*jOi~ Posted March 17, 2007 Report Share Posted March 17, 2007 hey everyone,just writing to say that after about 6months with this half finished project lying around the house, i finally have my midibox reliably talking to my computer through USB. I had started with severe problems where large numbers of messages would be lost and it was useless.. prior efforts used the COM port though on my laptop that ancient technology is no longer available...as much as everyone says how cheap MIDI to USB adapters are, routing the PIC directly to a USB module actually makes the core module to be much simpler, and a breakout board for the USB module can be got very cheaply. the ease of use is also wonderful, as the box is powered through USB and requires only one capable for everything. the idea of having to carry around adapters and midi cables and the such is just a pain, and i like my boxes small so putting the adapter inside the box was unwanted.my midibox is a 8x8 button and led matrix programmed by Jason W from around here (sorry forgot your username). the code is minimal and simply does what it needs to with nothing else. i'm using Duplo to create the button caps - they are lit by the red leds that are inside.communication is made through FTDI FT-232 chip with the USB-serial driver. I somehow wired the SMD chip with a cheap dick smith (RS) soldering iron, and it still works. I think usb parts cost ~$20AUD and i saved about $5 by not buying the chips and jacks for midi (mind you, no midi cables too)... as you can see not terribly more expensive.I use Max/MSP to interpret the serial data and split it up into midi bytes. I can then route these messages to a midiout object to send midi to any application on my computer (coreMIDI on my iBook). Typically I only use max for my music anyway, but occassionally I will want to use Live or obviously sysEx and the such. It took some guess work to get the messages right, but it is now working.pictures are coming soon, but i just wanted to put this out there so people know that it *is* possible to use USB for their midibox, so long as you have a program to interpret the serial data (as I could not find a USB-midi driver that worked). I hope this encourages people to try this out....next task is to alter the code to allow transfer speeds of 115k/s rather than 38.4k/s of serial or 31.2k/s of midi... when trying to address a large number of buttons and leds at the same time this could be handy..trent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted March 17, 2007 Report Share Posted March 17, 2007 Props!! I hope you'll document all this in the future :)PS W is Wilba :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*jOi~ Posted March 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 yes yes.. documentationall in good time. i'll still ironing out a few mechanical issues at the moment, but after i knock the next few things on the head, some simple documents should be doable.and thanks for the name clarification...... thanks wilba! you've been a wonderful help with the programming, as whilst im becomming quite efficient in max/msp, i am still rather useless when looking at assembler.cheerstrent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted March 20, 2007 Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 No rush dude. I really wanna see the Duplo buttons though :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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