Forgery League: The Lab

Tuesday 31 July 2007

Musical interfaces 2

Behold the two-digit display for the Box-O-Knobs (also seen here with its breadboarded ancestor). Each digit is run by one 74HC595 IC. Resistors everywhere. The reverse of the board is a bit hideous, I’m afraid, thanks to my still-amateurish soldering skills.

The vacated breadboard now sports five knobs (50k rotary pots), a MIDI socket and a photocell, which I’ve got controlling the sixth analog pin on the Arduino. A change on any input sends a MIDI controller message. The Evolver already has provision for reading in mod wheel, channel pressure (aftertouch), breath controller and foot pedal information, so I’ve got those wired in along with pitch bend and volume.

Next steps:

• figure out how to cut the appropriate slots in the top of a case
• wire up six slide pots as controls
• external input jacks that override the faders
• buttons!
• calibration and MIDI settings editable by the user, without having to recompile and upload new firmware.