this is something i've been thinking about trying for years now. i'd like to create my own midi gear to control the software i use (cubase for now, abelton live later on for performance).

basically i thought about building a giant mixer for a controller. but first i think it would be easier to create a synth controller. i guess all of them would generally be a bunch of knobs that i would assign with the software. i don't think it would be too hard to create, but i have no background in building circuits, let alone

programming

  chips.

for example sake i'll stick with describing a synth controller. this would have knobs for volume, filter frequency, filter resonance, pitch, pan as the basics. depending on the synth vst, more knobs will be added. let's say i'm using Rob Papen's Albino synth. extra knobs for this would be for the 4 LFOs, their frequency, etc. also there would be a knob for the mod amount for each vst. obviously my patches would have to be in a standard format, ie lfo1 as mod1, lfo2 as mod2, etc.

preferably i'd like to have a backlit  LED display for each knob to say what it controls as well as show the current value. something like this: http://img-asia.electrocomponents.com/largeimages/R455443-01.jpg although probably not as big. it would also be nice to have some memory so i can load up a patch on my hardware that corresponds to the VST patch (it would be even better if the knobs were motorized and could reset themselves to the starting position). but that's getting even deeper into this proj, i cant even figure out where to begin 

my end goal is to create a midi controller for each popular vst i use, to be used for live performances.

i hope this made sense to someone, and maybe someone can chip in and offer me some tips here.

how's this for starting this new section off with a bang? 

Actually Indica the receptor is a lot of what you are talking about... using VNC you're looking at a dedicated screen for controlling all of your plugins - that's why I went that way. It's funny you mention this this way - I've been looking for a live solution to the same for a long time.

My goal is to use a touch screen interface to my plugins - I originally wanted to control my analog stuff via MIDI with it, but now that I'm all digital I just envision a larger touch screen monitor that allows me access to everthing in my rig.

The problem came when I started thinking about calling up sequences from my

Mac

 , changing stuff on the Receptor or the other remaining gear that I have... and I thought that I'd like to create a

PHP

  based API (written in C++ then extended into

PHP

  so that I could have a WEB based interface on the touch screen for all my gear. Then it would be trivial to create different screens for accessing different items, and I could even create "custom rigs" for certain gigs - with big, hard-to-miss touch buttons for <whatever I need to do>. That's my personal, music rig Holy Grail. For example - a home page that moved into different sections like dedicated patches, whole song configurations, splits - or even just a screen for "Organ Control" where I could touch it to spool up or down my leslie emulator...

Perhaps there's things for you and I to discuss here about how we could accomplish such magicks, eh?

/p

hm sounds interesting. however i don't think a giant touchscreen would give me enough control at my fingertips. that's one qualm i have with an all-digital studio. it's a real PITA to try to create patches and tweak stuff with a mouse, this is why i love my evolution midi controller and why i'd like to build even better midi gear.

receptor looks pretty nice. with this you can basically run all your VSTs on it and thus free up cpu resources? that's another bottleneck i run into - resources. i always end up with 20 VSTs running, 50 samples, not to mention fx. i can never bring myself to bounce stuff to wavs to free up resources. i always feel that doing so makes that lead/pad riff 'final', and i almost am never to the point of having things finalized if you know what i mean  i've got tracks i've been working on for over a year and they're only 3 minutes long (and still sound like shite)


forgot if i shared any of the shit i love to listen to, if not here: http://play.saikosounds.com/m3u/04d/54.m3u time to party !! 

I get it, but totally different fix - I use the front panel on my Roland RD-500 as well as my Trigger Finger controllers for patch tweaking - I totally get it when we're talking about sound

programming

 . I'm referring more to a situation when I'm live, and all of a sudden "Africa" is called out and there's a *lot* that I need to get set up to play it... there's a specific Logic environment that comes up... specific sounds on my rig... this could be done with my controller, but imagine if I had a touch screen and I touched "complex songs" then "africa" I could be as responsive live as a guitar player. It's more about a sort of

mac

 ro ability when I want a lot larger set of capabilities than my RD-500 can provide.



Zactly - since it is a dedicated (and pretty durn high speed) processor and bus, I can load up a lot of pain on it and not suffer. I currently have Stylus RMX on the

Mac

  and am probably going to purchase Virtual Guitar this month... everything else ie Komplete 4 (which is Reaktor, Absynth, Guitar Rig, Kontak 2, Battery 3, Akoustik Piano, Elektrik Piano, B4-II, FM-8, Pro-53, Vokator and the NI-Spektral Delay), Trilogy and OP-X are on the Receptor and they sound, edit and play GREAT. Komplete is a fantastic bang-for-buck kit because you've got about 80% of what you need for most recordings right out of the box. It's a huge PIA to install tho, so getting a Receptor with it already running is a big benefit.



Wow man, definite energy. You and my brother would get along great. 

You music geeks might like this: hxxp://www.adafruit.com/index.

php

 ?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=4

More info here: hxxp://www.ladyada

.net

 /make/x0xb0x/

A quote:
"The x0xb0x is not just another MIDI-controlled TB-303 clone. x0xb0x is a full reproduction of the original Roland synthesizer, with fully functional sequencer. The sequencer can be programmed just like the original 303 (ok its actually a little easier, we think) and can be used to control other synthesizers via any of its various output formats. 128 banks of track memory and 64 banks of pattern memory are stored in onboard EEPROM, no battery-backup is needed!"

=RT=

Very cool man... that was a great link! It's pretty wild how the old analog and 80s-sounding boxes are making a comeback. the 303 was heavily used and still sounds great.

Thanks RT, that was really cool

Ill take a four track cassette recorder, Yamaha Drum

mac

 hine and a Roland D-20 any day.




wow.... just cleaned up my whole office!

any1 ever play with fruity loops?