Midi Foot Controller Help

[duffrey]

This is a question for all you midi capable chaps out there.  
I have a Diezel Herbert amp, and it didn't come with a floor board, nor do they make one yet.  The amp however can be midi controlled.  
So I'm wondering if there is a way to build myself a simple midi foot controller for it.
I would like to be able to control ch1, ch2, ch3, master vol, mid cut, mute, and effects loop.  But with not more than six buttons, (for real estate reasons on my pedal board)  So for layout I'm thinking 4, with a bank up, and bank down, or 5 with just a bank select.  Or maybe even just 6 buttons and delete the mute function.  
The manual says that the amp can supply the power, and that all of the switching is done by simple program changes.  So its pretty straight forward.
But this is all uncharted territory to me, so any help I can get would be great.  
Thanks in advance.

Jeff

[Peter Snowberg]

Hi Jeff,

The task of making such a controller is not too complex but if this is new territory it might still be a daunting task.

I would use a PIC microcontroller to build one. It takes a minimum of parts, the program is simple, and it could be done fairly easily on perf board, but there is that issue of the program.

In short... MIDI is just a serial interface with 7 data bits that runs at 31250Hz. The frequency is 2MHz divided by 64 and that was chosen just to make MIDI cheap to add to a synth.

If you've never programmed a PIC before and don't want to dig in to that extent, there is also a product called the "BASIC Stamp" which is a PIC that's pre-programmed to run BASIC. They're more expensive, but they make programming much easier and they would be perfect for an application like this.

Wow! Check out this page!
http://www.jordanautomations.com/basicstampmidi.html

That link has just about everything you would need!

It will take some work, but without question you can do it.  

Take care,
-Peter

[Carlos]

Hi!

This is the floorboard I built,

http://www.ucapps.de/floorboard.html
http://www.ucapps.de/floorboard/floorboard.pdf

it is really simple, you just have to program the PIC. If you can't do it, send the PIC to Thorsten and he will do it for you.

Have fun

Carlos