Building an Advanced Traktor Controller with MIDIbox
Building an Advanced Traktor Controller with MIDIbox Posted on: 17.08.2009 by Irving Delgado Hi folks, I learned a lot from this site so I thought it was about time to give something back .During the beginning of this year I started believeing about building a MIDI controller together with a friend. Actually I'll be helping him to build his own controller. The controller will be based on the MIDIbox hardware platform. I attached a rough sketch of it to this thread below. Because this is kind of long term project we decided to set up a blog about the work in progress. By trying to cover the entire process completely we hope it will convince other people to start building a MIDI controller themself. I'll try to update this post once in a while but its easier just to subscribe to our blog's RSS feed. If there are any suggestions or questions feel free to comment or drop us a line Summary
Progress
The Blog http://diymidicontroller.blogspot.com/ Pictures can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/guust-f...7621776308768/ | |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Janyce Henningson 03.10.2010 | Man I sold my VCi300 and bought 2 midibox cores last August, bought some very expensive led buttons, encoders, alps pots and panasonic faders. Soldered up all the modules, uploaded mios, tested and then had a front panel water-jetted. Then my wife had a baby and the whole lot's just sitting in a box. I must have spent about |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Janyce Henningson 03.10.2010 | Man I sold my VCi300 and bought 2 midibox cores last August, bought some very expensive led buttons, encoders, alps pots and panasonic faders. Soldered up all the modules, uploaded mios, tested and then had a front panel water-jetted. Then my wife had a baby and the whole lot's just sitting in a box. I must have spent about |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 21.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by Nicky H
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| Janyce Henningson 04.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
I'll make a list and take some pics this week and pm ya |
| Janyce Henningson 03.10.2010 | Man I sold my VCi300 and bought 2 midibox cores last August, bought some very expensive led buttons, encoders, alps pots and panasonic faders. Soldered up all the modules, uploaded mios, tested and then had a front panel water-jetted. Then my wife had a baby and the whole lot's just sitting in a box. I must have spent about |
| Irving Delgado 03.11.2010 | I started a WTS sell thread for those interested here: http://djranking s.com/community /showthr...564#post175564 |
| Irving Delgado 30.10.2010 | FOR SALE We are selling all the parts from our project. We prefer to sell everything for around 250 |
| Janyce Henningson 21.10.2010 | Haha Yeah when I got everything out of the box to photo it kinda reignited the flame. Im not gonna make a full on controller as before cos im getting an S4, but I'm gonna use the parts I got for a more advanced midifighter. When I've made the layout I'll see what's leftover and let ya know. |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 21.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by Nicky H
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| Janyce Henningson 04.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by MiL0
I'll make a list and take some pics this week and pm ya |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 03.10.2010 | you wanna sell it? |
| Janyce Henningson 03.10.2010 | Man I sold my VCi300 and bought 2 midibox cores last August, bought some very expensive led buttons, encoders, alps pots and panasonic faders. Soldered up all the modules, uploaded mios, tested and then had a front panel water-jetted. Then my wife had a baby and the whole lot's just sitting in a box. I must have spent about |
| Arcelia Siebeneck 03.10.2010 | any more progress on this? I'm looking into midibox stuff for my next DIY controller... there's quite a lot of research to be done with these things though... |
| Latia Pfleider 11.04.2010 | ahhh accidents are no good. I am lagging on my midibox also I have the boards but have been low on cash to get the encoders and panel. I am also building a midibox sid synth aswell as the midibox 64 after those I want a midibox seq. I also am buying gun stuff, airsoft stuff, paying off a over limit credit card, argggg you know how it is. What LED rings did you get? |
| Keli Vandenbergh 11.04.2010 | ... Cool ... |
| Irving Delgado 11.04.2010 | Hi again! A year has almost gone by and we are still not finished. The thing is, I had a serious accident in August last year and it actually changed my life. I also had different priorities lately. Excuses... We changed a couple of things:
Overall, we simplified it a little bit. However, we still have a lot of work to do. We soldered all the modules but we didn't start assembling it yet. The jog wheel is cool but not necessary when you believe about it. In fact, it is just a rotary encoder with a better feel to it. Leaving it out speeds things up quite a bit. LED rings really enhance rotary encoders. I started sketching the front panel in Illustrator today with the exact dimensions. Once it's finished I'll post it on our blog (this week). I can't make any promises but hopefully we'll blow your mind once this is finished... |
| Irving Delgado 23.08.2009 | The assembly by itself hopefully somewhere near the end of September. Then of course the mapping and programming which will be a handful as well I guess... We're not really in a hurry cause once the buildings done, half the fun is over |
| Alessandra Dussinger 23.08.2009 | looks really really nice! can't wait to see it when you finish. how long do you believe it will take you? |
| Irving Delgado 22.08.2009 | Some progress... we managed to assemble our very first module. Perhaps the most important one, the core module, and it's working! I know, not a big deal Check out the blog for more... |
| Irving Delgado 19.08.2009 | The only preassembled ledrings I know of are from Ledtronics. There used to be a group buy on the MIDIbox community s: http://www.midibox.org/community /index.p...c,12771.0.html They are expensive though. I'm just going to use 3mm LEDs which is a lot cheaper. |
| Latia Pfleider 19.08.2009 | have you found any good led rings? |
| Angele Hystad 18.08.2009 | very nice my friend be sure to post the final product! |
| Freda Iafelice 18.08.2009 | Re: LCD Nav Buttons I believe the nav buttons can be remapped, but not on the fly. That has to be done as a modification to the Midibox64 or 64E MIOS application that you're using. My nav buttons don't send out any Midi, and that's the default. There's probably more info on the ucapps community s. Re: Traktor directly selecting effects. Good to know, I'll have to break out the manual. I couldn't figure out how to do that last evening . |
| Irving Delgado 18.08.2009 |
Originally Posted by questionable
That might be a problem then. I was believeing about using the first row of buttons under the LCD screen together with a modifier key to put them or perhaps the entire controller into "navigation" mode.
3) Does Traktor allow for direct button selection of the effects? It seems (although I'm not 100% sure) that it only allows for scrolling (next/previous) through effects types. Again, I could be wrong on that one.
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| Freda Iafelice 17.08.2009 | Very cool, and I'll be keeping up with your progress. A couple thoughts, as I've been spending a lot of time believeing about Traktor and controllers recently: 1) For a Midibox, you'll need 4 buttons for the menu nav if you're planning on using the LCD. Those buttons are <,>, Execute, Snapshot. 2) You might wish to give yourself some breathing room around the edge of the panel. As you know, most times the footprint of the component is larger than what shows on the top panel, and some of your buttons, etc, are pretty close to the edge. 3) Does Traktor allow for direct button selection of the effects? It seems (although I'm not 100% sure) that it only allows for scrolling (next/previous) through effects types. Again, I could be wrong on that one. |
| Irving Delgado 17.08.2009 | The controller could be used with Ableton as well. I'm not using Ableton at the moment but we kept it in mind designing the layout. Something we deliberately left out (cf. Ableton) were "Send" knobs such as on the VCM-600. Of course if necessary the smart knobs (encoders) beneath the EQ could be used together with a modifier to achieve the same thing. In the beginning we might just mount a regular encoder until the jog wheel assembly is finished. Eventually, the jog wheel will be custom made - inspired by DJ Raseri's Scratchtroller. Infrared LEDs and an IR photodiode sensors from an old ball mouse will be used to accomplish this. An old motor from a hard disc should give the jogs a similar feel to those on the VCI-100. Moreover, they will be touch sensitive. There are some pictures of the sensors and the hard drive motor on my Flickr page already. More info on the concept can be found here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/scratchcontroller |
| Graham Frazier 17.08.2009 | Nice layout, seems like it can be used in all kinds of setups. What optical encoder are you using for the jog wheel?? |
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