Midifighter v2

[DJGQ]

Hey guys, I am new to DJing and MODing and Controllerism and I think they are all great. I currently the owner of Traktor Pro and am looking to expanding my hardware arsenal. I want to build the midifight shown below on my own. Im young 16 years to be exact and am taking a digital electronics in school and have built some basic circuits. I just want to build this one to start my collection of units. Can you guys help me formulate a list of stuff I will need. Also, I would like to use transparent and light up arcade button and the two joy sticks. Also those 4 little buttons at the top. Guys help me as much as possible and any anymore info you need to help me out im more than willing to answer promptly. I would also like to know some websites I can learn more about so i can make this DIY project come out even better than the one Ean Golden uses in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mpoaFNb3dM . BTW what are those buttons on the top for. Ill probably reassign those 4 but what did Ean have them set to. Thanks guys and I hope to get a lot of responses.

[sine143]

hey man. The first piece of advice i'm gonna give you is to stick with the sanwa buttons. The Midifighter board already has LEDs built into the functionality, that light up next to the buttons, and I feel it would be a bit difficult to adapt those for light up buttons...

[Lupine]

I don't know what would be involved in wiring these into a midifighter board, but here is a tutorial on how to mod a traditional arcade button with LEDs.

http://hacknmod.com/hack/make-your-o...tton-switches/

[Segfault]

Well, a good place to start for that project would be the DIY Midifighter kit int he DJTT store, but I'm lost on the joysticks.

Best of luck!

[Fatlimey]

Joysticks available from Sparkfun:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pro...oducts_id=9032

They're even 10K pots!

Your main problem with creating a MF is working out how to get the MIDI out of the box and into your computer. With the Midifighter we did all the hard work of finding out how to create a "class compliant" USB device that just works over USB - you plug it in, it enumerates and is ready to use. True plug'n'play. We'll be posting more instructions for advanced Midifighter hacking soon (...yeah, as soon as I type them up).

Other solutions include using something like an Arduino and hooking up a couple of pins to a standard MIDI 5-pin DIN serial port. Then you can just hook up the MF like any other MIDI device using MIDI cables to a MIDI port on your soundcard. Instructions on how to produce MIDI output from an Arduino are available here:

http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/MIDIOutput

[DJGQ]

Guys these are really great idea but I have actually no experience with real world circuitry. I know about basic digital electronics like AND and OR gates and breadboarding. Is there any tutorials out there on making a MIDI or USB powered device on the web. Also if I do use the midifighter DIY kit thats out there right now. It doesnt look like it has enough space for extra stuff such as joysticks. Those joysticks look really great btw.

@Fatlimey: Are you saying the best board for this proposed project is an Arduino.

P.S I know nothing about analog electronics except pots and like light sensor from my Principles of Engineering class im in high school. So help a brother out. Send me as many tutorials as u can. If im really sucessful and you guys like what I make I might make more since DJ TT doesnt make those currently.

So just to be clear at what stage Im at.
1) I know what part I need for the inputs such as the joystick and the buttons but I need to know more about the housing the output and the power. I also need to know what circuit board I can use.

I know im doing the project and all but you know the saying "It takes a village to raise a child" well its takes the DJTT forums to recreate a custom MIDIFIGHTER controller.

Thanks so far guys keep those tips coming.

[DJGQ]

Im going to use what @Lupine suggested to make the LED's light up when pressed but not sacrafice quality and still use the Sanwa buttons if they come apart so i can drill a whole and fit the LED in there with out too much problem. I might have to take it a step farther so they turn on when pressed rather than just stay on when powered. Well I got my joystick and buttons down now for the rest.

UPDATE: I have designed a actually full USB MIDI controller on paper. I also calculated how much of each part I need. I just need some advice as to where to get the parts from such as pots for the knobs and that thing for the fader. I dont know the name of it. I was going to use the UMC 32 at first but I far surpassed the 32 input limit. So really now I need more advice on how what parts I need and what PCB to use and when I finish the image Im going to post it so maybe you guys understand it more

[midifidler]

Hey GQ,

The midi fighter DIY kit has all the extra inputs required to add the four page buttons and the two joysticks, so you could recreate the first midi fighter style I built.

The case is sourced from Hammond and milled down from 50 mm height to 30.

If you search around you should find my thread detailing the build of that first design.

Each of those midifighters took about 250 US in parts, and about 5 hours each to build not counting the design phase.

The electronics behind those midi-fighters are pretty basic, most of the tricky stuff is in the coding, and the mechanical design.

[DJGQ]

Do the current midi fighter have room for 23 Buttons. Not all arcade. 5 faders. 2 joysticks. and 18 knobs?

@midifidler: i scoured the forums and I have yet to find a thread discussing the build on the previous midifighters.

[midifidler]

If you read the description on the blog you can see that it has 4 analog inputs and four digital.

There is the thread, the photos should give you some idea about the construction.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54

The architecture of the latest design is simple, it uses 2 shift registers to read the arcade buttons, and a 16 channel constant current led controller to drive the leds.

I think you are probably best to go for something the the UMC32 for this as your first controller/project, in the mean time start learning a little embedded coding.