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• Built my own midi controller. Solid buttons to rock out on Ableton Live

  2009-11-07 8:08PM / 標準BLOG / Dirt Star

   

  
  

  
  

  20 buttons and a USB cable - simple as that.

  
  

  Buttons for rock stars to pound out sweet beats. Everyone always asks me how I make my music, so I'm uploading some photos of the music instrument I use. Today it's my industrial-strength homemade midi controller.

  How Colin and I made the world's most basic midi controller

  I've always liked to experiment, taking my instruments apart and making new ones. I came up with the idea for this midi controller a while back - I've always wanted to pound away on big big buttons. Big Big Buttons! Just like on a subway train - those big emergency buttons. 

  
  

  Got to talking with Colin about the idea, and we made it come to life. I gave him a few schematic concept sketches, and he put the wiring under the hood together. We made it specifically for use with Ableton. So instead of messing around with full-on midi programming, we actually did the circuitry by disassembling a normal keyboard and reassigning the keystrokes to the buttons.

  
  

  

  
  

  In a sense its not a full-on midi controller, but for all intensive purposes it works as one. The casing body is now is now a 2.0 version. For our beta version we uses an attache case, with an acrylic plate that the buttons were attached to. After the wiring was all tested and completed, I wanted to give it a solid casing. So I went out and got the shiny black casing made down the street in Dongmen. 

  
  

  How it works - triggering beats, samples and effects

  Use it basically for two things - triggering samples and beats, and controlling effects. Each button is a trigger for an event in Ableton, so playing live I can trigger effects and sounds. 

  
  

  I like to set up the samples and effects I use in a show in advance, then I can drop in stuff on the fly without ever having to look at a computer screen. With a guitar, mic, or turntable hooked up thru the soundcard to Ableton, I can switch up between effects settings, using it as my effects pedal.

  
  

  

  
  

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