My vintage-styled USB-MIDI controllers for software synth plugins (sound-force.nl)

Status
Not open for further replies.

nicolas_soundforce

Active member
Hi!

It's about time I show you what I am working on with the awesome teensy boards.

I am building MIDI controllers especially laid out for software synthetizers. At the moment I have 2 products ready.
The SFC-60 is a custom controller for a Juno-60 styled software-synth (http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-u-no-lx).
http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=154

IMG_0725_slider.jpg

I make custom PCBs for the faders, switches, leds and integrate the teensy boards into them. Since the Teensy LC came out I dropped the idea of integrate my own micro-controller directly onto my boards. I need an integrated USB controller, so there is no better time/money ratio than sticking with the teensy! It gives more time to develop new cool products.

My second controller is also done (for a SH-101 model software synthetizer : http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-bassline-101) and will go soon in production:
http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=1175

Along with the teensy I am using 4051s for the faders and extra digital inputs and 595 for the leds.
My firmware is open source : http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=1151
Nothing special going on, but I am pretty happy with the smoothing of the analog inputs, I get a very nice response with no jumping around. Maybe interesting for other forum users working on control with analog inputs.

Here is a video of how I am building them :

Thank you Paul for creating such an affordable, easy-to-use and to learn, reliable platform!
I am looking forward making more new things with the teensy.

Cheers!
Nicolas.
 
Last edited:
Hi!

My second controller is also done (for a SH-101 model software synthetizer : http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-bassline-101) and will go soon in production:
http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=1175

Hi Nicolas,

Nothing to do with the Teensy (Many thanks to Paul for your great work) , but the reference to the SH-101 stopped me.
I've one lying in a cupboard but didn't think that there is still interest for this synthesizer..
Till it comes to my knowledge that Mr. Simon Posford uses a SH-101 during his concerts and his own was beginning to give signs of weakness.

For who wants to know more about his work, I warmly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp2rW-rNgC0#

Mere coincidence ?

Cheers.
Jean-Christophe.
 
I've dreamt of making one of these up for ableton's operator, but tals great too! I like the video. I'm also looking into your analog smoothing technique. I see you're using 7 bit control change messages, I've found using pitch bend messages across the 16 channels to work nicely with DAW configurations at the benefit of 14 bit resolution. You have more sliders than that, but would be much better for things like the filter frequency.
 
Last edited:
I've dreamt of making one of these up for ableton's operator, but tals great too! I like the video. I'm also looking into your analog smoothing technique. I see you're using 7 bit control change messages, I've found using pitch bend messages across the 16 channels to work nicely with DAW configurations at the benefit of 14 bit resolution. You have more sliders than that, but would be much better for things like the filter frequency.

Do it! it's great fun.

Good one about the pitch bend messages. Some DAW forces certain MIDI messages to certain DAW parameters. I would have to check if the pitch bend would not be automatically send to the plugin or track pitch bend... It probably would.
Logic would not let me use messages and would send directly the track volume, pan, etc...

More resolution is good, but with 30mm faders and 128 values, I get 42 different values per 10mm which is enough to get a very smooth value. I really have to filter the shit out of it anyway to remove the noise completely. If you want 100mm faders you will probably feel the difference.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top