The Hardware

The main part of the MIDIbox is the Microcontroller PIC 16F84 by Microchip, which is clocked with 10 MHz. It gives enough performance to handle the potentiometers and to send MIDI data. The AD converter MAX 186 by Maxim is used to measure the voltage from the potentiometers and convert it into digital data streams. And thats nearly all of the Box. Yeah, its really simple. :)

The Software

The software was developed very quickly, the test phase took much longer. New concepts, new routines... but now the handling is very effective. The final source code of MIDIbox 1 is here. But look up for the completly re-design! I appologize for the spagetti code, but compress a complex program into 1k program memory must take compromises. If you are firm with PIC programming, you can extend the source code by your needs.

Available Layers

Two layers are available for software synthesizers. This mean, you can change 16 parameters with your MIDIbox. The Layer 1 and 2 Map:

Layer	Pot1	Pot2	Pot3	Pot4	Pot5	Pot6	Pot7	Pot8
1	$10 XX	$11 XX	$12 XX	$13 XX	$14 XX	$15 XX	$16 XX	$17 XX
2	$18 XX	$19 XX	$1a XX	$1b XX	$1c XX	$1d XX	$1e XX	$1f XX

Also the MIDIbox supports controlling soundcards with EMU chip like AWE and Soundblaster Live! You can play with your EMU soundcard over a MIDI monitor with MIDI thru function or with a sequencer. The Map for the EMU Chip is:

Layer	Pot1	Pot2	Pot3	Pot4	Pot5	Pot6	Pot7	Pot8
3	Volume	Panorama	Expression	Modulation	LP CutOff	LP Reson.	Chorus	Reverb
4	LFO1 Delay	LFO1 Freq.	LFO1->Pitch	LFO1->Vol.	LFO1->CutOff	LFO2 Delay	LFO2 Freq.	LFO2->Pitch
5	Env1 Delay	Env1 Attack	Env1 Hold	Env1 Decay	Env1 Sustain	Env1 Release	Env1->Pitch	Env1->CutOff
6	Env2 Delay	Env2 Attack	Env2 Hold	Env2 Decay	Env2 Sustain	Env2 Release	-	-

Nachbauen

Its easy to build the Box, you can do it yourself without much effort, if you know the right end of the soldering iron. To put the software into the PIC, you need the PICplus programmer kit or one of the minimal programmer, which are available in the internet. I would comment the minimal programmer by Martin Clausen which is easy to build and can also burn the 16F87x for MIDIbox Plus!
Anyway, if you see no chance to program the PIC, I can do it for you. You only have to send a PIC to me. I will get no money for this, but don't forget to send me also some stamps for shipping.

Ergebnisse

FUN FUN FUN !!!

With the MIDIbox I realize, that keyboard and mouse is only a handicap when making music. Now I create my own sounds without stole it from soundfont archives. Yeah, its really cool. :) Here are some examples which were recorded at the first week after the MIDIbox was running:

bsp1.mp3 (140k) LFO experiments

bsp2.mp3 (154k) Drum Jam

bsp3.mp3 (119k) Techno-Sequence (melody taken from radio... ;)

Copyright © 1998-2023, Thorsten Klose. All rights reserved.