Arkade : joysticks + other goodies based controller

[goule]

Hi guys & gals,

I've finally reached a new point in the developpement of my "Arkade" controller (after several monthes of standby) based on the <soooo amazing> MBH platform, thanks to T.K.

A friend of a friend of (... you know the story) recently made me the front pannel at his work. I'm quite pround of the design   8) and I have to say that he did a very good work indeed !!!

Even if the box isn't closed yet, I already mounted quite a lot of the definitive stuff that will be embeded (sorry if the english expressions do not match the french ones  ;)). Here are some pitcures of this toy :

Voilà !

I'll post new photos when it's done ...

;D

PS : if you wanna listen to my music : http://www.myspace.com/aerodrink

Seeya !

[SLP]

That is f*ckin AWESOME!!!    :o :o :o

[Sinnsyk]

Do i see some led bars indicatin joystick value?

[NorthernLightX]

That case is monstrous! Can he make more?  ;D *drool*

[goule]

Sinnsyk : yes it is ;)

NorthernLightX : I'm affraid not (quite hard work as he told me, now I gotta find some kind of big present for the guy, hey he deserves it !! ) I like your nickname btw  8)

There are 2 distance sensors like D-Beam, working very reactive + 2 ribbon controllers :1 horizontal below the two joysticks + 1 vertical on the extreme left (not on the pictures yet)

The 2 buttons rows on the right pane come from my old non-working DX7 (power circuit had melted), as both weels do (modulation + bend, as you can see only 1 is mounted).

Gotta find time to finish this up but I only got my magic pannel since few days ...

I hope everything will be gathered in a week or two (busy days  >:( ...)

Laterz guyz !! Thanx for the comments !!

[Sasha]

Man, that is beautiful work. I really like that panel. It looks "champagne" anodized, or is it the light?

Do you have some particular application in mind? Can`t wait to see it finished.  ;)

[goule]

Sasha : it's the light, in fact it's standard light grey.

The application I have in mind is a simple one : a basic MIDI controller, except that the controllers themselves are quite unusual (infrared distance to play with your hands, joysticks, ribbons, ...). Another idea is to easily send program changes from it (caus' it's soo annoying to do it with the mouse) : with the Arkade you can do that either with a wheel (dedicated to program changes), with buttons, or even with a foot switch pedal connected on the rear panel (I'm using a -1/+1 pedal coming from the bundle of an old Behringer V-Amp2), plus you get an expression pedal input also (I'm using the MAudio one, works like a charm). To sum up the concept, I would say I wanted to maximize the number of #CC you can handle with your human capacities (2 hands busy on the joysticks = 4 CC + feet ...) Great for sound design or even live performances in my opinion ...

And finally I've always wanted such a device and could never find one from any manufacturer ... so I did it myself  ;)

The two extra joysticks on the right come from a Playstation handle  8) they got the advantage of returning to the central X/Y position when released (+ no cost as the handle was broken). I labeled them "Player #2" on the panel, as you can for instance have your favorite buddy making sound design on another track while you play with the first pair of joysticks yourself  ;)

In fact even if the concept in itself is quite simple, I spent quite a lot of time integrating those unusual controllers onto the AIN module (because of electronic noise + flickering pbs). I had to find the right values for the bypass capacitors + some tricky lines of code (search for "MIDI gate" on the forums, there was an earlier post about all this).

I also planned to use one of the squared buttons to make MIDI gates / freezes manually with different modes. The advantage of such buttons is they are very loose and you can be very fast with them  ;)

I have bought the banksticks but I still have to buy the circuit board to mount them on, cauz at the time I bought the banksticks it was not available ... so all this thing is not completely over (but I'm probaly entering the best part now  ;D 8))

Cheers,

Goule

[Sasha]

Goule, thanks for the quick answer... too bad that color is not champagne, but still looks great! I personally have so much trouble finding anodizing service, or anodized aluminum locally.  :-\

[goule]

Perhaps you could drop an eye on this : http://www.schaeffer-ag.de

They can make front panels and they have a quite large choice of colors as far as I can remember ...

Goule

[Sasha]

I know about them, but they are pretty expensive. I could do it much cheaper locally if I found some anodizing service, or I could just order plain plate from them and CNC it here.

[stryd_one]

Oooh pretty :)

Who bombed the back?

[goule]

Thanks Stryd,

The back (and all that is written + logos) isn't bombed : it's been engraved + painted by the machine !!!

The result is simply amazing ... as an example here is a zoom on the rear logo :

It's a friend of mine who did the design of this logo (my artist name : Aerodrink)

He is the best graphist I know, everything he does is simply beautiful, I'm a real fan of everything he does.

His artist name is LaboStereo (http://labostereo.free.fr)

If you wanna see other pictures + hidef : http://aerodrink.free.fr/Arkade

Cheers everybody,

Goule

[kris]

really slick case dude

you need to find him a good present

im still not shure what software you use it to control

regards kris

[stryd_one]

I really like it! I was just gonna do mine with a paint marker but I'm seriously rethinking it now!!!

Edit: Name withheld to protect the talented

[goule]

Thanks stryd, I appreciate the comment, especially from you  ;)

Here are new pictures from yesterday evening, bringing life to the baby :

And now the mess !

Laterz guyz,

Goule

[Sasha]

Looks better, and better. :)

[goule]

Here is a new set of pictures I took yesterday. Everything is now connected, up and running, and I have to say it works very well with any software; I tried it with Kontakt, works like a charm; I've tried it with a few VSTis and it's also very accurate. The big plus about the ribbon controlers is that they can send note on messages so you don't even need a master keyboard to make sound design.

My own personal christmas tree  ;D

I still have to solder and plug the BankStick + the USB connector (which I will to take power from, cause I got a flexible stage light I'd light to add).

See you,

Olivier

[Sasha]

Olivier, your Arcade looks so nice! The only think that somehow dont fit in the rest of the design is those ribbons. They are great, but the way they are mounted looks kinda unfinished and not in same quality rang as the rest of controller. They looks like a sticker. What do you think? Maybe you could make some frame around it to hide those edges. If I was you, I would make same thing as you did for display, so ribon could be glued on the sub-panel. Similar as on Korg Electribe.

I would really like to see it in action, especially those ribbons. YouTube is great place for that, feel invited! ;D

[goule]

Sasha : I agree with you about that ribbons; at first sight they give some old-style look to the machine. For sure, a sub pannel would have been nice to hide the sides of the ribbons (btw I owned a Korg Electribe which is a great machine hehe), but I'm now in the process of finishing it and I won't make some extra drilling to the pannel. Now I'm quite accustomed to the way it looks as it is.

I was thinking about making a little demonstration video to give an idea of how it works ... so as soon as it's done I'll post the link here.

Thank you for your comments,

Laterz,

Olivier

[stryd_one]

Funny I was kinda so-so on the ribbons too... maybe a strip of black over the top?

It does look hot tho :)

[Sasha]

I was thinking about making a little demonstration video to give an idea of how it works ... so as soon as it's done I'll post the link here.

Thanks in advance. I didnt know ribbons can be usefull to play untill I`ve seen the guy plays with his electribe`s small ribbon at youtube. So good.

[polosid]

what kind of joystick did you use?

did you have to modify the code of they worked well at first try?

i found a nice joystick here http://www.doepfer.de/home_e.htm

doepfer says that it works good with 0-5v... but it seems a little expensive.

what use are the leds over the sensors? are they controlled by the gate function?

did someone find a solution to amplify the sensor signal to cover all the analog range of the ain?

[audiocommander]

hey plosid,

did you have to modify the code of they worked well at first try?

goule has written his own application for the box.

did someone find a solution to amplify the sensor signal to cover all the analog range of the ain?

I don't know exactly how goule finally solved the sensor's readings, but I think we both did it relatively similar :)

With the ACSensorizer I'm reading the sensor data as 10-bit value, and then interpolate the result to a 0..127 number. The resolution is quite sufficient. On the other hand, there are some more tricks required, to stabilize the readings...

( I hope it's okay for you, Olivier, if I spam your beautiful Arcade Work with this sidenote ;D )

I made some experiments with amplification circuits, but I was soon bored with it, 'cause either I'm too dumb, it's too complicated (negative volatages etc...) or it requires additional coding anyway. I think Cimo has developed a PCB, but I don't know if and how it works. There are some topics around...

i found a nice joystick here (...) but it seems a little expensive.

There have been PS2-controller-like 10k-Joysticks at Conrad for about 7 EUR. You could also cannibalize some old joysticks or controllers. As long as you get 10 k?, you can use it with MBHP (or any existing application supporting AINs) without any restriction.

Cheers,

Michael

[goule]

Hard to answer better than Audiocommander did   ;) (there's no spam btw m8  ;D)

He worked a lot on that particular subject (I mean conditionning sensors).

Each sensor has two leds : one to indicate wether they're active or not, the other one tells when you're on the limit when the hand is far from the sensor (zone is 0-10, when in 11-127 the led is off).

I had to write a MIDI gate to use the IR sensors (you can find the code in that forum), but I also had to use one bypass capacitor per sensor to stabilize the signal (also true for the ribbons). I agree with Michael : unless you're an electronic geek, trying to amplify and align the signal electrically is pain in the ass. The software solution is simplier and the PIC doesn't suffer at all dealing with that.

I found that two joysticks on an american electronic gear site for less than a dollar each (!!!) but it was almost two years ago and I'm sorry I can't remember the url ...  :(

What is really nice with those joysticks is they're quite loose and you can manipulate them quite hard without effort, making very fast changes if you need to. Plus they always keep their position, even if the Arkade is vertical (but they're almost at their limit, to tell how loose thay are !)

I've soldered the switch pedal connector (to use with a simple UP/DOWN pedal coming from a guitar multifx bundle) and the sustain pedal connector. I still have to connect the expression pedal + solder the components for the bankstick, but as we say in France : I'm beginning to see the end of the tunnel  8)

Olivier

[Wilba]

Great stuff, goule!

I am interested to know how you connect the ribbons (soft pots)... whether you put a resistor between the wiper pin and ground and treat 0v as the "untouched" state, or some other method.