This is a crazy controller that I have put together for the purpose of controlling visuals software, and probably sequencers and synthesizer software as well. It’s a hack together of a bunch of different controllers as a way to test out what works.

Here is a track I put together using just Apple’s Logic and my Minime.

After the jump is more information and photos.

I have tended to perform my visuals using the screen on my laptop to choose video clips, and then doing most of the rest using just a 16 dial controller. I’ve been looking a long time at a lot of different types, sizes, and shapes of controllers and just decided one day to put together a bunch of stuff I already have to see what I could come up with. The case ended up being larger than it would have to be, so if I remade this, I’d measure everything out to make it as small as it could be while also feeling good.

Contents:
1x Monome 40h kit (64 LEDs and 64 buttons, you can add a tilt sensor)
1x Evolution UC-16 MIDI dial controller (without the settings buttons)
1x Intec XBox controller joystick and controller board
2x BBC Microcomputer joysticks wired into aforementioned XBox controller
1x cheesy purple case from the thrift store
1x USB hub
1x USB A port, external
1x USB B port, external

Some of the component parts could just be partially disassembled and then attached to the case. The USB hub, and the UC-16 controller, that’s all I had to do. The rest was more work.

The XBox controller really is a USB device with a strange connector. To use it on the Mac, all you have to do is cut off the original connector, and then wire up a USB connector instead. With the Mac, you also need drivers. I’m currently using Carvware GamePad Companion for most programs, but I think with Max/MSP I can support it without the driver.

The most important modification you can do with a game controller is to take apart the joysticks and take their springs out. Once you do this, they will stay where you leave them. This allows you to use that stick as an X and a Y setting that won’t jump back to the middle. Very useful for audio filters, color filters, and the intensity of various audio and video effect plugins. I lucked out and found a couple joysticks that came from an old BBC Microcomputer (yes, that BBC).

I was thinking that once I figured out what worked, I would transfer things over to a new case. But, I just realized that would be somewhat insane, as I would have to de-solder and re-solder all of the almost 400 solder points on the minime section. So, if I like things, I will make a nicer version, and likely sell this one off as-is.

Here’s a previous post on putting together the electronics kit for the monome in this project: http://v8media.com/2007/10/12/minime/

p.s. – I know the correct pronunciation of Monome is supposed to rhyme with gnome, but I still like calling the little monome section of my controller the Minime, pronounced “mini me”. That or Getome, which should be pronounced “Ghetto Me”

Just a try at creating a Cure-like track. Ended up sort of New Order.

I usually end up getting lost in how many options there are on the computer. Three hours later, I’m surfing the internet and the only way I can remember I was trying to put a song together is that I’m holding onto an instrument. This one I finished because I didn’t do almost anything with filters or effects, and I only used the guitar.

This is a weird little conglom made using various pieces of software. The main audio was created on the fly using the Korg DS-10 software for the Nintendo DS. This was transmogrified using the RjDj app for the iPhone and the Echelon patch. A small amount of leveling was done on the file in Sound Studio, a simple audio program on Mac OS X. The resulting audio file was dropped into Apple’s Motion program.

The video clips are all of my creation, I use some of these files when I am doing live visuals. I tend to use Motion sort of similarly to the way I do visuals. I blend multiple layers of video and fade clips in and out while trying to have the video go with the audio. I can’t work fully live in Motion (at least with the machine I have it running on), but since it can loop segments or the whole project, I get a pretty good idea of what the end result will feel like.

Just got the Korg DS-10 cartridge for the Nintendo DS, and it’s great! This is a simple little modulish patch, somewhat like a modular synthesizer patch.

A little playing in Gleetchlab

A lot of the samples in this are recorded from my 1975 Moog Minimoog. The cars have nothing to do with the audio, but they just might be in the same color scheme.

(Watch your volume dial, some of the audio is fairly off the scale)