*Build Log* DIY Controller From Scratch
*Build Log* DIY Controller From Scratch Posted on: 07.08.2010 by Lala Cortina Hello! I've been djing small house parties for a while now, nothing too crazy, mostly just friends. For the longest time i've used Winamp of all things along with a third party crossfader plugin. Well the bug has bitten and after doing some research and seeing Ean's AoTS bit, I got my hands on a copy of Traktor Pro and started looking at controllers.There are quite a few out there, to my surprise! After looking at a few, and actually getting to play with some, I was not satisfied by any one in particular. So I decided to go ahead a build my own. I am an avid DIY'er and this project will keep my occupied for some time. So, here we go! I really like the layout of the VCI-100, so I am purloining some of the design cues from that controller. I also had trouble locating a suitable enclosure, so I opted for a Midi-Fighter like open sided setup. I'll post updates here has I go Parts so far: $16 - Lowe's - 18x12 1/4 Inch Acrylic sheet for the top and bottom panels $5 - Ace Hardware - 3/8 Inch bolts with 1 1/2 Inch spacers to space the panels $16 - DJTT - 8 Arcade Buttons for Play/Pause, Cue1, Cue2, Cue3 on each deck $4 - DJTT - 2 Arcade Buttons, one on each side of the top panel for Shift functionality $39 - DJTT - Green knob pack from the DJTT store for Faders, EQ, Fx etc... $75 - UHID - UHID Board for interfacing it all to the laptop $20 - Wirecare - 1/8 Inch flex weave wire sleeve $8 - Sparkfun - Green LEDs $8 - Sparkfun - Blue LEDs $12 - Sparkfun - Rotary POTs $9 - Sparkfun - Jumper Wires $2 - Sparkfun - Heatshrink $4 - Sparkfun - 10 Segment LEDs -------- Total cost to date: ~$215 -------- Freebie - Micro-ATX power supply on board to provide 3.3v 5v and 12v for LED lighting, the USB interface, and some future parts that I have not acquired yet No longer being used: Griffin Powermates for the jog wheels And last but not least, a couple of old cannibalized hard drives -------- The assembled enclosure. protective film still covering the acrylic top and bottom. The controller is 18x12 and around 2 1/2 tall. Horray arcade buttons! The green buttons do not match the green knob pack nearly as close as I wish they did. I was going to use the green buttons for my Shift and Play/Pause. After speaking with Zach @ DJTT on the phone yesterday I will be using all Black buttons. Thanks again for your help yesterday sir! Knobs! Self explanitory here~ Eyeballing a potential layout for the controls. The two that are spaced wide at the top will be Master and Headphone vol/gain. They are spaced to provide a place for one of the components I have not gotten my hands on yet. You can also see the UHID board under the top panel, just below center. The UHID board that will make it all work. I will actually need to run a second 8 input board to handle a few more knobs. This thing is REALLY tiny. The first Powermate, still assembled, beneath the top panel. I will cut a hole in the top panel to allow access to the Powermate. Old'n'Busted hard drive. Time to gut it! Hard drive top cover removed. The platter, the only piece I wanted~ Scrap parts. Removed the top knob from the Powermate. You can see where I am going with this... Jog wheels Sitting on top of the top panel, just to get an idea. Removing the friction material from the Powermate so it can free-spin. And the platter is attached to the Powermate. I do not like the current screws I used, so they will be changed soon. It free-spins pretty good when I want it to, and the 'click' functionality of the Powermate is maintained. Nothing as sensitive or versatile as the Vestax wheels, but I am sure I will find a use for it. That's it for now. More to come! | |
| Marva Cupid 18.08.2011 |
Originally Posted by Hiro
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| Chau Honrado 07.02.2011 |
Originally Posted by DJ Jacp
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| Lashell Lequire 22.08.2011 | Nice build man. Can't wait to see the finished product |
| Era Roka 19.08.2011 | This is awesome! |
| Christena Fobbs 19.08.2011 | Just want to get the updates on this. Awesome controller. I wish I knew how to do all that! |
| Marcellus Androski 18.08.2011 | Do you have any YouTube videos on this? |
| Marva Cupid 18.08.2011 |
Originally Posted by Hiro
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| Madge Humrich 17.08.2011 | any updates =C |
| Chau Honrado 07.02.2011 |
Originally Posted by DJ Jacp
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| Carlee Pickard 26.01.2011 | Nope, he's back! It's okay though, we have to understand that he has to do what he needs to first, then work on the controller in his spare time! |
| Jonelle Pahulu 25.01.2011 | been keeping an eye on this before even joining the community great project but i believe we lost him again lets hope for couple more days :P |
| Kristofer Krauel 19.01.2011 | Thought we'd lost you for a second!!! |
| Lala Cortina 19.01.2011 | And im back from the dead... Work killed me for a few months there. On top of the home life, I simply didn't have time to even believe about the controller let alone work on it. It's not dead though! I still have work to do |
| Chau Honrado 28.12.2010 | anyone still out there?! been keeping an eye on where this project is going and liking it, building a 2nd controller myself, more midifighter esque and arduino based, |
| Kristofer Krauel 16.12.2010 | hey Whats happened to this??? |
| Jann Dammer 21.10.2010 | This project is awsome, and your design is pretty cool as well. I have also been making my own, but with less buttons. And I'm also using the U-Hid. I haven't been able to test it out yet though, because I don't know how to connect it to Traktor or Fruity loops if anyone is possible. Do you have a detailed explenation for how I can use it with Traktor, assigning coomands to my arcade buttons? |
| Graham Frazier 03.10.2010 | http://salecom.manufacturer.globalsources.com http://www.westfloridacomponents.com https://shop.maxim-ic.com/storefront...mpleSearchLoad That's just a few. But usually i just spend a bit on google trying to find them. Or look them up on Mauser/DigiKey, they usually have the manufacturer listed on the product page, so i head of to the manufacturers web site and shoot an e-mail to someone in the sales department. I got tired of ordering buttons that i though would work, and then they turn out to be crap. So i started explaining this in my e-mails, and even some places that don't usually offer samples will send me a few. Usually i just tell them it's for a prototype midi controller i'm designing(i was shocked with how many of them knew what i was talking about), then i explain that button feel and response are my top 2 priorities and so on. And since these buttons usually cost just pennies for them to make, they're happy to send me a few. On a side note; nothing on the market compares to the responsiveness of arcade buttons. |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 03.10.2010 | which manufacturers have you had any luck with? I wouldn't mind some free samples myself! |
| Graham Frazier 02.10.2010 | I always ask manufactures for free samples of buttons, and 90% of the time, it works. They never send enough for a full controller, but they really help me decide. |
| Lala Cortina 02.10.2010 | No new photo's to post right now, as I am out on the road. However after playing with the controller for a bit before I left town, I quickly discovered just how awful these small buttons are. No wonder they were so cheap, they *ARE* cheap. So between that and the decision to ditch the jog wheels, I am going fully arcade. Working on a new panel layout right now. I'll post it up as soon as I come up with some ideas! Also toying with the idea of changing the panel material to something other than acrylic, but its just an idea. In all likelyhood I will probably stick with what i've been using. |
| Irwin Ney 30.09.2010 | Why don't you buy a Tablet with android and put it on the unit? Or even a simpler X/Y pad for some kaoss style effects You can make a cheap X/Y pad by using a Nintendo DS screen, I saw a mod some time ago, but i'm sure that are a lot of other DIY options around This would be nicier then two jogwheels |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 29.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by thelpb
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| Lala Cortina 29.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
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| Arcelia Siebeneck 29.09.2010 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AUQUGt6wlQ Also, there should be quite an easy way to display track names / artist on the LCD screen... LCD Smartie has a display bmp option... just a case of using AHK to take a screenshot, convert it to monochrome and then display it on the LCD |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 26.09.2010 | okay, well I've thrown together a very quick proof-of-concept script in AHK (basically just hacked the AHK midi in library)... see the attached zip file below. if you run midi2keystroke.ahk (or midi2keystroke.exe if you don't have AHK installed) it will appear in your notification area. Right click and choose your midi interface. Now open up notepad and play some notes / press some buttons on your midi keyboard / controller. You should see the letter 'M' appear in the notepad document! So all you gotta do now is write an LCDSmartie plugin that will accept qwerty keyboard strokes. I'd recommend choosing keyboard strokes such as ctrl+alt+shift+whatever so that it doesn't interfere with any Traktor / Windows shortcuts. If you let me know which keystrokes you've chosen, I'll finish the AHK script so that it outputs different keyboard characters depending on the midi information it receives from Traktor. |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 26.09.2010 | okay, so the way it'd work is Traktor outputs VU meter midi data to a virtual midi port. An AHK script would receive this midi data, convert it and then output it as qwerty keystrokes. Your LCDSmartie plugin would then receive the keystrokes and display the appropriate volume level on the LCD screen. Each 'cell' on the LCD screen would be set to receive a particular keystroke, meaning that you could light each 'cell' by just typing on a normal qwerty keyboard. Does that make sense? lol Anyway, writing the AHK script would be relatively simple - there's a midi input library for AHK here: http://www.autohotkey.com/community /topic30715.html I'd be more than happy to help with this... especially as I've got two LCD screens on there way from China as I write this! I probably wouldn't have bothered buying them if I wasn't able to use them as VU meters (but I'm sure I'll find a use for them if this doesn't work). |
| Lala Cortina 26.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
The idea of using AHK to read midi from traktor is interesting, please do share! |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 26.09.2010 | ah that's interesting... and not exactly how I thought you were developing the plugin. Have you thought about trying to get the LCD to accept midi information? If you could, then you could output LED midi directly from Traktor (Traktor can output VU midi data - it's used to illuminate VU meter LED's on midi controllers). If this isn't possible then how about getting the plugin to accept qwerty keyboard triggers? It'd be fairly trivial to write an Autohotkey script that sits between Traktor and the LCDSmartie plugin, converting the VU midi output from Traktor into keystrokes which the LCDSmartie plugin could read. I'd be happy to help you with the AHK plugin, if you need it |
| Lala Cortina 27.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
I am currently using three UHID boards, one 50 input board and two 8 input boards. I went with two of the 8 input boards because I needed them to show up in Windows as individual devices. Windows supports 8 analog axes per device. Rejoice however will only convert 6 of them to midi per device. So with three boards, I can have a max of 18 axes, with the current setup I am using 17 of them. I had planned to put the second LCD vertical between the volume faders. When I was working on the LCDSmartie plugin though I ran into a problem. Currently I do not have a dedicated sound card, so I am using the on board 5.1 and ASIO4ALL. This is not by any means the permanent setup, but will have to suffice for now. The problem is that since ASIO4ALL accesses the sound card in kernel mode, there is no way to read the levels from it for the LCDSmartie plugin. I didn't want to put the second LCD in place until I know if the drivers for say an Audio2DJ will allow me to read the levels. Simplest way to know if it will work or not is if the outputs for the sound card show up in the Windows mixer. Anyone out there with an Audio2DJ or Audio4DJ wanna check this for me? |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 26.09.2010 | hey man - very nice progress... your controller is starting to look very much like the controller I'm designing. Where is the 2nd LCD screen going? (the one you're using as a VU meter... have you finished the LCDSmartie script btw?). Also, how many u-hid's are you using altogether? |
| Lala Cortina 26.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by pumpkin2themax
Originally Posted by eastcoastams
Originally Posted by Georgeo0
Originally Posted by oskars
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| Wava Egizi 26.09.2010 | Sell your PowerMates cheap to me |
| Melia Balvaneda 25.09.2010 | AHHH this is so cool, its really cool to see all of the steps in building something like this. Thanks for showing us! Im excited to see how it will end up |
| Leann Zugay 25.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by thelpb
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| Williemae Trau 24.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by thelpb
check out my thread: http://www.djranking s.com/community /showthread.php?t=18302 |
| Lala Cortina 24.09.2010 | Well first off, sorry for the lack of updates lately, work has been hammering me. Much progress during my days off though! I fully assembled the controller and played with it for a little bit yesterday! LCD Screens arrived from LCDModKit ------------------ Wiring the buttons to the U-HID Cleaning up some of the wiring and reinstalled the 10k Pots Status LCD is mounted First wiring complete. Panel is bolted in place. I also added the center bolt to help hold it all together. In these photos the bolts are upside down to make my life easier with the constant assembly / disassembly. When I am finally satisfied with it, I will flip the bolts over since they look MUCH better. All of the knobs are attached I couldn't help myself, I stuffed a USB hub into the upper right hand corner and connected USB cables to everything. Bolted it together and powered it up! The status LCD. I may or may not change what this LCD displays. For now i'm just happy to see it live. ------------------ A few things i've discovered. First off, the wiring is a complete evening mare with no hope of ever being as clean or organized as I originally wanted it to be. To this end, I will be making efforts to hide it. I have some ideas to explore and will post pictures as I go. I still have to cut the holes for the jog wheels. The part that has me believeing though is if I really want to use jog wheels now. I am half way considering adding another U-HID and going with more arcade buttons. The more I toy with them, the less I see a need. I won't be doing any scratching with this thing so why bother? I can get more functionality with more buttons. I dunno, it's just acrylic, so I can always slice n dice another panel and do whatever I want! More to come! |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 21.09.2010 |
Originally Posted by thelpb
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| Debbra Sciutto 20.09.2010 | Sickkkk |
| Edmond Batta 11.09.2010 | I would use polycarb over acrylic any day of the week. Acrylic breaks like glass. |
| Chara Ravine 10.09.2010 | For acrylic faceplates its best to take them to a company with a laser cutter. Thats how i got mine done and it was very cheap (15 |
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