Is this the ultimate DIY hardware VU meter?

DJ Gear & Hardware Hardware: Controllers, Mods and Gear
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Is this the ultimate DIY hardware VU meter?

Midi2LCD v0.1 - Windows only.

You don’t actually need a usb LCD like I’m using in the video above. The included “LCD Smartie” program will emulate the LCD screen whilst you tweak things (or wait for your LCD screen to arrive in the post!).

First of all you’re going to need a virtual midi port utility - I recommend LoopBe1 (which is free). Next, download and extract http://www.nicholas-johnson.com/stuff/Midi2LCD.zip somewhere and then run Traktor. Setup Traktor as per “how to setup Traktor.jpg”. Next run “LCDSmartie.exe” followed by “Midi2LCD_v0.1.exe”.

Midi2LCD will now ask you to setup the midi ports - make sure you choose LoopBe as your midi input (or whatever virtual midi port software you’re using). DON’T choose the same midi port as your output otherwise you’ll get a feedback loop.

If you’ve done all of the above correctly, you should now see the VU meters in Traktor being displayed on the LCD Smartie simulated screen (as well as on your USB LCD screen, if you have one).

I’ve enclosed the source files in the zip file - anyone who knows how to use AHK should edit \Midi2LCD\LCDSmartie\AHK\source\MidiRules.ahk if they want to add extra midi functions.

Original post:

[quote]First of all, maximum respect to thelpb who gave me the idea for this project (he’s working on the same thing himself). My LCD’s arrived in the post this morning so I thought I’d knock something together in Autohotkey rather than wait for him to finish his midi dll for LCD Smartie. Anyway, nevermind all the technical stuff… check the proof of concept video out: (excuse the quality)

So yeah, it’s a bit rough around the edges at the moment and only displays midi CC values (0-127)… once I’ve worked on it some more it should look more like a traditional VU meter, more like:

Deck A []||||||||||||    []
Deck B []||||||          []

for anyone who’s interested in building a DIY controller with one of these built in, do it! the LCD screen’s are very cheap: U162MB-A1

I’ll be uploading the scripts and a how-to later, once it’s a bit more polished looking :slight_smile:[/quote]

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Oh yeah, for anyone who’s interested… pretty much any midi that can be outputted from Traktor can be displayed on one of these LCD screens.

And for anyone who’s wondering what the point of this thing is… the aim, for me, is to design a controller that doesn’t require you to look at your laptop screen whilst dj’ing… this LCD screen is one small step towards that goal.

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That is sweet, and definitely going in my next controller.

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Nice man I really need a VU meter thats easy to read and not on some computer screen. This has given me some ideas great post.

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Nice!

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Nice work - look forward to seeing your progress

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Finished:

I’ll clean up the code and get something uploaded as soon as possible :slight_smile:

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Can’t tease me like that and not share! :stuck_out_tongue:

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do you have AIM/msn/email? pm me your details and I’ll send you the files so we can both work on this :slight_smile:

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PM sent~

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sent you an email with all the details… let me know how you get on :slight_smile:

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first post updated - all the files are included and you don’t even need a USB LCD screen to get started!

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Doesn’t work with Mac right?

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Autohotkey is PC only (Apple don’t allow the kind of control that AHK gives you over the operating system unfortunately).

Also, LCD Smartie isn’t available for OSX afaik. So the answer is no, and very unlikely to happen.

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Not very kool :disappointed:

But I love the idea and your project!

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yea in the same boat as oskars,

love the hack! but very firmly based in macland

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mac :,(

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don’t shoot the messenger! I can’t get mac support working unless there are OSX drivers for the LCD and someone ports AHK to Mac, which is unlikely to put it mildly :disappointed:

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Hmmm im thinking about using this on a custom mixer i might make…but is there a way to split the vu’s per deck..and run them to individual channels on a mixer’s vu indicators?

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yeah - you can configure the software to display whatever you like on each VU. If you buy a 4 x width LCD display then you could display 4 decks’ VU meters at the same time theoretically. Let me know what you have in mind and I’ll reprogram the utility to fit your needs.

In the medium/long term however, I’m looking to replace the USB LCD display with an LCD display that hooks directly up to an Arduino. This means you shouldn’t need to run any immediadery software and everything should be plug’n’play. Apart from providing OSX compatibility (which wasn’t possible before), it’ll mean that anyone who’s designing a new DIY controller should be able to use Arduino as the usb midi brain with an easy to implement VU meter.