Maker and musician Oliver Hagen has designed a customized MIDI controller to handle perceived usability points on a Roland JD-Xi synthesizer — constructed round each a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W single-board laptop and an Arduino Nano-compatible microcontroller growth board: the DivingBoard.
“[The DivingBoard is] a home-made MIDI controller aiming to unravel the dearth of parameter accessibility on the Roland JD-Xi synthesizer,” its creator explains. “It differs from different options I’ve seen in that customizability and potential ease-of-use are higher, and common use with a spread of synthesizers is feasible, relatively than simply with the JD-Xi. It is a work in progress, presently present as a useful prototype in common use.”
The issue, Hagen explains, is that the Roland JD-Xi is a strong synthesizer with over 100 adjustable parameters to form its sound — all accessed by way of simply seven knobs on its entrance panel, requiring the consumer to dive into nested menus on a cramped show. DivingBoard, then, permits the parameters to be accessed extra shortly — aiding musical spontaneity.
“The [Raspberry Pi] is linked to the synth through USB and exchanges MIDI messages with it,” Hagen explains of the gadget’s operation. “These messages inform the synth to regulate chosen parameters to particular values, thereby exposing all the interior controls for straightforward manipulation. The kicker is that the eight bodily controls on my controller may be assigned to completely different inside parameters arbitrarily, which means that I can all the time have the precise controls I would like below my fingers.”
The gadget permits fast entry to commonly-used sound-shaping parameters, much more shortly than the on-board interface. (📷: Oliver Hagen)
Along with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, a compact single-board laptop, the DivingBoard makes use of an Arduino Nano-compatible microcontroller to learn its inputs and drive the character-based show. “I [had] used a Raspberry Pi 3 [Model] B+ because the mind of this undertaking as a result of it is what I’ve readily available,” Hagen writes of an earlier prototype. “I’ve tried the entire setup out with a [Raspberry] Pi Zero subbed in, and whereas it really works, the latency is clear.”
Extra particulars on the DivingBoard can be found on the undertaking web site, together with a software program obtain; “I’ll try to put stuff on GitHub sooner or later,” Hagen guarantees, “after I can discover time to re-learn how GitHub works.” Further data is out there in Hagen’s Reddit publish.
