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midibox idea


kikker
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Sure, you can get resistive X-Y controls that work just like a pair of pots.

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=5023.0 :)

Nice!

I wanted to create a controller for the mixer of FLStudio.

So i got 1 master+16 faders (motorized if finance allows it) mute/solo/record button for each channel and mute and record leds for each channel.

Then i need 4 buttons to select channels 1-16, 17-32, 33-49 or 49-64.

And because EQ, send and pan options for all channels will take up much space, i decided to create 16 buttons and 16 leds extra to select the channel for which you edit the settings, so i only have to build the  EQ, send and pan options once.

Is it possible to work this way? kinda like preset buttons for the controller, and preset buttons that can be changed by a preset (to select the active channel).

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Sounds like a good design to me...

You'd want to decide before you even start about faders vs motorfaders, as the design will be very different depending on which you go with.

You might need a little programming skill to get some of the customisations done too...

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Sounds like a good design to me...

You'd want to decide before you even start about faders vs motorfaders, as the design will be very different depending on which you go with.

You might need a little programming skill to get some of the customisations done too...

I was thinking about motor faders, but i had another idea to make it more complete, i want to make an 8 channel controller instead of 16, and add a 8x8 routing matrix.

that means i need 64 rotary encoders...

Would that be really expensive? i know that the led rings are a few dollars, is there a cheaper solution for this?

rotary encoders need a push function too...

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I was thinking about motor faders, but i had another idea to make it more complete, i want to make an 8 channel controller instead of 16, and add a 8x8 routing matrix.

that means i need 64 rotary encoders...

Would that be really expensive? i know that the led rings are a few dollars, is there a cheaper solution for this?

rotary encoders need a push function too...

You can have encoders without led rings... The value is shown on the LCD screen. 64 leds can be had for a few bucks, but that's a lot of soldering..... Have a look at the MB64e though, that's the middle road - encoders with LED-rings, organised in banks to save parts, space and soldering :)

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You can have encoders without led rings... The value is shown on the LCD screen. 64 leds can be had for a few bucks, but that's a lot of soldering..... Have a look at the MB64e though, that's the middle road - encoders with LED-rings, organised in banks to save parts, space and soldering :)

yes that's a nice idea, but...

If i make a 8x8 matrix i am saving parts space and soldering, the FLStudio mixer has 64 tracks, so if i want all tracks at once i need 64x64... wel actually i never use that many tracks at once, most of the time i use 16, and if i downsize that to a value of controllers i want to be able to use at the same time i get to 8x8.

So that's really the minimum, i create a lot of dub music and i have many different effects on different channels and i constantly play with the routing from the instruments to the effects and the effects to each other and i'm tired of drawing that process in the event editor or recording it once at a time...

i wanted to use encoders with push function and that a led is turned on and the track's routing is enabled when i push the encoder.

But if i open a certain track, and i see that a rotary encoder is active i first have to turn it to read it's value.

Is there a way i can see the 64 values the same time on one lcd?

One more question ;)

Could i use a vacuum fluorescent display instead of a lcd display, i like the looks of those...

Thanks for all the help so far!

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You might want to take a look at OLEDs. They look excellent as well, and are a lot cheaper. Unedited photos here and here.

-Steve

Yeah they look nice too, but i can only find vfd and oleds in sizes of 2x20 or smaller, i need something that can display 64 values at the same time.

the nicest thing for the design would be 64 seperate 3 digit displays for every encoder, but it looks to me that's nearly impossible to build...

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I wonder, do you have any programming experience? It might come in handy :)

Just a quick thing... I'm so finnicky, but... They're PLEDs not OLEDs  :P P= Polymer, O= Organic. PLEDs are usually Character, OLEDs are usually graphical... don't know why? *stryd_one goes off to do some reading*

Edit: OLEDs do colour too, PLEDs don't, it seems. There ya go.

As for the unavailability of PLEDs > 2x20, you can run more than one screen, or use GLCDs.... Or look at the screen in fruityloops ;)

I understand you want to use x amount of controllers but why all 64 at once?

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I wonder, do you have any programming experience? It might come in handy :)

Just a quick thing... I'm so finnicky, but... They're PLEDs not OLEDs  :P P= Polymer, O= Organic. PLEDs are usually Character, OLEDs are usually graphical... don't know why? *stryd_one goes off to do some reading*

As for the unavailability of PLEDs > 2x20, you can run more than one screen, or use GLCDs.... Or look at the screen in fruityloops ;)

I understand you want to use x amount of controllers but why all 64 at once?

I want to create a matrix, 8x8, that's 8 channels to 8 channels, if i make it in seperate banks of 8, i can only route 1 channel to 8 channels or vice versa at the same time, and i still will have to record the routing in seperate takes, and that's what i don't want... for instance i want to be able to send a snare to a reverb, then that reverb to a phaser and that phaser to a delay, then the hihat to the delay and the delay back to the phaser, and all at the same time.

I use 16 different effects in one track and 16 inserts for instruments so i'd rather have 16x16 but i don't wanna spend that much money and time...

And for the programming skill, i have a little skill in C/C++ and i have a lot of skill in PHP.

If it's only about altering existing scripts that wouldn't be a problem, if i should program something from scratch it would take a little longer but i know some people that know C/C++ a lot better than me.

I was thinking there was something wrong, all i found when searching for oleds was ultra flat computer screens and tv's. So pled's it is.

I will post a drawing of the design i had in mind later this week.

Greetings

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Programming-wise, you'll be fine :)

I think maybe you're not familiar with how the banks work....

If you've got 16 encoders, physically, and 4 banks of them, it works like 64 knobs. The only different thing is that you have to select the bank.

So let's say you're tweaking track 2, that might be the 2nd row of 8 encoders, set to bank 1. Now you want to hit track 7, which would be the first row of encoders in bank 4. You can use the buttons to select which bank/track you're editing, so you just hit the button, tweak track 7, then hit the button, tweak track 9, etc etc etc.

From the ucapps page:

With 16 rotary encoders you will have 8 pages * 16 entries to control the 128 virtual pots - multiplied by 8 (-> 1024) when a BankStick is connected to the box :-)

So as you can see, you won't have to stop and re-record anything :)

You could get even closer to your ultimate idea of 16x16 too, by having two rows of 16 encoders in banks....but 32...you might as well do 64 hehehe

for instance i want to be able to send a snare to a reverb, then that reverb to a phaser and that phaser to a delay, then the hihat to the delay and the delay back to the phaser, and all at the same time.

OMG guys, kikker has 5 hands ;D What you'd actually do, is send the snare to the reverb and the reverb to the phaser at the same time, then the phaser to the delay and the hihat to the delay at the same time, and then the delay back to the phaser (or something similar). Note, only two things at once - one for each hand :)

All you have to do, to save soldering and paying for an extra 48 knobs (keep in mind all aspects - it's not just the encoder, it's knobs, it's facepanel size and complexity, it's DIN modules, etc etc. Think in the hundreds.) is tap a button inbetween those movements, to select the bank.

Heck, you can cut code, clearly you have a specific requirement, why not do some wicked customisations (which aren't that hard thanks to meta events).... You could get the app to use one single encoder, to send multiple messages - so you could have a single knob alter ALL of those routings in one twist...  And of course you keep at least 64 virtual pots for individual changes. That way you get even more control than 64 knobs, it's like growing extra hands, but you spend half the dough. Think outside the square bro :)

I mean, it's not my time and money being spent unnecessarily, you can do whatever you want and it doesn't bother me ... But you don't need 64 pots to do what you're talking about. I dunno, maybe you just want an ubercool big ass flashy box with heaps of knobs on it. Nothin wrong with that, I gear-lust as much as anyone!

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Just a quick thing... I'm so finnicky, but... They're PLEDs not OLEDs  :P P= Polymer, O= Organic. PLEDs are usually Character, OLEDs are usually graphical... don't know why? *stryd_one goes off to do some reading*

Just curious, did you find any documentation on this? Crystalfontz says the display is a PLED / OLED, but the spec sheet for it (in fact) says that it's a PLED. So, I guess I should stop saying OLED. I'm curious about the rest of what you said, though...

-Steve

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Heh, I just did an edit.... Well they're a very similar technology, so they get grouped together... basically they just spray the polymer or organic compound on the screen, and the guts of it fires off power that causes them to electroluminesce (emit light). The OLEDs can do colour too, so they're more prevalent in graphical form. You can get monochrome Graphical PLEDs though, check out onestopdisplays, down the bottom.

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Heh, I just did an edit.... Well they're a very similar technology, so they get grouped together... basically they just spray the polymer or organic compound on the screen, and the guts of it fires off power that causes them to electroluminesce (emit light). The OLEDs can do colour too, so they're more prevalent in graphical form. You can get monochrome Graphical PLEDs though, check out onestopdisplays, down the bottom.

Ah, yeah. The differentiation is very slim... That's what I was finding too.

-Steve

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Programming-wise, you'll be fine :)

I think maybe you're not familiar with how the banks work....

If you've got 16 encoders, physically, and 4 banks of them, it works like 64 knobs. The only different thing is that you have to select the bank.

So let's say you're tweaking track 2, that might be the 2nd row of 8 encoders, set to bank 1. Now you want to hit track 7, which would be the first row of encoders in bank 4. You can use the buttons to select which bank/track you're editing, so you just hit the button, tweak track 7, then hit the button, tweak track 9, etc etc etc.

From the ucapps page:

So as you can see, you won't have to stop and re-record anything :)

You could get even closer to your ultimate idea of 16x16 too, by having two rows of 16 encoders in banks....but 32...you might as well do 64 hehehe

i know i know, if i have 8x8 knobs i am using 8 banks for x and 8 banks for y (1..8,9..16,17..24,25..32,33..40,41..48,49..56,56..64)

OMG guys, kikker has 5 hands ;D What you'd actually do, is send the snare to the reverb and the reverb to the phaser at the same time, then the phaser to the delay and the hihat to the delay at the same time, and then the delay back to the phaser (or something similar). Note, only two things at once - one for each hand :)

All you have to do, to save soldering and paying for an extra 48 knobs (keep in mind all aspects - it's not just the encoder, it's knobs, it's facepanel size and complexity, it's DIN modules, etc etc. Think in the hundreds.) is tap a button inbetween those movements, to select the bank.

i got 2 hands ;)

but and i don't want to be switching too many banks during that process, it takes too much time.

having 8 knobs means i have to switch to another bank every time i want to send another instrument to an effect or vice versa.

Heck, you can cut code, clearly you have a specific requirement, why not do some wicked customisations (which aren't that hard thanks to meta events).... You could get the app to use one single encoder, to send multiple messages - so you could have a single knob alter ALL of those routings in one twist...  And of course you keep at least 64 virtual pots for individual changes. That way you get even more control than 64 knobs, it's like growing extra hands, but you spend half the dough. Think outside the square bro :)

I mean, it's not my time and money being spent unnecessarily, you can do whatever you want and it doesn't bother me ... But you don't need 64 pots to do what you're talking about. I dunno, maybe you just want an ubercool big ass flashy box with heaps of knobs on it. Nothin wrong with that, I gear-lust as much as anyone!

Ok well, if i think a little more outside the square ;) i could go for 8 encoders that are linked to the same bank selector as the one for the motor faders, but i will need 2 buttons (back forward) and a display for the channel name for every encoder to select the track i'm routing the current track to.

that way i only need 8 encoders, 16 buttons and 8 displays, if that many displays is impossible i could use one large display too.

I liked the idea of a matrix, but you're probally right about the amount of cost and time it will take...

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If i now look at it i think i will have to use:

mixer settings

1 lcd display (for the the track titles)

9 motorfaders (8 channels, and i like to have a seperate master channel which is always available)

32 buttons (mute, solo, select, and record for every channel)

16 led's (8 led's to display whether a channel is muted or not, and 8 leds to display which track is currently recorded)

8 buttons (to select the bank for the channels)

8 rotary encoders with led ring (for the routing of each channel)

2 buttons (to scroll through the channels)

1 lcd display (to display the channel which the current channel is routed to)

channel settings (should tweak the settings of the selected channel)

2 rotary encoders with led ring (pan and stereo seperation)

3 rotary encoders with led ring (equalizer)

2 buttons (scroll through eq bands)

1 lcd (to display the frequency of the currently selected eq band)

2 buttons (swap left & right, inverse phase)

that makes a total of

3 lcd displays

9 motorfaders

16 leds

46 buttons

13 rotary encoders with led ring

well i will take a look around to see what this amount of parts will cost me, and what type of midibox i should go with, any advice is welcome...

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