DIY Controller- 59 minutes, $99.
Do you need just a few more controls? Perhaps your wondering how hard it is to make your own controller? Then follow the steps in this 2 part series and build your first midi controller in about an hour for very little cash. Using only 8 electronics parts, a pre-made case and a DIY midi interface that is USB powered- you can build a controller and it wont require a degree in electrical engineering.
First, you need to get some controls. While any other electronics parts, like knobs and more buttons will work (and will actually cost a lot less). The following are the parts I used for the dj-101.
4 ARCADE BUTTONS
these can be found at the following websites:
total cost: $8
TOUCH SENSITIVE STRIPS
While its cool that these can be used as button triggers and sliders, I might have preferred to use sliders instead. These handy, but slightly expensive strips can be found allong with lots of other interesting electronics parts at:
total cost of 4 x 50mm sliders: $51.80
REGULAR KNOBS
Even though touch sensitive sliders are sexy and cool- I could not get them to work for the life of me. Regular knobs give more precision + a tactile feel and cost significantly less. The only downside? They cant be used as drum triggers and knobs like the touch strips can. The knobs offered more breathing room for the arcade buttons too- which are meant to be played without any concern for accidentally hitting anything.
Any linear panel mount pots from Mouser will work.
total cost of 4 pots: $8
THE CASE
There are an insane amount of cases of all different varietys that you can purchase pre made for very little money. I chose a plastic case because its easier to make the cut outs and abs plastic has that quintessential Atari look. You can buy this one and about 10,000 others at:
Total cost: $13.80
THE BRAIN
While there are several DIY midi options out there my criteria was quite narrow.
- Plug and Play connection via USB
- bellow $100
- easy to connect
so that only left me with 2 choices.
Leo Bodnard HID
This guy runs a tiny operation, most likely out of his living room, somewhere in england where he makes HID chips designed for computer racing enthusiasts. They are small, inexpensive, high resolution and universally compatible. There is one catch, you will have to convert the HID to keystrokes or MIDI to get the signals working with your dj program.
A word of warning, I don’t think Leo is interested in helping out djs. He failed to return a single email and customer service is not in his vocabulary. So buy at your own risk.
Leo Bodnard
Cost: $34.99
U-HID
This outfit has 2 excellent HID interfaces. This one fits our criteria and comes in at a very reasonable $29. For more inputs and LED support try this one.
I-CubeX
I-CubeX is a small Canadian outfit that specializes in creating out of this world sensors for really experimental midi projects and proto-typing. Unfortunately their sensors and kits also have out of this world prices. The small usb micro dig however, has a more reasonable $99 price tag. Its plug and play, self powered and easy to solder. The only downside? A limit of 8 analogue inputs. They advertise that you can use 8 inputs and 8 outputs (which is not true- its one or the other)
Another word of warning, there is precious little documentation from these guys on how to use the device. Drivers are hard to find as well, and the site is not terribly dj friendly. Then again their service team, including the owner- Axel mulder, were much more helpful over email- always answering questions when they came up.
Editors Note: After trying for weeks to get this product to work I simply gave up and went with the reliable HID interfaces bellow. The drivers, editors and documentation are scarce, scattered and hard to follow. If you have the patience- its the best value out there for a direct USB midi interface but I cant promise it will work.
Total Cost $99
TOTAL PROJECT PARTS COST:
$58.80 (with knobs and U-HID)
Read part 2 of this tutorial here
July 16th, 2008 at 8:20 pm Quote
Interesting layout. Still, why would one want to build a device with 4 touch strips(which are worse than faders) and four (saucy) buttons for 99$(without led output) when they can make …ie. MIDIBOX with max of 32 analogue inputs, 64 buttons/switches and 64 LED-s. Fully programmable.
Seems like a waste of time and money.
I gotta admit though, in DIY world, you wave to start with something small.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:30 pm Quote
yeah, i mean come on now were not all seasoned diy pros hear. :)
as a beginner i would have liked to see more things like this
good post
July 16th, 2008 at 8:34 pm Quote
Have you tried to build a MIDIBOX controler? While absolutely the best platform for number of controls vs price, its not exactly something that can be done in an hour. most people would look at that site and immediately give up. This project, while not perfect, is attainable by most people. Baby steps.
plus, it works pretty damn well :)
July 16th, 2008 at 9:24 pm Quote
This is totally radical! I’ve always wanted to get some touch-sensitive strips on my MIDI controllers… now I have a way to!
I hope that some intrepid readers find a readily-available and more reliable source of chips. Any chance it could be done with an Arduino? I know next to nothing about these devices but I hear the word thrown around a lot :-P
Thanks!
Alex
July 16th, 2008 at 9:36 pm Quote
“absolutely the best platform for number of controls vs price”
-it is a bit more that that, my favourite is full firmware customisation in C, things that you do in midi pipe, I do in my firmware. And I update it on a daily basis.
The mbhp site is not beginner friendly but there are ways to start the adventure.
I have one MIDIBOX in final stage, it just needs all wires soldered to controls. The hardest part of diy midi device is building a casing. It gets harder if you want to make it good and sturdy(as I did).
Anyone with just a little know-how of electonics can help you build a midi controller’s guts. After that there is a common problem of acquiring good pots and faders, plastic caps for those, quality buttons and as a cherry topping there is casing. And you can do all that by yourself. Some people (like my-dumb-self) tend to build case on their own, some make it out of the shoebox, some just pay good money and order it from a CNC cutting shop. There are ways.
I do salute this post for luring pack of readers onto the DIY bandwagon.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:54 pm Quote
demo pls, someone make a youtube video, its not hard…just do it
July 16th, 2008 at 11:10 pm Quote
a demo of the controller or a tutorial on putting the controller together?
July 16th, 2008 at 11:25 pm Quote
great stuff…these kind of articles is why this website ROCKS!
July 17th, 2008 at 9:38 am Quote
DJ (I’m boring) toss bag strikes again
July 17th, 2008 at 10:42 am Quote
Preferably both!
July 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am Quote
That was me… sorry
July 17th, 2008 at 10:56 am Quote
Could you replace the touch sliders with faders?
July 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm Quote
yeah, super easy, they both serve the same functionality, and have pretty much the same installation.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:10 pm Quote
I like to point out, you could use an: I-PAC (www.ultimarc.com) or: U-HID (www.u-hid.com)
Both are probably better than Leo Bodnard HID device. I use an I-PAC for my Arcade joystick (US with my Mac) and I bet I could use it for a DJ tool.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:43 pm Quote
I would like to make a box like this but i want 6 rotary type knobs… any ideas?
July 17th, 2008 at 5:43 pm Quote
July 17th, 2008 at 5:44 pm Quote
i don’t know where to find some decent rotary knobs either…
July 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm Quote
I looked on that site.. only thing is i don’t see any software for Mac… just PC
July 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm Quote
check out links that were posted for instance, mouser.com for the rotary knobs, faders, etc. you wont get pictures but you can copy paste and search elsewhere for that. the i-pac at least, is cross compatible with any OS, it just takes some simple programing
July 17th, 2008 at 8:26 pm Quote
cool thanx for the reply. It says on the site that the U-HID works on Mac, but i didn’t see any software for it… is there something else i would download to use for programing it? I am sorta new to creating my own controllers, thats why this particular one has peaked my interest.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm Quote
no problem. no special downloads, it appears to be all inclusive, as far requirements for hid chip itself is concerned. obviously I can’t know for sure because ive never used the thing, but im sure if after purchasing one you still have any questions there would many people, including myself, happy to help on the forum.if you truly are interested in building your first diy midi controller I say go for it, this is a great beginner setup
July 18th, 2008 at 5:04 am Quote
Touch sliders and sliding pots are two completely different devices guys – one isnt better any better than the other, they are both really useful for completely different things!
Faders are for smooth transitions between one midi message and another while touch strips are designed so that the midi message can go all over the joint depending where you are putting your finger down.
My personal opinion of touch sliders is that they are very very cool ! i plan on putting some on the midifighter midifidler is making me when get it.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:47 am Quote
alright I stand corrected, they
can
serve the same function
July 18th, 2008 at 2:46 pm Quote
Has any one thought of , or seen (links please :) anyone hacking or modding a somewhat cheap midi keyboard (axiom, edirol, etc) into a custom controller? I have an Axiom25 I hardly ever use, and I have been thinking of taking it apart and converting it. I’m thinking of reusing the knobs and replacing/modding the keys with arcade controls. Imo, it might be cheaper than getting a custom cpu,-
July 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm Quote
I have been trying to find a super inexpensive keyboard that could be re-built but many of them have digital connections- not the kind you can just re-solder to a new control. HAs anyone else found one?
July 20th, 2008 at 8:26 pm Quote
i really like what moldover did with his novation controller. i have an extra 49 key controller and i was thinking about modding it. my korg 49 is a useful controller but has a pretty useless pitch and mod wheel set, an xy joystick that is cool but feels like my son could snap it in half..there is alot of surface space that i think would be good for some trigger buttons underneath the built in sliders.
i’m new to this whole mod thing but i’ve been in search of a good inexpensive controller and in the process am now the owner of too many midid controllers including a korg padkontrol,oxygen 8,axiom 49 and my korg kontrol49.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:27 pm Quote
i really like what moldover did with his novation controller. i have an extra 49 key controller and i was thinking about modding it. my korg 49 is a useful controller but has a pretty useless pitch and mod wheel set, an xy joystick that is cool but feels like my son could snap it in half..there is alot of surface space that i think would be good for some trigger buttons underneath the built in sliders.
i’m new to this whole mod thing but i’ve been in search of a good inexpensive controller and in the process am now the owner of too many midid controllers including a korg padkontrol,oxygen 8,axiom 49 and my korg kontrol49.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:20 pm Quote
Great idea Ean! I’m really excited to see how this turns out, but I’m even more excited to see what you do with it!?!?! How will you use the 4 arcade buttons, (and now) 4 knobs in your DJ set? Oh.. and since I know you will probably answer in Traktor, how do you think someone might use it in Ableton as well?
July 27th, 2008 at 12:32 am Quote
Ableton could be interesting if you set it up as a single channel strip controller and moved between strips with a mouse.
I plan on using it for:
deck focus select
cue point 1-3
loop activate
loop length
efx on/blend/freeze
efx parameter.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pm Quote
That’s some cool stuff u doing ean… now u guys got me hooked on maybe making my own controller hmmmm.. or modding one..
are u guys putting jog wheels or just arcade buttons on your controllers?
July 28th, 2008 at 1:53 am Quote
I’m about to buy the Leo Bodnar controller but my main concern is finding software to translate to midi. I’m looking to use this with Pro Tools. Any help would be awesome.
July 28th, 2008 at 3:29 am Quote
The software thing is a concern. There are a number of them out there but only one option for the mac.
there is a full list here:
http://www.djtechtools.com/2008/02/05/get-a-midi-touch-pad-for-25/
July 29th, 2008 at 7:08 am Quote
Ok, now $58.80 (with knobs and U-HID) is a resonable price :D
Next time you can try to add more inputs… I think it won’t cost much more.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:53 pm Quote
is there any software for windows that will allow you to do more then 14 buttons? I want to make a full mixer and it looks like there is lots of HID hardware here that could easily have enough inputs, but the only software that seems to allow enough buttons and axis is junxion, which is only for mac (I just switched back to windows a month ago :( ). any software in that list i overlooked?
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm Quote
First off, a round of applause for Ean’s efforts to get DJs into building their own controllers.
- For MacOS users, we believe to have resolved the issues Ean encountered, please check our download area. For Windows users, we are not aware of any software problems. We are very actively pursuing software development, expect entirely new (ie. re-written, using different software development tools) releases in the next few weeks.
- We have already updated the information wrt. using 8 inputs and 8 outputs on our website. Note that your design could be implemented, because the outputs CAN be used at the same time as the inputs, BUT you need to do a wiring hack (for now, until we come up with a plug solution). It just comes down to wiring one lead of each of the LEDs to one pin of a header that’s plugged into the top row, and then soldering a wire to the ground pin of one of the sensor plugs (this ground pin can be taken out of the housing). This wire would then need to be soldered to all the other free leads of the LEDs.
- To stimulate interest into the MIDI version of the USB-microDig that Ean evaluated, we put the microDig and StarterPack on special, at US$149 and US$199 respectively, ie. each $100 off ! The promotion will last 2 months, ie. until the end of September.
We are ready to help you out if you’d like to give I-CubeX a try !
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm Quote
I have the utmost respect and consideration for anyone trying to start a small business. Therefore, Dj TechTools strives to give every product as many chances as possible to get it right. Unfortunately, in the case of the icubex product, our patience and the deadline ran out.
The goal was simple, show people a reliable method that would produce predictable results for everyone. If I cant get a interface to work after 3 weeks and dozens of emails with customer service then something is wrong. How will my less experienced readers fare?
August 5th, 2008 at 2:45 am Quote
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/howto/mind.htm
I too want buttons and knobs and for little or no money down. The above device allows 6 analogue inputs (knobs/sliders/etc etc) and 24 (i think) buttons, and is recognised on win/mac/linux as an HID joystick.
I’m still making mine (adding more buttons/knobs/enclosure), but have built the guts and seen it working on all platforms.
The other exciting possibility is hooking up old ball-mouse rotary encoders to some of button inputs, so as to have rotary (endless) knobs as well, great for pitch nudging and softsynth tweaking.
Anyway the ATMega16 microcontroller can be persuaded to do USB-HID and is very cheap compared to the prebuilt solutions.
(note this was my first electronics project)
August 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm Quote
I would like to know if its possible just to borrow the HID-USB interface from an old USB keyboard and if this would support analogue inputs (faders) as well as button as this seems like a super-cheap way of doing it!
August 10th, 2008 at 1:46 pm Quote
No, keyboards are so-called binary inputs, they are either on or off.
Analogue inputs have continous change of value.
You can use analogue inputs ad binary (buttons) but you can’t reverse that rule.
August 10th, 2008 at 4:57 pm Quote
Ok thanks for that, i suppose you could use a mouse to make a (very small!) controller then but its pretty limited on inputs! Does anyone know where to purchase a HID interface with a bunch of analogue and 0/1 button inputs in the UK then?
August 24th, 2008 at 2:37 pm Quote
hi ean,
greetings form india,
i am really glad to know that u made such a simple tutorisl for diy dj controller.
respect…
now i m makin my own controller, i hav just 1 question b4 i initiate,
my controller is midi trigger finger alike,
which will hav 16 buttons atleast 8 t0 10 knobs, and 2 pitch bend wheels.
for this do u suggest the follwing usb interface will be good enough : http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/91
i hav chosen this because i believe that i will not hav to translate the messages to midi in this, as it will be midi. plz correct me if i m wrong.
if u hav a better idea then this, plz guide me.
kind regards.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm Quote
i clicked “part 2″ on this page and got 404′d. is there a part 2 to this tutorial and if so what is the link?
December 7th, 2008 at 12:00 am Quote
thanks for pointing that out. the link is fixed but here it is:
http://www.djtechtools.com/2008/07/28/dj-101-diy-guide/
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:29 am Quote
For those technically inclined, you could use a PIC18F2550 and a few day’s programming to make your own HID controller, there are already quite a few resources out there on the ‘net about this. I’m planning to design and build one for Traktor (got all the parts, just need the time). Should work out cheaper and all go on one big PCB.
Regarding touch sliders, there are also quite a few ones that utilise capacitive sensing (as used for the iPod’s scroll wheel), this would be quite nice too, and flexible on the design in that you could just etch the control surfaces onto the pcb without having any moving parts. The only downside is that the capacitive sensing chips are all surface mount, and are probably beyond the soldering capability of the average DIYer. Nice site with lots of cool ideas!
April 19th, 2009 at 8:02 pm Quote
Hey,
What’s the maximum amount of knobs I can connect to the U-HID? I’m planning on building a controller with 24 knobs and trying to figure out what I should use. I’ve also looked at the midibox64 but i’ve got no clue how to go about it.
Thanks.
April 19th, 2009 at 8:23 pm Quote
Both those U-HIDs can have 8 max analog (knob) inputs. So you need to use multiple devices and a USB hub to get 24 inputs.
http://www.u-hid.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=4
Though I’m guessing that buying 3 U-HID nanos, packaging them with a USB hub in a single box and mapping the 3 devices in software is potentially a workable solution for you…?
MIDIbox can definitely do more inputs, extremely flexible, but major learning curve (especially if you want USB).
April 19th, 2009 at 9:44 pm Quote
Learning curve is not too happy with midibox but you get to learn some things about electronics. I would suggest bilding a midibox, understanding its arcitecture and then use arduino to code some midibox-like interface that has native usb.
On the other hand with midibox, you can always use MIDI-USB cable like I do.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:40 pm Quote
hello, I appreciate your tutorial very well explained on you YouTube video, but (perhaps as I am french) I did not understand one thing :
I would like ton control audio in Ableton Live as you do, and I would like to build a panel with buttons to play my sounds and I need to control the level of 2 or 3 tracks of the software as well…
I don’t know if only an U-HID or I-PAC can do that : how and where should I connects the Pots (potentiometers) for audio level on the board?
In your video you show 2 electronic cards : one is an Universal Joystick Controller BU0836X and the other one is an interface ton transform HID to MIDI ?? is that correct ???
Should I buy these two interfaces or only an U-HID…???? I can not find any information on your site..
thanks for your answer
(answer by email if possible)
August 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pm Quote
waaa !!! very very good answer Ean !!!! I think you’re right! and theur product is a bit expensive too!!!
August 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pm Quote
waaa !!! very very good answer Ean !!!! I think you’re right! and theur product is a bit expensive too!!!
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm Quote
hi! im planning on building one of these, but some information is missing:
-the pots are 500k? 100k? how much watts?
-whats the maximum of buttons i can assemble?
thank you very much!
October 8th, 2009 at 10:41 am Quote
Well… i’ve got one questiom thou… another..! what about the latency is it 5ms < ?…
December 18th, 2009 at 11:39 am Quote
iam doing a controller with 8 arcade buttons..which U-HID board should i use…? Please reply ….Thanks
January 5th, 2010 at 5:37 am Quote
Hey i found the most confusing part of this was the HID as well…
See this for an idea:
http://djseddon.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/ever-thought-about-making-your-own-controller/
Hope it helps.