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Archive for the ‘midi controller’ Category

If you’re going to produce electronic music on a PC, you need some sort of input tool. That can be your keyboard and mouse, but most producers prefer to use a dedicated MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controller. That will provide a more intuitive and efficient experience. Instead of buying something new, HYPRREAL turned a ’70s Futaba RC transmitter into a MIDI controller.

RC transmitters, like the vintage Futaba model used for this project, are controllers for RC vehicles like planes and cars. While cheap toy RC vehicles tend to come with dedicated transmitters, high-end vehicles work with universal transmitters like this one. They’re of a higher quality and can be used with all the vehicles in a hobbyist’s collection. Being an older model, this unit was quite simple. It only had two potentiometer joysticks and a few sliders. To expand its capability, HYPRREAL added several additional potentiometers.

An Arduino board monitors all of the potentiometers via multiplexers. It runs a MIDI controller library, so it can send MIDI messages to a computer connected through a USB cable. As far as the computer is concerned, the connected device is just a standard MIDI controller. That means that it will work with any MIDI software and HYPRREAL only had to configure the different controls within that software. The result is a useful MIDI controller in a very attractive retro package.

The post Old RC transmitter becomes new MIDI controller appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Using Adobe Lightroom can be a tedious process, especially for those who don’t have their keyboards set up with a hundred macro shortcuts. Andrea Lunaro wanted to make this process easier by constructing a large, physical bank of buttons and potentiometers that can be used to perform a whole host of functions within Lightroom. It can output commands to copy/paste, set HSL values, do basic transformations, and navigate around the software in general, all over the MIDI protocol. 

This device — called the Light Deck — is powered by a single Arduino Micro, which is connected to several 16-channel 74HC4067 multiplexer ICs that handle both the input and output with the bank of rotary potentiometers and buttons. Data is outputted via USB to the host computer running Lightroom where it is then converted to Lightroom commands with the help of the MISI2Lr plug-in. 

Both the PCB and enclosure were custom-designed and assembled, with the enclosure being fully 3D-printed along with its accompanying button/potentiometer covers. As seen in this demonstration video, the Light Deck works really well at providing users with a pleasant analog interface for fine-tuning various image parameters. 

For more information about this project, you can check out Lunaro’s write-up on Hackster.io and design files on GitHub.

The post Light Deck is a MIDI Lightroom controller appeared first on Arduino Blog.

MIDI-controlled instruments are awesome, as custom sounds can be loaded and dynamically changed while you play. However, accessing these effects often requires an external controller that can get expensive and complicated. That is why music enthusiast Joe King created the Stryde, which is a fully integrated MIDI preset loader within a small enclosure. Stryde uses an Arduino Nano Every at its core to store presets, display information, and select effects.

As seen in King’s video below, the Nano Every has room for up to 128 total presets that can be scroll through with the help of a pair of buttons. There is also the ability to use a MIDI pedal as an input to switch which presets are currently active. The back of the Stryde contains a single port for MIDI IN and two ports for MIDI OUT with DIN connectors. Even though the device has plenty of connectivity, the best feature is probably the fact that it is open source, therefore letting users completely rewrite the firmware if they want. 

To learn more about or back the Stryde for yourself, check out its Kickstarter campaign.

The post Stryde is an Arduino Nano Every-powered MIDI preset loader appeared first on Arduino Blog.

What keeps people from playing music? For one thing, it’s hard. But why is it hard? In theory, it’s because theory is confusing. In practice, it’s largely because of accidentals, or notes that sound sour compared to the others because they aren’t from the same key or a complementary key.

What if there were no accidentals? Instruments like this exist, like the harmonica and the autoharp. But none of them look as fun to play as [Bardable]’s Starshine, the instrument intended to be playable by everyone. The note buttons on the outside are laid out and programmed such that [Bardable] will never play off-key.

We love the game controller form factor, which was also a functional choice. On the side that faces the player, there’s a PSP joystick and two potentiometers for adding expression with your thumbs. The twelve buttons on this side serve several functions like choosing the key and the scale type depending on the rocker switch position. A second rocker lets [Bardable] go up or down an octave on the fly. There’s also an OLED to show everything from the note being played to the positions of the potentiometers. If you want to know more, [Bardable] made a subreddit for this and other future instruments, and has a full tour video after the break.

If this beginner-friendly MIDI controller isn’t big enough for you, check out Harmonicade’s field of arcade buttons.

This one goes out to anyone who loves music and feels it in their soul, but doesn’t necessarily understand it in their head. No instrument should stand in the way of expression, but it seems like they all do (except for maybe the kazoo).

[FrancoMolina]’s hybrid synth-MIDI controller is a shortcut between the desire to play music and actually doing it. Essentially, you press one of the buttons along Synthfonio’s neck to set the scale, and play the actual notes by pressing limit switches in the controller mounted on the body. If you’re feeling blue, you can shift to minor scales by pressing the relative minor note’s neck button at the same time as the root note, e.g. A+C=Am. Want to change octaves? Just slide the entire controller up or down for a total of three.

All of these switches are muxed to two Arduinos — an MKR1010 for USB MIDI control, and a bare ‘328 to provide the baked-in synth sounds. Power comes from a stepped-up 18650 that can be charged with an insanely cheap board from that one site. [Franco] has all the code and files available, so go have fun making music without being turned off by a bunch of theory. Push that button there to check out the demo.

If ‘portable’ means pocket-sized to you, then let this mini woodwind MIDI controller take your breath away.

While you may know on some level that an Arduino can help you make music, you probably haven’t seen as good an implementation as this MIDI controller by Switch & Lever. 

The device features a numeric pad for note input, which can also be used as a drum pad, and a variety of knobs and even a joystick for modifying the beats. Controls are housed inside a beautiful laser-cut, glued, and finished wooden enclosure.

An Arduino Mega (with its 54 digital IO and 16 analog pins) is used to accommodate the inputs, and data is passed on to a digital audio workstation, or DAW, to produce actual sound. 

Code and circuit diagrams are available here if you want to build one, though your setup can be customized however you like!

One of our favorite things about the rise of hobbyist development ecosystems such as the Arduino is that it’s now possible to make a MIDI controller out of almost anything, as long as you have the the shields and the dedication. We’re glad that [James Bruton] takes the occasional break from making robots to detour into instrument making, because his latest creation turns it up to 11.

This awesome guitar uses a barcode scanner to play notes, and various arcade controls to manipulate those notes. The barcodes themselves scan as ASCII values, and their equivalent integers are sent to an external MIDI device. This futuristic axe is built on an Arduino Mega, with a USB shield for the barcode scanner, and a MIDI shield on top that [James] connects to various synths in the video after the break.

In between shooting barcodes, the right hand also controls octave shifting and changing MIDI channels with the joystick, and doing pitch-bends with the rotary encoder. The array of arcade buttons on the bottom neck let him switch between single player for monophonic synths, and multiplayer for polys. The other three buttons are press-and-scan programmable single-note sounders that assist in chord-making and noodling.

We particularly dig the construction, which is a combination of 20/20 and 3D printed boxes. [James] found some angled PVC to serve as fretboards for the four necks, and a nice backgrounds for bar codes.The only thing we would change is the native beep of the barcode scanner — either silence it forever or make it mutable, because it doesn’t jive with every note. It might be nice to get the gun to scan continuously so [James] doesn’t get trigger finger. Or better yet, build the scanner into a glove.

Want to do something more useful with that barcode scanner in your parts bin? Use it to manage your household inventory. But first, reacquaint yourself with the history of the humble barcode as presented by [Adam Fabio].

Thanks for the tip, [baldpower]!

A keyboard and mouse is a great user interface system for general computing tasks, but in other situations custom knobs, sliders, and lights would certainly be more fun. If you enjoy making digital music, then you should check out this low-cost, Arduino-based MIDI controller by Músico Nerd

The Traktorino gives you access to a plethora of knobs and sliders, as well as LEDs for custom feedback in a laser-cut package. Internally, the device acts as an Arduino Uno shield, and is designed to control Traktor DJ software by default. It also supports other MIDI programs, and perhaps could even be adapted to work with other applications as well.

The Traktorino is a MIDI class compliant device, designed for controlling Traktor. It has several features and custom made mappings, so you can take the most of the software. However, it can do much more than that. The Traktorino can control any software that accepts MIDI, like Ableton Live, Serato, FL Studio, Logic, etc.

More information and build files can be found here and on GitHub. You can see it in action in the video below!

Using an Arduino as an HID, Evan Kale turned a “gently used” analog mixer into a computer interface.

Older audio equipment may not have the interfaces that you need to make totally electronic music, but they can be very well-built, so are perhaps worth salvaging. In the video below, Kale salvages potentiometers from an old mixer, then hooks them up to a Pro Micro. This allows the Arduino to take these 12 inputs, and output them as a USB MIDI signal.

Along the way, Kale points out a few very important hacking tricks, including that the library may have a printer ready for you to use, and that analog slider pots many times are logarithmic (or close to it) and need to be calibrated. Also, around 5:25 he introduces viewers to analog multiplexers which can give you eight analog inputs at the cost of three digital and one analog pin.

You can check out more of Kale’s Arduino-based hacks on his YouTube channel here!

Manuel Lukas, a student at the University of Applied Science Mainz, and Sascha Lukas, a student at Cologne University of Music, together make up the German pop band Wyoming. As part of an interdisciplinary project, the duo decided to combine their love for both design and music into one live MIDI controller that’s bigger than commonly available commercial devices, but due to its size, more comprehensible for the audience.

The result? A DJ table, dubbed “Stage Bench,” that doubles as an instrument.

Stage Bench is based on an Arduino Uno which interacts with two matrices, a 128-LED matrix and a 128-button matrix, via a pair of shields. The connection to the computer is managed by serial communication and corresponds with a self-programmed patch in Max/MSP, which also sends MIDI data to any preferred DAW to play instruments or samplers.

Check out Stage Bench in Wyoming’s music video below!



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