DIY MIDI Controller For A Worship Leader
You're correct...sort of. It WAS the VSF5, now it is something rather different. The goal of this project was to allow the worship leader I work with to be able to trigger his tracks through MIDI. The functionality is very, very simple in that there are two banks, selectable by the bank switch, and each bank has 4 channels. Each of the 8 total channels is assigned a unique MIDI note that can be mapped to whatever in the software. Pretty cool.
So why did I destroy a perfectly good VSF5? Because I don't own any amp that this works with and have no idea how I came to own it. Having no use for it but finding it too cool to get rid of, I found a new use for it.
First step was to rip everything out and drill holes in the back for a MIDI connector and USB cable.
Stepper bits are invaluable for this sort of work. I highly recommend getting your hands on some.
Once holes were done, I could work on the electronics. I got rid of everything that was inside the chassis save the bank switch so everything else was totally from scratch.
I decided to go with the Arduino Nano...or a knockoff of it anyway. Got a pack of three off Amazon for $12 and they work great. The white board holding all the electronics is a Perma-Proto Half-Sized Breadboard PCB from Adafruit. This was my first time using one and it was a genuine joy. Having a solderable breadboard makes things like this so incredibly easy.
There's no complicated circuitry here. The array of resistors are just going from each digital pin to ground; creating a pull down resistor to ensure a zero when the button is not being pressed. Then, on six of the digital pins are header pins where the outputs of the buttons will be connected. The power rail closest to us is fed with 3.3V and feeds the buttons through the six pin header there. The three pin header on the last three digital pins is for an RGB LED. The opposite power rail is fed with 5V and has a 2 pin header to feed the RGB LED. The final header on the right has 5V, Ground, and a connection to the TX pin. The TX and 5V have a 220 Ohm resistor in series. This header is for the MIDI connector.
That's actually it I think. And if that made zero sense or if you want any other info, check out notesandvolts.com. They know what's up.
This picture comes a bit before the previous chronologically but just shows me figuring out a general placement. here you can also see my RGB LED low side switch board. I created it to be a teaching tool for newer students in my major and it seems to be rather popular. Small brag there, oh well.
I also ordered a pack of momentary footswitches and an assortment of M3 standoffs from Amazon for around $22 total. I got the MIDI connectors from there also. Above you can see I've now mounted the two boards on standoffs and installed wiring for everything. I had misjudged the placement of the MIDI header and ended up moving it to the bottom right there and even putting it at a right angle. Worked out just fine though.
The USB cable stays plugged in at all times. I don't have the software set up to port class compliant MIDI over USB but I do use it as an easy way to power the system and reprogram if needed. Also, since the RGB LED doesn't match the footprint of the LED native to the VSF5, I opted to cut a small rectangle out of a ping pong ball and glue it inside the chassis to act as a diffuser. I think it worked out pretty great.
I guess that's really it. This wasn't meant to be a tutorial by any means, notesandvolts.com is definitely a better resource for that kind of stuff, but I just wanted to do an exhibition of sorts of what I've been working on. It does what it's supposed to do and that's all I can really ask.
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