Xone:92 emulation mode.

The unit is based on Thorsten's amazing MBHP and MIOS, and has at its core SmashTV's wonderful boards. It's designed solely for Traktor use and optimized for that purpose. More on that later.

Please keep in mind as you read this that the unit as shown in this post is a PROTOTYPE - the final version will have a few changes, described below.

The case is fabricated from 1.5mm aluminum sheeting. I'm in Japan and don't have easy access to a sheet metal bender so I opted to screw sheet metal together with corner brackets. The final version will have a proper case but this works for now.

This is the empty case seen from above. The front of the case is at the top of the picture. All standoffs for MBHP boards are in place. The case itself is 12" wide by 14" deep by 4" high.

Since the prototype is intended for our own use, we opted to include an M-Audio Quattro inside the case. It won't be included in the final version because everyone has their own idea of what sound card is best. Can't please everyone so we'll leave it out entirely.

The back view of the case with Quattro installed. The power supply switch and jack are also visible. The Audio Out 3 jack has also been rerouted to a standard 6.35 mm (1/4") headphone jack on the front panel, allowing the DJ to plug in either on the front or the back.

The Quattro has six important front panel switches. These are 1/2 Input Level, 1/2 Output Level, 1/2 Direct Monitor, 3/4 Input Level, 3/4 Output Level, and 3/4 Direct Monitor. These have all been rerouted to small switches on the left side of the case. The Quattro power switch is left permanently on, since the unit power is supplied via the rear power switch.

The fully populated case. LOTS of room in here! The Quattro switch rerouting can be seen on the left, as can the perfboard power supply in the back right corner.

The front panel was decided on after no less than 14 design iterations. We worked long and hard to come up with a panel that suited our performance needs with as few controls as possible. For this reason a great deal of control sharing is implemented. If you look at the track gainfaders you'll notice track 4's cue and sync button holes are placed differently than all the other tracks. That's what happens when you're drilling holes after 14 hours of work on the unit. I drilled the 'Effect Freeze' button hold too high at 3am and had to move the track 4 cue and sync buttons as a result. Remember, boys and girls - PROTOTYPE! :)

When fully populated this control sharing is visible. Two shift buttons are present on the panel (rectangular red buttons), allowing buttons to be unshifted or shifted as required. The transport controls for four decks are combined into a single transport panel, and the deck affected is chosen through selecting one of the four ring lit buttons at the bottom right. Each deck maintains its own cue, sync and effects controls as well as gainfader. The top right buttons control cue points and loop setting/moving.

While this last image shows the fully populated box, some of the components will change between now and the final version. We plan on changing the buttons used for the cue points and loop panel to be more flush with the front panel and more ring lit buttons will be used.

The box itself is running MIOS 1.8 with a custom C application on top of it. When we complete optimization and debugging of the code the source code will be released to the forums.

To make front panel swapping easier all panel components are wired to custom built daughter boards which are mounted on the back side of the panel. These daughter boards then connect to the MBHP boards via SIL ribbon cables. Front panels can be removed quickly and easily using this method. It also reduces the sheer number of wires running from the front panel to the MBHP boards (shared power and grounds for pots are one wire each per 32 pots, for example) and allows for much simpler implementation of Thorsten's recommended star configuration for pots. I'll be happy to post the Eagle schematics if anyone's interested.

The entire unit is powered via a 9V AC 2A wall wart. I originally planned on a somewhat different scheme but after talking to Northern LightX (thanks Alex!) I opted for this unit. The Quattro requires 9V AC @ 1A so I simply run power into the Quattro and into the core. Yes, I made sure the 7805 was in place and put a HUGE heatsink on it. :) The 5V Dc available out of core:J2 I run to a Power LED and also to a USB 2.0 port I mounted on the right hand side of the case. It's power only, no data lines. Why? Well, after years of working in dark DJ booths, looking at black mixer faceplates and getting tired of carrying a flashlight with me I finally decided to do something about it. The Kombine will allow a DJ to plug in a gooseneck LED light to illuminate the front panel! I looked at nine or ten different LED lights and it looks like none draw more than about 100mA, with most running in the 20mA range. This should be well within what's available out of core:J2.

Still remaining are the code optimization and documenting, TKS template creation, front panel graphics and labels and testing. I'm using Press-n-Peel Wet to create the graphics and labels for the front panel.

So, that's it to date! Any questions or comments are welcome. I expect to have the unit completed within about two weeks. Then it'll be sent off to my partner in California who'll test it out for a while. After that it's off to a DJ buddy of ours who happens to be a beta tester for Native Instruments.

-drin

[stryd_one]

Go man, go! :D

[Twin-X]

Very nice very very nice indeed!

[dengel]

Beautiful, man. Really, really fine work. I've started soldering up the keyboard switches on my Ableton project, so hopefully I'll have stuff to show after the weekend.

Question about the blue ring around the controller, bottom left - how did you achieve the ring lighting? Is it a commercial part that I haven't seen or did you custom make it?

Also - I thought the Quattro was a USB card, or have you performed some kind of PCI to USB conversion? I'm still SC shopping for my project, but running off a laptop all I have seen in the way of using PCI cards is to use a very expensive PCMCIA solution. Or maybe you just took the USB enclosure off of a regular quattro? Do Tell!

Congrats again. With you on the dark faceplate thing - never did understand why mixers are always designed to be invisible in the dark!

[drin]

Many thanks to all those who have responded with positive comments. Much appreciated!

Question about the blue ring around the controller, bottom left - how did you achieve the ring lighting? Is it a commercial part that I haven't seen or did you custom make it?

At this point it's a custom part. I went to our local giant Japanese hardware store (called 'Homes') and found large flat plastic washers with an inner diameter that would let my switches sit comfortably resting in the washer. The diameter of the holes I drilled in the front panel is 3mm smaller than the washer diameter so the washers rest underneath the front panel. The washer is epoxied in the front panel hole and the switch is glued into place in the washer. A custom circuit board rests underneath the switches and each switch has a corresponding LED on the board. Confusing explanation, I know. Maybe this will help:

There's a separator between each switch/LED combination to stop light from bleeding from switch to switch.

Or maybe you just took the USB enclosure off of a regular quattro? Do Tell!

That's what I did. Removed the casing from an external Quattro, removed the Omni I/O port and power jack, rerouted power, the headphone jack, the six front panel switches and the MIDI jacks to the appropriate places and mounted it in the case with appropriately drilled holes.

Thanks again guys! I'll post more as the project nears completion.

-Adrian

[NorthernLightX]

Lovely stuff drin!

That issue with the buttons on the 4th channel sounds all to familiar, reminds me of when I was drilling a hole in the back of my case for a MIDI plug, and suddenly realized the friggin transformer was sitting in that very spot on the inside...  ;D

Your case looks quite nice, although I would have liked a "sloping" tabletop case even better. Is there a special reason why you kept it flat?

The only big question remains.......where's that heatsink on the 7805?  ??? ;D

Cheers,  Alex.

[drin]

Your case looks quite nice, although I would have liked a "sloping" tabletop case even better. Is there a special reason why you kept it flat?

The intention is to let DJs carry it inside their (big) vinyl case. It made more sense to us to have a flat top rather than take up more space with a sloping lid.

The only big question remains.......where's that heatsink on the 7805?  ??? ;D

Right here. :)

Thanks again Alex!

-drin

[Silverfish]

Okay-

I'm really new at this. How did you reroute the Quattro switches? I'm stuffing my MBLC with a midisport 2x2, and I was going to desolder the components. Is the desoldering necessary? Or can said rerouting work?

Thanks, and nice box.

[stryd_one]

The intention is to let DJs carry it inside their (big) vinyl case. It made more sense to us to have a flat top rather than take up more space with a sloping lid.

I can see you thought this out :)

Right here. :)

That reminds me, I was going to add a camera to my tool collection... it's a very handy thing!

I didn't notice that lit switch at first, that's great! Very clever indeed :D

[drin]

I'm really new at this. How did you reroute the Quattro switches? I'm stuffing my MBLC with a midisport 2x2, and I was going to desolder the components. Is the desoldering necessary? Or can said rerouting work?

I left the existing switches in place, figured out their pinout (not too difficult) and used six new microswitches with similar pinout on a new board. They're wired to the original switches and mounted through side panel holes.

-drin

[drin]

I didn't notice that lit switch at first, that's great! Very clever indeed :D

Thanks. Actually, all four of those switches light similarly, but since you can only select one deck at a time they're mutually exclusive.

-drin

[dengel]

The backlight solution is really nice. Sort of similar to what I'm doing, but with discrete rather than global backlighting. Good show.

Why did you put the fourth channel's headphone/xfader assigns out of line with the others? Seems like moving that green button somewhere else would be a better option than putting it so close to the channel fader where it might get bumped.

Come to think of it, aren't you concerned that the button positions will lead you to hit them during scratching manouvers?

In any case, it's already better than the only commercial traktor controller (the hercules POS) and the fact that It's so far along is great.

[stryd_one]

That's what happens when you're drilling holes after 14 hours of work on the unit. I drilled the 'Effect Freeze' button hold too high at 3am and had to move the track 4 cue and sync buttons as a result. Remember, boys and girls - PROTOTYPE! :)

A lesson for us all :)

[drin]

Why did you put the fourth channel's headphone/xfader assigns out of line with the others? Seems like moving that green button somewhere else would be a better option than putting it so close to the channel fader where it might get bumped.

I didn't. The two buttons on either side of the channel 4 gainfader are the cue and sync buttons for that channel. As I stated in my original post:

If you look at the track gainfaders you'll notice track 4's cue and sync button holes are placed differently than all the other tracks. That's what happens when you're drilling holes after 14 hours of work on the unit. I drilled the 'Effect Freeze' button hold too high at 3am and had to move the track 4 cue and sync buttons as a result. Remember, boys and girls - PROTOTYPE!

It was a mistake made after too many hours working on the box without a break.

Come to think of it, aren't you concerned that the button positions will lead you to hit them during scratching manouvers?

Nope. I'd like to emphasize this is in no way a scratch mixer! I wouldn't trust Traktor 3 to scratch my nose, let alone try to scratch mp3's with it! If you've used it you'll have seen that there are 4 decks - it's really intended as a beatmixing application, despite what NI claims Final Scratch will let you do. Scratching with it is just a bad idea in general.

The xfader and gainfader components in the Kombine are intended to be used for beatmixing, not scratching.

In any case, it's already better than the only commercial traktor controller (the hercules POS) and the fact that It's so far along is great.

Thanks! Much appreciated. :)

-drin

[dengel]

Nope, I've never scratched with it - or much else, for that matter! When I fist got into DJ'ing, I determined quite quickkly that scratching just wasn't my bag. Like Piano, drums, and guitar it requires hand independence, which I do not have even the slightest talent for. I tried to learn Bass for about 6 months, and I just couldn't get hand A to do anything different than hand B. Turned out that I was good with beatmatching, and I liked the progressive stuff more anyway, so that's what I've been specializing in for my DJ "career".

I've used 3 decks in tractor, never bothered with 4 since (techno/ minimal/electro excepted) It's hard to find 3 records that sound good together, let alone 4! I have the third deck set up to do samples and the like, and not much else.

Sorry, missed the drill part in the post. Prototype - ain't that the truth!