Custom MIDI foot switch?

[Corvine]

Hello,
Firstly apologies if this is posted in the wrong section, I wasn't sure where it should go.

I've spent quite a while online trying to find some kind of MIDI footswitch controller that can be used to trigger the samples on an Akai MPX8

http://www.akaipro.com/product/mpx8

There seems to be a bit of a gap in the market as I found other people asking the same question and no satisfactory answers. The only thing I found that might do it was a Behringer FCB1010, although it sounds like it's not very straight forward to set up and it's overkill in terms of size for what we need.

I don't know much about it, but from what I've read, the Akai needs a MIDI note value sent to it, and most MIDI footswitches send a program change value. (please feel free to correct my layman paraphasing where applicable!)

Does anyone know of someone who would be able to make up a MIDI footswitch unit as a custom job? Would it be possible for someone who knows what they're doing to mod a cheap MIDI keyboard to have footswitches instead of some of the keys? It wouldn't really matter if the velocity/pressure sensitivity was sacrificed because of this.

If anyone's got any ideas I'd be very greatful!

Thanks,

George

[elephantgrey]

I have been trying to control my electribe with a midi footswitch, but instead of triggering individual samples, i want it to start/stop the drum sequence, and change patterns (like verse/chorus/middle8) with little success. I am using a quite large midi unit, like the fcb1010, but would like to switch to a smaller unit that is ready set up to do what i want.
I do wonder if such a thing could be made with a raspberry pi, which i have got, but have still not managed to use reliably as a laptop type thing, let alone program to receive button presses and send midi information.

[Corvine]

There seems to be a real lack of foot switch type decives. I'd of thought there'd be something out there as there seems to be a lot of people wanting to operated samplers etc while keeping their hands free for other instuments.

Must be a custom builder out there somewhere that can do this sort of work!

[Zenitram]

I just saw this:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/compact-foot-controller-mod-korg-nanokey-for-your-feet/

and thought I'd post it here for those of you looking for midi-note foot controllers.

[Dood]

Definitely check out Keith McMillen's kit:

http://www.keithmcmillen.com

http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Keith_McMillen_Sotfstep.html

I understand that Billy Sheehan asked for the '12 step' which is as you'll see a keyboard that definitely sends note information. I would be confident that Keith's other controllers can do the same. You'd probably need to label which button is programmed to do what on your Akai though.

[tauzero]

I'm building something not dissimilar at the moment - the intention being that it'll be a MIDI pedalboard that plays chords intelligently. The basis of it, though, is an Arduino [url="http://arduino.cc/"]http://arduino.cc/[/url] which detects which button is pressed and sends a MIDI note or notes corresponding to that. If you're only using half a dozen buttons, you might as well use them as direct input. As I'm using 15 or so (at least 14), I've used an array of diodes to allow me to channel them into 4 inputs plus a polling input.

You'd then want something like this, if you want the sample to play while you're holding down a particular button (note that I have only just started looking at programming the Arduino and I'm not familiar with the MIDI library, so you'll have to work the MIDI commands out):

int Pin2 = 2;
int Pin3 = 3;
int pinVal = 0;
int lastPin = 0;

void setup() {
pinMode(Pin2, INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(Pin3, INPUT_PULLUP);
whatever MIDI setup is needed
}

void loop() {
thisPin = 0;
pinVal = digitalread(Pin2);
if ( pinVal = LOW && lastPin != 2 ) {
midi send all notes off
midi send note 2
thisPin = 2;
}
pinVal = digitalread(Pin3);
if ( pinVal = LOW && lastPin != 3 ) {
midi send all notes off
midi send note 3
thisPin = 3;
}
... (all other pins)
if ( thisPIN == 0 ) {
midi send all notes off
}
lastPin = thisPin;
}

[steve]

[quote name='Corvine' timestamp='1401896447' post='2468020']
Hello,
Firstly apologies if this is posted in the wrong section, I wasn't sure where it should go.

I've spent quite a while online trying to find some kind of MIDI footswitch controller that can be used to trigger the samples on an Akai MPX8

[url="http://www.akaipro.com/product/mpx8"]http://www.akaipro.com/product/mpx8[/url]

There seems to be a bit of a gap in the market as I found other people asking the same question and no satisfactory answers. The only thing I found that might do it was a Behringer FCB1010, although it sounds like it's not very straight forward to set up and it's overkill in terms of size for what we need.

I don't know much about it, but from what I've read, the Akai needs a MIDI note value sent to it, and most MIDI footswitches send a program change value. (please feel free to correct my layman paraphasing where applicable!)

Does anyone know of someone who would be able to make up a MIDI footswitch unit as a custom job? Would it be possible for someone who knows what they're doing to mod a cheap MIDI keyboard to have footswitches instead of some of the keys? It wouldn't really matter if the velocity/pressure sensitivity was sacrificed because of this.

If anyone's got any ideas I'd be very greatful!

Thanks,

George
[/quote]

I've just built a midicontroller based around a PIC microprocessor to control my Source Audio Hub. It currently sends PC commands, but the software could be adapted to send other messages. It's pictured on the bottom left, I'm just waiting to get some aluminium sheet so I can fold my own enclosure

[attachment=167911:effects board.JPG]

(need a more up to date pic of my board to, I have another soundblox unit on it now)

Edited July 30, 2014 by steve