PICMIX - DIY midi DJ controller
PICMIX - DIY midi DJ controller Posted on: 26.10.2011 by Dannielle Glassey 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. | |
| Jesenia Schmeichel 08.02.2012 | wonderful! |
| Dannielle Glassey 08.02.2012 | While searching for suitable connectors I found these sexy USB and RJ45 ones from Neutrik. The USB will obviously connect to the PC and the RJ45 will make the connection between the midifighter and the picmix mainboard. Meanwhile the mainboard works completely, including the midi-in signal processing. |
| Dannielle Glassey 06.02.2012 | Tool cold to work on the enclosures so there is time for some coding and drawing. I made the front panel design for the midi fighter clone: http://mylantec.be/upload/midifighter.pdf nothing special there. Will be made of 2mm black anodised aluminum. White 24mm sanwa's and 3mm green leds. |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 02.02.2012 |
Originally Posted by Skirmitt
|
| Dannielle Glassey 02.02.2012 | All buttons wired to the encoders today. Hot damn the Sanwa buttons are sensitive :eek: I'm used to some stiffer buttons but in the end I believe I'll like these. The Sanwa's require almost no pressure to close the contact. |
| Jesenia Schmeichel 01.02.2012 | It rocks! |
| Dannielle Glassey 01.02.2012 | The new Sanwa buttons are mounted. I had to make the holes 2mm bigger with a step drill. Tricky thing to do but in the end all went fine. I also made two holes for the PFL leds. Next will be making the cases. |
| Jesenia Schmeichel 30.01.2012 |
Originally Posted by Skirmitt
|
| Dannielle Glassey 30.01.2012 |
Originally Posted by ginaus
2) It uses the default midi driver from Windows 3) I use a dedicated power supply. This way I can't destroy my usb port and the voltage is more stable with lesser components. |
| Janyce Henningson 29.01.2012 | Looking good - keep us posted |
| Jesenia Schmeichel 29.01.2012 | Hi Skirmitt, First of all congratulation for your great job and thank you for share your skills and your project! I'm new in the world of DIY midi controller, and i have some questions about your project: 1) Does it connect to the PC via USB? 2) Does it need driver (or something like "back-ground program"..) to work or it is just plug&play? 3) Does it power supply via USB? Thank you! |
| Dannielle Glassey 27.01.2012 | New Sanwa buttons arrived today from the UK (http://www.gremlinsolutions.co.uk). They feel a lot better than the HAPP buttons I had before. A lot more silent too and that was the main reason I bought these. Now I need to modify the front panel but to do that I'm waiting for a step drill to come in. |
| Dannielle Glassey 26.01.2012 | Main controller board is finished. Now I need to complete the addon board for the secundary controller. Both will connect through a db9 cable. The mainboard is now completely expandable with shift registers. I have now on the mainboard: 14 analog faders 16 buttons 8 leds 3 encoders Secundary board will have: 16 buttons 16 leds I can add 10 analog faders and almost unlimited buttons and leds. |
| Dannielle Glassey 23.01.2012 | Decision is made, I'll be adding a 16 button box with LEDS for effects, que points and so on. Allready ordered the buttons for it (Sanwa OBSF-24). I also ordered new buttons for the main controller cause the current buttons make too much noise (loud click). They will be replaced with Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons. This means I have to modify the front panel Meanwhile I'm still soldering the mainboard, 70% finished and a lot of testing to do before I can build it in. The new buttons mean the total cost will be higher but the quality will be so much better imo. |
| Dannielle Glassey 18.01.2012 | Guess you didn't search enough. There are some code snippets here and there that you can translate to your environment of choice. Example code: http://www.blitzlogic.com/exp_io.htm http://www.blitzlogic.com/projects.htm The schematics I posted are final, though I forgot the decoupling caps here and there. If you copy some of the schematics, don't forget these as they are important for reliability. Wich encoders will you be using ? I suggest 2 bit optical encoders with the logic onboard. The pic you have has 10 bit ADC resolution, use it for the pitch fader. Don't forget to convert to 7 bit for the other pots. |
| Natasha Burik 17.01.2012 | I'm using a PIC16f877A with MPLAB's HI-TECH C compiler, although is not the same chip or compiler you're using it would still be nice to have a look at the source code. All this time I haven't seen documentation on DJ'ing MIDI controllers and most of my source code was written based on examples found here and there and I still have to look for examples using multiplexors and the rotary encoders, It would save me a lot of time from looking for examples that would explain the use of these devices, with your controller's source code there wouldn't be the need to crawl all over the web. My code is still simple but anyone reading would like to have a peek just let me know |
| Dannielle Glassey 17.01.2012 | Sharing the source code ain't a problem. Wich microcontroller do you use ? All my code is written in CCS C. I have the 74165 button input multiplexers working now. The modular design of these little chips is ideal for a midi controller. Perhaps I'll add 2 chips extra for a midifighter like controller. Still have to decide If I'll really use it. Tomorrow I'll be adding the analog multiplexers I already had from the previous design. |
| Natasha Burik 17.01.2012 | Hi Skirmitt I also did some work on a simple controller, here it is in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjAMceSHNLQ but as you can see I'm nowhere near far away as your project is, can you be so kind to also share the source code for your controller I'm very interested to see how you handle the encoders and the multiplexors, and congratulations for your great job |
| Dannielle Glassey 16.01.2012 | I'm making a new PCB for the picmix. I'll try it with lesser components and more modular. By adding shift registers you can expand the mainboard a lot for bigger controllers. If anyone wants the schematic here it is: http://mylantec.be/upload/PICMIX.pdf |
| Keli Vandenbergh 05.01.2012 | Congratulations to all! Very inspiring work! -m! |
| Santiago Brasier 04.01.2012 | Good work indeed! And thanks for sharing your jog construction in the other thread to! Cheers |
| Era Roka 04.01.2012 | can't wait to see the vid |
| Dannielle Glassey 04.01.2012 | The project was on hold for a while cause I had other things on my mind. Meanwhile mixed a bit on this and I must say I'm totally pleased with the result. The new Bourns faders give it just what it needed to feel pro. Resolution, latency and response is spot on. For the moment I have no time to make a professional PCB out of it, that's something for the future. What I will do is making a new wire wrap PCB (proto) with some new things I want to try and mount it to the PICMIX. The new concept I have in mind will be modular. A video will be posted very soon |
| Era Roka 05.12.2011 | if you would make a tut about this project i would bet my money that it's going to be a sticky |
| Dannielle Glassey 05.12.2011 | Don't know yet, but it won't be much. I might change the design a little bit. Thinkering of adding some output for leds, I don't need them for now but maybe in the future... |
| Era Roka 03.12.2011 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
|
| Arcelia Siebeneck 02.12.2011 | just the price for an assembled pcb |
| Dannielle Glassey 02.12.2011 | Well the project you see there is a sound and light controller for RC cars. What do you mean with total cost ? The most expensive part was the panel from Schaeffer at 75 euros. The rest of the parts are cheap. Count for the PCB in proto form around 20 euros. Buttons and potentiometers depend on the quality you want. I have now a bourns fader that feels really smooth and costs 8 euros. Can't mount it right now cause I ordered the wrong button. For the pitch faders I'll stay with the cheap ones, they are stiffer. I don't like a pitch fader that is too loose. The signal from these cheap faders might not be very good but you can catch this with software. By looping 10 times on the value and saying it has to be 10 times the same you get a stable signal :-) |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 02.12.2011 | holy shit - that looks really pro! what's your estimate for total cost? |
| Dannielle Glassey 02.12.2011 | No, they don't assemble the PCB's. I do that myself, I'm pretty good at soldering SMD :-) Here is a PCB I did previously: |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 02.12.2011 | what about drilling? and would they populate the boards with all the components as well? |
| Dannielle Glassey 02.12.2011 | I don't etch myself. With previous projects I made the layout and send it out to China to manufacture. That is very cheap and well made. I've good experiences with http://iteadstudio.com and http://www.makepcb.net |
| Era Roka 01.12.2011 | Yes! |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 01.12.2011 | possibly...! are you going to etch a few boards yourself? |
| Dannielle Glassey 01.12.2011 | After a few hours of testing the controller I don't feel satisfied with the channel faders, they are not smooth enough for me. So, I ordered a fader from Bourns that isn't very expensive. Hopefully this will be ok. I also ordered some components to make a new board that will contain lesser components and will be even a bit cheaper to make. From what I've learned I believe I can leave the schmitt triggers to debounce the switches away. New proto PCB's are here so I'm ready to go when the components are here. Schematics are also ready. Anyone who wants to build this too ? |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 28.11.2011 | wood would be my choice too... |
| Dannielle Glassey 28.11.2011 | Carbon fiber is nice but for a controller no. Wood it will be :-) Right now when I have some spare time I'm drawing the schematics. The board will have more I/O than necessary, just to be sure for the future. I'm also planning to use another PIC with less I/O pins but by expanding the ports with shift registers and working on a higher speed. |
| Sulema Eshel 27.11.2011 | Cheers for this... love to read these projects from start to finish. Wood is ok... carbon fiber is better |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 18.11.2011 |
Originally Posted by Skirmitt
|
| Era Roka 18.11.2011 | Super cool! P.s. Keep the tutorial in mind! |
<< Back to Reviews of DJ equipment Reply