David Pogue made the immensely-successful Missing Manual book series in order to fill in for the manual that should have been included with software. But an impassioned fan of MOTU’s BPM drum sampler went further than that – a lot further.

Simon (ssp/plastikaudio) has constructed an entire hardware controller for BPM. It gives MOTU’s software tangible form, with more than a little nod to the classic Akai samplers and Roger Linn. The form factor is oversized and roomy, with big knobs and faders and pads you can reach out and grab – no tiny hands or mice required.

Now, naturally, most people are never going to go this far. It ought to make clear to developers just how hungry people are for smart tangible control of software, however. And if someday software could come with controllers that were as easy to assemble as LEGO kits, imagine what users could do. In the meantime, the semi-ambitious can follow Simon’s own documentation if they want their own. (Now, if only someone could build the imaginary display, too.)

Obviously, you should just start releasing mock-ups and allow the genius of the Internet to turn it into reality when you least expect it.

Simon writes:

It’s the only full scale replica of the Motu Bpm Software. Its a full size, control surface with every control mappable to any parameter.

The unit is based on the mb64e from ucapps.de which is a diy controller kit of various boards which you can use to build any type of controller you want. The only thing you need to do then is choose components and interfaces and also design a case for everythign to go into.

The casework and everything else was designed by myself and then lasercut and cnc bent. I then painted and labeled the interface also. Also the BPM interface pcb’s were designed by myself also and then optomised by NILS from the midibox forums.

More information:
Akai MPC Forums discussion
MOTUNATION discussion (with shots of the metal casing)
midibox.org discussion

And the software it’s designed to control – worth checking out for features like Euclidian polyrhythm editing. (Hint: math can really groove.)
http://www.motu.com/products/software/BPM/

This is doubly amusing to me, because when I first saw media images for the launch of BPM at 2009′s NAMM, I though MOTU – like Native Instruments with Maschine at the same show – was adding a drum pad controller to go with their drum sampler/machine. (It turned out just to be a creative use of a screen image.)

Ander sends us his creation, “Station,” a brilliant-looking MIDI controller built on the ucapps.de hardware platform. It could easily have qualified for the kinds of designs in the dreams competition – except he went ahead and made it. He filled it in with RGB LEDs, touch pads, and new SMD-based hardware.

The impact of the colored LEDs is something that provides some of the visual feedback of a touchscreen, but with real, tactile control and the satisfaction of using something physical. I challenge the iPad running TouchOSC (or Lemur, or anything else) to a smackdown with this gorgeous beast. Even as a fan of some of the advantages of touch, I suspect the iPad would lose rather spectacularly.

I asked Ander for more technical details:

have a look at MIDIbox of the Week: Station MIDI controller by Ander – MIDIbox Forum There is a diagram about the LEDs and knobs. For the touch pads I am using force sensors at the moment, but they are terribly expensive. I will be switching to FSRs

Some stats, if you want to know more just ask.

- based on the open hardware platform ucapps.de
- Aluminium casing, custom made
- Acrylic knobs, also custom made
- Modularized, can be made into any form
- Flexible PCB: can hold sensors, encoders and/or buttons
- Custom firmware on the microcontrollers
- Custom software interface on the host computer which interfaces via MIDI (in my case to Live)
- RGB LEDs, 24bit color depth (technically)
- USB interface (plus power, this thing needs a lot of power for all these LEDs)
- I have not counted the buttons

It’s an epic piece of work, a real testament to the efforts of its builder. We’ll need a new category of competition, for things other people already made that we dream about / covet anyway.

Nerd alert: Ander, the name “Station” is a reference to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and “Do you want to know more?” in the YouTube description to Starship Troopers … right? (Actually, even if I’m wrong, I’ve just identified myself as a dork cinematic connoisseur.)

Thanks to cooptrol for the tip, too!

Very often, computers and music gear greedily consume whole corners of the room. Here’s a tidy alternative, modest in space consumption as well as in cost.

So, what’s so wonderful about DIY creations by our friend Sasa Djuric (aka fibra)? It isn’t just that his stands are recycled from monitor stand parts. It’s not just because the free ReBirth for Windows and an Asus netbook make for a wonderfully affordable computer music station. It’s not even that his cases for the x0xb0x 303 clone and a MIDIbox project are beautifully executed, or that magnets on the stands more effectively support those gadgets and place them in an ergonomic position.

What’s wonderful to me is that these designs relate the scale of those music-making objects to human hands. You just want to put your fingers on these devices and make some music.

From the Flickr set, Sasa explains:

This universal stand was part of the monitor once. I attached a piece of thick still and and 2 neodymium magnets recycled from hard drive.

[on the now-free-as-in-beer software running on the Asus netbook] …yes, in the name of good old times. ReBirth was my very first step in music making. I couldn`t even imagine I`ll build myself clones of all those machines.

He tells CDM:

I used 2 stands that are leftovers from monitors that are installed into an info kiosk. One is bigger than other which is allows me to cascade few machines. This was a really quick project as I used what I had laying around. Thick piece of steel is wood joint. Magnets are from a hard drive; the
tin plates glued on the eee and other machines are cutout from CDROM drive case, rubber comes from a blood pressure meter…
pretty much everything is recycled.
Besides the x0xb0x and eee you recognized, you can also see a ClockBox – MIDI clock generator (midibox project).

Really beautiful work – economic use of materials, clever design, and it could let you put a drum machine in your kitchen so you can cook music and food for a brilliant evening.

More on the elements of this project:
The x0xb0x is a fully open-source 303 bassline clone
The clockbox is a project based on the Midibox platform (see site, blog)
The Liliputing blog has great netbook coverage
ReBirth lives on as freeware at the ReBirth Museum. This is Windows, but if you don’t want to swap Windows onto your netbook, you can run it in WINE on Linux. (have to try that myself!)
Flickr set

All photos by Sasa Djuric, used by permission.

Ableton Live controllers are suddenly everywhere, in commercial products and DIY creations. But an in-progress prototype being designed by Serbia-based creator Sasa Djuric, found on the CDM Flickr pool, goes the extra distance to integrate more effectively with the software. The hardware looks more like the on-screen UI, for starters – an elusive objective for many controllers. And by working with the Mackie Control protocol, Sasa is able to make communication between hardware and software fully bi-directional, so the controller gives you essential feedback. There’s even a facility for scratching. The design is based on the popular MIDIbox platform.

Sasa writes with details of what the creation process is like. It’s all still very much in progress, so we’re really excited to see how it evolves into a finished design.

Sasa explains (with videos to follow):

Hi Peter.

As you noticed the controller is still in production. It is in the final stage, but there is still quite a lot to be done. Most boring part of project is finished… assembling, engraving filling, sanding and polishing the buttons. Most of wiring is also done …I hate wires. I couldn`t afford to have messy wiring so I paid special attention to do it tidy because I wanted this controller to be as compact as possible without so really no place for mess.

This controller is designed especially for Ableton Live. There are two reasons for building it myself. First, I really enjoy building my own gear, and secondly, there’s no commercial controller that really comes close enough to what I wanted to have. Beside Live, it could be used with almost the same effectiveness with other music software as it’s heavily based on the Mackie protocol and it is completely configurable. I designed it for myself but I think it is very intuitive for somebody who is using it for the first time. I put a lot of effort into ergonomics and organizing so many controls on a small surface and it was a real challenge. Only thing I wanted to have but I left out is a touchpad, but I can live without it. Most of the digital controls (rotary encoders and buttons) have multiple functions and they are accessed easily using group buttons. Some are reserved for the system, like: window navigation, undo, redo, clip controls, and some are freely assignable for "dub style" sample triggering or FX parameter control. Critical functions like volume, start, stop, record, EQ, cue and sends have dedicated controls and have no multiple functions but it can be changed easily if needed. LEDs are activated from software feedback, not internally which is important for minimizing monitor usage. An interesting feature are LED bars which are common with encoders (LED rings) but not with pots. The controller receives the fader position feedback from Live and represents it as a bar on 15 LEDs. It is designed to be used in combination with faders that have snap function, which means there will be no ugly "jump" if the physical fader doesn’t correspond to the volume position in Live.

All internal construction and buttons are made out of 3,4 and 6 mm laser cut acrylic. I used white sub-panel as I wanted to back illuminate it with white LEDs to have nice rings around the pots, but I might left that idea if space become an issue which is likely to happen. Engraving on the buttons is also done using a laser cutter. Jog wheel is 40 steps optical. Quadrature and top disks are also made out of lasered acrylic. They are mounted on a hard drive spinner motor which serves just as a very durable spinning platform. The core of this controller is Thorsten Klose`s MB64E and MB64 (www.midibox.org). I’m also planing to integrate a MIDI mixer so I it can be used without a PC but only volume controls will be supported. If by any chance I find some more room left at the end I’m planning to integrate a USB sound card. After the controller is finished it will be finally housed into lasercut steel case with aluminum side panels. Those are the plans. But I don’t expect it to changed much.

Best regards and greetings from Serbia.

It’s really brilliant-looking work already. I can’t wait to see the finished project! Best of luck to Sasa with this.

fibra’s photo stream

1. A podcast episode with music made entirely on the Optigan, Mattel’s bizarre “optical organ” of the 70s. (See Optigan.com for more on that.)

2. Stefan Goodchild’s blog, aka “Stabilizer”, who’s on Peter Gabriel’s multimedia team (nice work if you can get it), and — in addition to having lots of wonderful goodies built in Mac/Windows music patching software Plogue Bidule, is hard at work with something featuring lots of light-up buttons, evidently Monome-inspired.

I should add something to this discussion, so I’ll add this: Optigan is how you spell it, not Optigon or anything sounding like octagon. That’s it. I’m turning into a copy editor.