I just downloaded the Teensyduino add-on for the Arduino IDE software and there you have to select you board as the Teensy and under Tools/UsbType it gives you possibility to select all the different ways the board can act as, e.g. midi, serial, Keyboard + mouse etc.
i love this kind of stuff but programming scares the shit out of me. like i’ll start it but get too overwhelmed and quit halfway through.
what’s the learning curve on programming something like this? i’ve never done any open source programming before so i’m a total n00b
There are several ways to program your controller depending of course on what you are building. I just finished my DIY pad (16 buttons with LED feedback) and I was a total newbie to this kind of programing, so i read through pretty much the whole arduino web site which offers you tutorials, language references, example codes and other stuff. After 2 or 3 weeks I managed to get the thing to work. 
(you can get almost every arduino code to work on a teensy).
My teensy ++ boards arrive today. After my father and I breadboard
it up, will tell you what gives.
l0rdr0ck
Hi everyone,
does someone have any experiece with the teensy. I’m considering to get one - seems to be really good value.
Though i don’t have any expirience in programming nor in microcontrollers, it seems to be much more easier compared to midibox and more “understandable” for newbies. What do you guys think?
Will there be any problems using 2 or more teensies?..For bigger projects.
Regards
Elda
Ok, bought two of these. Had to do some patches and get some libs top make the
editor work. You can assign each pin as you choose. With 8 analog’s you will need
to mux if you want to do more than that.
AT90USB1286
Flash Memory 130048
EEprom 4096
i/O 46 pins
Analog 8
PWM 9
The only concern i have is i believe it is 12bit.
Pick the Pots well i suggest between 10k-50k, for 8 in sequence.
Got the board for 26 bucks.
Got some buttons for 28 bucks from Hong Kong, same as DJTT’s.
When the buttons get here i will try to make a midifighter clone
as my test run. ETA Friday.
When you say bigger project, how big? how many possible inputs?
you could mux the teensy++ and easily get 96 i/o’s and 16 analog.
l0rdr0ck
Well as i am a beginner and this is my first DIY Controller, “BIG” would be something like a 4 Deck Controller, similar to the S4 or 4MidiLoop.
First step will be to pick the right Base.
After that I want to build a midi fighter clone as a testrun and then start building my 4Deck Controller.
I’m not quiet sure which Base to pick( 2 x Tennsy++ Vs. Midibox)
What do you think would be better for a beginner?
What patches did you have to make to get the Editor running?
I’m struggeling really hard as you can see. Is it possible that you post some results of your DIY Controller? Would help a lot.
Elda
if you’re a beginner I would start with some usb gamepads and make a midi fighter clone (minus the LED’s of course).
If you’re good at programming AND soldering then a midibox is certainly an option. Next in difficulty would be an Arduino or Teensyduino (less soldering to do as you don’t need to assemble the PCB’s.)
Otherwise, if programming is something you’re not keen on, I would suggest a U-HID, Leo Bodnar, UMC-32, Livid Brain or, my personal favourite, the Highly Liquid Midi CPU.
I’m in a similar situation myself; a relative beginner at DIY electronics and have decided to jump in at the deep end and build an S4 style controller. Don’t underestimate how much time, learning, work and money it will cost you - that’s the best advice I can give!
Actually you dont even need a HID/Midi translator, unless you wanted to.
With the editor you can make it a behave as a midi device.
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MIDILibrary
Beyond all that…
For instance a motivated person could also make a Traktor platter controller like the S4 which uses HID and reverse engineer the message format NI uses.
Those counts could be easily doubled with muxing. So i would think
16 Pots, 96 buttons is doable with 1 teensy++.
I think the teensy is wonderful, but there is a learning curve. Also know that
arduino code will run on this board so there is literally TONS of info on developing
these boards. Further if you become fluent in arduino/AVR architecture, there are hundreds of cool projects out there. Check Make Magazine.
The arduino MidiLibrary enables you to send midi form messages easier but still in serial format if you are connected via usb, so you would need a serial-midi converter. You actually can reprogram the arduino uno usb-chip to behave as Midi device but not with this library and it’s tricky. With teensy++ you can easier make it behave as midi device, because it does the reprograming for you.
Thanks Mil0,
as my programming skills are non existend the Midi CPU seems to be perfect.
I’m just a little bit confused because I didn’t see anything about digital Outputs (for LEDs).
Is it possible to take some cheap USB to MIDI dongle and get it done without any programming?
Well I think I’m going to give the teensy++ a shot just for giggles and try afterwords the Midi CPU.
Regads
Elda
the guy who sells the Highly Liquid cpu’s will actually program it for you, if you tell him exactly what you want. You can use LED’s no problem.
If you can get 96 buttons and 16 analog, I might try this. I’m a cs major, might as well get some use out of it.
ok im confused!
i bought teensy++ 2.0 board for a midi fighter clone!
i have to write code to act as midi controller? or is it wire.cables.ready.to.go thing?
i dont want anything fancy, just 16 buttons, it wont even have leds.
you should be able to use the midifighter source code with a few modifications (remove the LED code I’d imagine).
but you have to program you teensy as a midi-device in the first place…
did anyone ever get round to porting the midifighter code into something that could be dumped directly into a teensyduino?
I would still go with the umc32 just because it has MIDI
And there you are, one year later, realizing you posted something pretty dumb.
I just found the topic. Looks interesting.
I downloaded the software, I have a teensy board waiting for use since months. Now the question: did anyone get this to work as a MIDI controller? The topic changed a little…;
With the teensyduino I was able to program a simple button that worked with traktor. Pots and encoders are not as easy as a button. If the generic hid software works, I will change from coding to configuring 
so, anyone tried it?