Reply to PICMIX - DIY midi DJ controller

After years of mixing with vinyl and a DVS system for a while it is time to take a next step. A midi DJ controller. I looked at almost every possible controller there is on the market but I didn't really found what I was looking for. Too cramped or too much bells and whistles and so on. I mix mnml, deep and tech house and never use effects.
I wanted a controller that has only the buttons and faders I want and what is there has to work great and accurate. As I don't like a sync button the pitch fader has to have a 10 bit resolution at least.

The Vestax VCI-100 comes almost closest to what I wanted with the 1.4 firmware but since I do have electronic knowledge I decided to build it myself. I'm very familiar with PIC microcontrollers so I did't have to believe long.

A lot of believeing and prototyping was done first to see if it was do-able to do it myself. Everything went great so I started gathering parts to measure.
After that I've drawn a front panel and sent it to Schaeffer. The result is just stunning:



You see it has a very basic and simple layout. Everything is panel mounted, I want it to feel solid. I'm used to quality feel, this has to be it too.

The mainboard runs of a PIC16f887, I do program it with a C compiler. Jog wheels will be driven on an optical encoder. Playback buttons are arcade buttons.

The panel is almost completely mounted but I don't have a pic of that yet.

So, more details and updates will follow. Next will be wiring everything up and test every component.