Monome

Unsped shields came a few weeks back from a monome forum group buy,

ready to link up to an arduino that i still need to buy....

will have all components ready to solder on soon.

also picked up a PCB for a Tubescreamer guitar pedal clone from tonepad website

some great stuff there, pics up soonish. :)

hmmm

wow, it's been awhile..

Have not made that much progress on the midi controller, i have basically gone back to my original plan of direct wire.

So far i have 4 working faders, and 8 working knobs in daisy chains.

I will post pics when i can.

As for the arduino, i am still waiting on confirmation of shipping for it to get down under!!

stay cool!

step backward...

found out the very disappointing and hard way that my joysticks are on the fritz, going to have to 'buy' some instead of salvaging...

and another discovery, for some reason, hooking things up to the breakout board is not registering on the brain, so, by the looks of it, im going to be doing this project the hard way, because i just want to push ahead and get things done, i will have a new faceplate design up soon..... without joysticks. :(

NEVER fear i will be doing another project after i finish the monome, probably some kind of pocket midi effects or something using joystick and knobs etc really small.

btw, im building a monome with arduino, got most of the parts ready, this is going to be a full day thing, done in a day, hopefully.

Cheers!

Joystick Wiring 2/3

Been a long few days, but I finally got around to attaching these bad boys up to the breakout board.

as promised i will explain the daisy chain...

Each component needs a voltage and a ground. you can grab these from anywhere you like on any circuit at any time. you can also daisy chain them, because they are constant, you can spread them instead of connecting a voltage and a ground from the source to each individual component we just daisy chain the source to multiple components and save on the spaghetti!! super duper easy!

Now, connecting our supermegaultraawesome joysticks up to the breakout...

Really simple.

Get your 4 signal cables and use the schematic in 1/3, connect the cables to their own JP3. DONE! so easy! i use bits of blu-tack to hold them in place when i flip the board over to solder!

Now connect your ground cable to JP1 to ANY JP1 hole in the corresponding column and the voltage to JP2. thats it! really simple.

Chuck a pin header (10 pins) where it should be done at the bottom and your ready for part 3/3 hooking up to the brain and programming them in, coming VERY SOON!!!!

Cheers!

Joystick Wiring 1/3

Let's jump straight in, I've got my Livid Breakout board, my joysticks and my initiative!!

Below i have made a schematic for how the joysticks are to be wired to the potentiometer section of the breakout Board. I am also using sparkfun joystick breakouts. 

As you can see, each joystick has 2 signal cables, one vertical (X) and one horizontal (Y) 

The way i have wired the voltage and ground is in a daisy chain. i will explain this a little bit more in part 2/3. but for now we will just be doing some practical.

Below is some wire that i ripped out of an old PC i had laying around. this is just the HDD light cable that goes from the front bezel to the motherboard. good colours for what i want to demonstrate. red is our voltage and white is the ground, they are also pre-twisted so its not as messy!

Cut a small amount for the end so you have 2 of each colour one large and one small.

Strip these and twist together like the picture.

We now have a simple one-step daisy chain!

If you want more just add multiple little pieces of wire like a necklace.

Now, with your vice or helping hands, put the first voltage and ground wire into your joystick breakout and solder. hopefully you have a better quality soldering iron than me :(

Now find your Signal Cables, i have decided to use orange! because it rhymes with nothing! solder these connections. NOTE* if you have these joystick breakout boards, you may notice a hole called "sel" this is the signal for the built in selector switch, i have decided that its not relevant, but i am sure that it could be hooked up somehow if needs be, but would involve using the button matrix and adding voltage and ground wires.

What you want to do now is get your small daisy chain wires and hook up the voltage and ground to the second joystick, then add the signal cable, and you should have something like what i have below.

Stay tuned.... in part 2/3 i will be explaining our daisy chain and hooking up the the breakout board!

Cheers!

Parts Update

Last few days have seen some exciting deliveries.

and some very good customer service, and some bad

My faders arrived from farnell.com.au in very good time and a very professional packaging, no spare on bubblewrap, which is GREAT makes sure my parts are secure and i have something else to play with.
I ended up ordering breakout boards for the PS2 joysticks, to make my soldering life easier and so i could mount them nicely, while i was on their site i ordered a WII chuk adapter/breakout for my future ardrino projects, and also got a rotary encoder to experiment making a jog-wheel for the Livid brain. all these bits came from littlebirdelectronics.com.au. little bird has fantastic customer service, answered all my question promptly, even on weekends! and gave a handwritten thankyou note to me. just great!

although, im still waiting on my rotary pots and switches from futurelec.com.au which were ordered on the same day as the other parts, i have also waited a week for a quote on my arduino monome shield.... :(

Midi Controller: Thumb Sticks

So as i have been staying up late at night obsessing over electronics and this controller, i have found that i have an old PS2 (not working) in the cupboard (totally unrelated you say?? i think not).

These PS2 controllers have 2 analog thumb joy sticks in them. these joysticks are 2 axis, X and Y, up/down and left/right, basically 2 rotary potentiometers per joystick package.

To explain this a bit more....

1 rotary potentiometer has 3 pins, a ground (-) a voltage (+) and a Signal.

The joystick has 3 pins per each axis, so 6 pins, easy as pie to wire up.

The thing im really excited about is that i can assign 2 MIDI parameters per thumbstick.

So, 4 effects, 4 sends, 4 pans etc all at the same time.

Today I busted the PS2 controller open and salvaged the joysticks!!
(its very easy when you get a solder sucker, just google "solder removal" for more info)

I will be using Breakout Boards for mounting and connecting these, if you would like a breakout board or you just want to buy the thumbsticks and not the PS2 controller they are available at:

US/international: www.sparkfun.com

Australia: www.littlebirdelectronics.com

Still waiting for my other parts.. so this keeps me out of trouble... for now.

Cheers!

here are some pics:

Midi Update

Livid brain and breakout board arrived today.

very excited to open the packaging.  

very keen to get started, should be ordering some more bits soon!!

Cheers,

Bass Building Guide

just finished the presentation and uploaded to youtube

just pause and play so you can read through, if you would like the file, leave a comment and i will get back to you.

remember, this is just a guide, i urge you to do as much research as possible when going through this. this is just the practical guide,

Cheers!

Midi Controller, Coming Together

So, still waiting on my order from livid, but as expected it has been 7days already, but its international postage so im not worried :)

I have been pressing ahead though. i have been contacting plastic fabrication companies up and down the east coast of australia looking for a decent price on CNC routing and machining for my enclosure!...... the average quote is $10 for my piece of plastic.... $310 for the routing!

It is most likely worth the money, but my wallet is on the fritz from the hectic component buying, until i found this little gem!

http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/

Based in the US of A they have FREE cad software for yyou to use, or will transfer your corelDRAW/autocad drawings to their format, and they are cheap!!

Inside the software you can get an instant quote based on your design so far, its hands down, fantastic.

I am sticking with the CAD programs though, because i already have my drawings ready and they took hours upon hours to do/figure out!. but i have included a screen shot of front panel designer for you all to ooo and ahh at :)



This includes the ardcade button layout and the 2 holes for playstation 2 thumbsticks i will be adding!

but the rest of the layout is up in the air, still can't decide on faders :/

Cheers,

DIY Midi Cables

Found it hard to find a decent DIY guide to midi cables on the Net, so here we go!

Parts list:

2x 5 pin din connectors $1 AUD

any size of 2 core shielded Cable

solder

Tools:

Wire cutters

Soldering iron

Get that stuff, and your good to go!

righto, so the 5 pin din, obviously, has 5 pins, but only 3 of these are used for a midi connection.

pin 2, 4 and 5

these pins contain, a gound (shield), Current (reference voltage) and the Signal

the below diagram shows from inside the midi connector.

Step 1: get your wire and strip back the outer plastic to reveal your 2 core wires and your shield surrounding these.

Step 2: Next open up your 5 Pin Din connector, the short part of the pins will be where you solder your wires

Step 3: take the black plastic surrounds of the connector and put the wire through it BEFORE YOU SOLDER ANYTHING!!

Step 4: Tint the Wires and the pins that you are connecting on the Din connector, this will let your easily solder your connections

Step 5: Solder your cables to the appropriate pins on each end of your cable, use a multi meter to check these.

Step 6: re assemble your Din connector around the cable

Step 7: Connect your midi device and away you go!

Midi connectors are most likely the simplest data cables to make, but it can get a bit fiddly, so i suggest a desk top vice!

here's where you can get your bits.

Midi Connectors

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=PP0304&CATID=35&form=CAT&SUBCATID=618

Cable

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WB1506&CATID=22&form=CAT&SUBCATID=543

These are the Australian prices, but i have put them up for you to source from where ever you like this site IS international.

Cheers!

Midi Controller - Let's Begin!

In the last few weeks, i have been researching custom DIY MIDI controller-ism. 

In short i want to build my own midi controller....

i will cut to the chase here... I first found a video by Ean Golden, showcasing how to build a relativly 'cheap' Midi controller with a few buttons, knobs and LED's using a basic USB HID (human interface device) brain.

The main problem i had with this was that it was not 'class compliant' meaning, i had to get other software to turn the HID signals to MIDI info. HID is basically for joysticks, buttons knobs anything really for controlling video games or robotics or even cranes and large construction equipment. Although the though of a custom gaming chair intrigued me!

After a few endless nights of obsessing over my idea of a midi controller, i found a new brain.

Class compliant USB powered, Midi i/o, i thought i was dreaming.... wait no, i was just really tired.

I found the Livid builder series of products. This was fantastic, a new product for 2010 and REALLY easy to use, i ordered one instantly for $189 USD and it should be here within 2 weeks. for more info that i would just ramble and confuse you with can be found here: http://lividshop.com/builder/builder-brain.html

I also liked the idea of Arcade buttons, great for sampling and triggering!

I can't wait to get started on this project, and i will keep you all informed and teach what i learn along the way!

Cheers!

Creative Phaze - Open For Buisness!!

So after a few crazy weeks of paper works and website creation and some purchases....

Creative Phaze Recording is ready to start recording or mixing your next project.

Recording is based in the Northern Rivers of NSW as a mobile 'studio'

Basically WE COME TO YOU!! so you don't have to lug your gear out of your rehersal space!

or if you are a solo artist wanting some demos recorded we can even come to your bedroom/music room/Zen garden and push the big red button.

and don't forget we can mix as well!! even if you have recorded at a different studio and need a fast mix on a budget we are happy to help!

So head over to the website or myspace to get rates or hear some previous productions and we can get under way.. Cheers!

www.creativephazerecording.tk

www.myspace.com/creativephaze

Electric Fretless Bass Guitar

I recently completed building an Electric Fretless Bass Guitar, before i started this blog, if i have enough requests i will post a power point presentation (quicktime) of how i did it, fully illustrated of course.

The construction took all of 20 days 3 hours each day.

cost: $50

Parts:

Pickup - $50

Hardware - Salvaged

Timber: 

Bluegum/pine - body

Jarrah - Fingerboard

This beast is a fretless 34" scale (fender)

Music man pickup - still pumps out a bit of hum

I am happy that it was possible to create a custom instrument withing 20 days and only 2 days of planning, However, this is only possible because i built a bass over a year ago which took about 12 months, looked 10000% nicer and was sold a month after i had finished it.

i would like to go back over the bass and fix some of the wiring to eliminate hum, and also get the fingerboard smoother.