replacing a slide pot with a infared distance sensor in an existing unit

[nym]

ok what's up

been working on personalizing my mpc1000. this machine is like a fat man in a skinny man's body - the skinny man's skin hurts really bad w/ all the bottled up jellyrolls. essentially, the thing was built not to last, but one bit at a time, i'm fixing these problems.

my question is twofold.

first, the title question.

i'd like to replace one of the slide pots on the left

with one of these:

http://www.hobbyengineering.com/H1060.html

this is an infared distance sensor. essentially it's like the dbeam on an sp808.

both sensors, the pot and the infared, are resistive, that is they output different voltages given their own respective environments - slider placement or hand placement.

i'd like to be able to control, record, and modulate qlink data using a sharp distance sensor rather than qlink 1, which is the top slide pot. this would still let me control stuff w/ a pot (qlink 2) but also have the more dramatic looking and natural feeling sweep of the hand.

the infared reads from 4 to 11.5 cm. that's a convenient, comfortable distance. i will hopefully put it into a place where it could be triggered by my head - as i play my machine, i could lean in and modulate a filter sweep with it.

so a couple questions. first, since both are resistive sensors, is it reasonable to think i could simply swap em out? this is a really preliminary question since i know i havent given you the specs on the qlink - i'm working on getting that from a source in japan - but what do i need to know in order to match up the sensors so i can swap em?

has anyone had any experience with these infareds before? i played with the one on the sp808 and while some people found that it was clumsy, i was able to get reproduceable and enjoyable effects by using it. it was one thing to do it in realtime, but to be able to record one's smooth hand movement makes my mouth water.

2nd question - much more simple. all of the buttons you see on the left and right are simple switches. they all make a clicking sound when pressed upon. this is not the problem - the issue is repeatability. after 2 years, a couple of these buttons are going bad. akai repairs sell these buttons for like 8 bucks a pop. i think i could do better. what are some switches that could work and are known to last a long time? 2nd, are there switches that one doesn't need to necessarily PUSH in order to triggeR? i could live with a push switch ala the ones that are already on there, but only if they had a long lifespan. ideally, however, i'd like to be able to simply brush my hand against the mpc button and with a light touch trigger the button.

however, lifespan of the button beats the light press thing. anyone got good buttons to suggest?

thanks for your help and support.

peace

nym

[audiocommander]

Hi Nym,

has anyone had any experience with these infareds before?

yep, you should definitely make a search on this forum for Sharp, D-Beam, and GP2D; there are a bunch of topics about these sensors here.

So I will just add some very few lines about that here:

the infared reads from 4 to 11.5 cm. that's a convenient, comfortable distance

You should also check out the datasheet; the distance is actually much wider, but as the signal is not linear but a log-curve, this is it's main range. And there lies a tiny problem too, because if you don't restrict the range somehow it'll produce output all the time (in other words: the minimum threshold has to be taken into account).

since both are resistive sensors

No, unfortunately not: the IR-Distance Sensor is not resistance-based, it outputs a Voltage. And the problem is that this Signal is not between 0 and 5 Vs but between (ca.) 0.4 to 3.2 V.

So you will need an additional circuit if you want to exchange one of these sliders.

However, you will find plenty of informations archived here...

i'm working on getting that from a source in japan

May I ask if you're from Japan?

Because there are plenty of suppliers all around the world and if you're not from japan it sounds a bit expensive...

best regards,

Michael

[nym]

yo thanks for clearing some of this up.

first - what i was getting from japan was information by someone who knows his stuff regarding this 1000.

2nd - i guess i thought this thing was resistive because another sensor i looked at was resistive.

3rd - the whole continuous thing could definitely throw a pin in the gears.

i've searched about the sharps here and between that and you post i've realized that it'd be far easier to attempt to do this using a resistive sensor instead of the sharp.

this is a project ill think about doing in the future after i finish modding these pads. lot to do, lot to do

thanks michael

[Screaming_Rabbit]

first - what i was getting from japan was information by someone who knows his stuff regarding this 1000.

... please post links! I'm watching you bringing very creative thoughts and ideas into this forum... but you always write: "... I found a source on the internet" or "... Information from a source in Japan".

Post the links and let everybody have the complete information. - Thanks.

Go on being creative!  :)

Greets, Roger

[nym]

oh sorry, i didn't think other people were necessarily into the mpc thing here at midibox, i tended to think it was more midibox specific

and while i'm totally into the whole mb project and plan on someday starting it myself for a custom made controller, i didn't think yall would be interested in some of this stuff.

first - http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Empc1000/

this guy coded an operating system for the mpc1000 that knocks the PANTS off the existing one. it gives it all of the features of the much more overpriced mpc2500. it also strips it of several really terrible saving bugs. it also knocks off an amp envelope bug, an auto attack bug too. finally, it gives it features not seen ever before in other sampling drum machines - such as control of swing and shift timing using slide potentiometers (and hopefully, someday, distance sensors!)

anyway, i started callin this fellow JJ (japanese jenius) because his site gives no name, no identification other than MPC1000. fairly monolithic, so the nickname jj was given. now, if you search mpc1000 and jj you see hundreds of links in a bunch of different languages.

he also put PONG on the mpc1000...haha

using a distance sensor would let me record slider data (tune, filter, attack, decay, tempo, swing, shift time, sample start, sample end) or midi control changes using my mpc with my face, arms, or any appendage that i can spare while playing drums with both hands.

is there anything else i should clarify?

[timofonic]

I have no idea about this but...

Does that japanese guy coded the OS from scratch? It seems quite interesting :)

Do you can read japanese then? Does that guy knows about MIDIbox? 8)

[audiocommander]

the MPC1000 is a MIDI-Production Workstation from AKAI:

http://www.thomann.de/de/akai_mpc1000_black.htm

(available in other languages as well).

That guy wrote an alternative firmware for it. I don't know how it could be connected in any way with midibox.org  ???

The pages are available as well by google's autotranslation. So at least on can assume what it's all about :)

Nym wants to add a sensor to this, but as it's hard to know:

- what's inside the AKAI MPC1000 or

- how the personalized firmware is working (it's not open source; saving is disabled until you put in a password-phrase)

it's nearly impossible to give any hints.

Cheers,

Michael

[Mr modnaR]

- what's inside the AKAI MPC1000

;D from MPC Forums user 'monophonic'