I like motorized faders. You can literally restore the state of the hardware once you've loaded the session in your DAW. Pretty cool, man. Good luck! For the UART issue you can use multiplexers.
Very cool and thank you so much for making it accessible. Do they also sense an obstacle? What I mean is that if they are trying to move digitally and you block them when your hand? will they just start grinding gears and overloading the motor or just stop until allowed to move? Thank you
Dear Ralmslb when the fader is moving you can touch the knob and the movment stops immediatly allowing you to register new automation with your finger. This not because the fader senses an obstacle but because it’s sensitive to touch. Having said that if the fader is moving fastly it might be a bit difficoult to catch the knob with the finger. Probably the solution is to pass to proximity sense… let’s see if someone is interested in testing….
Splendida realizzazione, mi piace che hai messo l'elettronica di controllo con un PCB al fader. Ti cerco su facebook, avrei piacere di scambiare 2 parole con te.
Question. I own an Allen & heath zed r16. Would I be able to replace some or all of the faders with this? Theres 16 channels plus 4 midi faders. And is there a way it would still work with the regular audio passing through as the mixing board is analog/digital and you press a switch to change it from analog to midi. I really want to get motorized faders in this thing to work with pro tools lol
Hello QL Of Landfill, well even starting from the principle "always true" that in everything is possible, I see what you are thinking about quite challenging ;-). It is in fact indeed true that the analog treatment of the signal, like you have in your R16, can be in theory coupled with digital MIDI based circuitry, but that would require a deep modding of your unit to fit the digital MIDI PCBs and components... think about the motorized faders for instance. If you are interested in having the possibility to store and automatize your mixing scenes and still stay in the "standard" mixer domain, I would suggest you to look for built in solutions. There are a lot on the market nowadays. If you like Allen & Heath for instance, they offer quite amazing solutions such as the SQ5. I hope it helps! Cheers!
@@fcampanini thanks man! Yea I was looking at even an old command 8 for this. Would be nice to be able to upgrade the board I have to do everything I need but in the long run probably would make a lot less sense with the amount of money and time I'd have to put into this. Thanks a lot for the answer!
Great video! I have a question you may be able to answer... I have been wondering about MACKIE control for ages. I have a Behringer x touch and It has LEDS on each channel strip that corresponds to your channel strip in your daw (obviously). I've wondered for years where its getting that data from. I've even tried to monitor signals to see where its coming from and I dont get it. Do you know where that is coming from? The reason I ask is I'd love to do a project with an ardunio and some leds to make some kind of master led strip that gets its information the same way as the controller.
Wow, man! I was just searching around for info on code to control motorized faders, but THIS is incredible 😄👍 2 questions: Do they make a lot of sound? Do you think this same thing can be done with smaller faders?
Hello, happy to see you found my project interesting. They do a bit of noise but not too much, in particular I'm using a motor control that works over 20KHz so that the typical PWM motor noise is over the audible threshold. You can use whatever device you want as long as it has a linear potentiometer and a DC motor, I know for instance the 100mm model I am using is available also in a more compact format 60mm. Cheers.
@@fcampanini All of that is very good to hear 😁 I've often thought of making a dedicated motorized ADSR section of a midi controller that would update as the soft-synth is switched, and full size mixer faders seem like overkill. Thanks for the video and reply ✌️
Awesome video! Thanks so much for sharing! Two questions: 1) is the digikey part number PSM01-081A-103B2? and 2) where did you find the grey plastic housing for each slider? I've been hunting for those!
Hello, thanks for your kind words. The stand for the motorized faders is something I have designed with fusion 360 and printed with my 3d printer. Cheers!
Hello Aaron, I think that i have bought from ebay. I don't remember the dealer but it should be enough for you to search metallic or conductive knob and you should find it.
I would buy a kit if someone prebuilt something like this. I'm an artist and want to focus on creating the visuals and just want some faders I can put in my own enclosure
hello friend what a great project two questions to how many faders can be used with that arduino board and what board is it? and what is the reference of the faders you used?
Hello Cristian, first of all I'm not using Arduino. I am using SAMD11 microcontroller on a PCB that i have designed (you can find the board design and the BOM in the comments of the video). In order to program the microcontroller I am using Atmel Studio IDE, Atmel Start configurator and ASF4 framework. In terms of how many faders, my goal now is to fulfil the Mackie protocol and achieve 8 faders plus the master (so 9 in total). The motorized fader I'm using is a Bourns PSM01. Hope to have answered your questions. Cheers, Filippo
Hi man. Thanks for the video. I can use the faders of an old MAudio ProjectMix ? I want to use the projectmix only as a controller by USB (Not by firewire)
Hello Sonic, I dont know this consol but I guess that if we are talking about motorized faders you need to identify power of the DC motor and +,- and line for the potentiometer and that’s it. At the end of the day the fader I’m using in this video is a device with such kind of connections. Cheers!
Hello, although it might be an interesting modding the issue that i see is that you have to find the physical space to fit into your machine motorized faders and digital circuitry to set it up. So IMHO it very much depends on your unit.... Let me please know if you succeed! Ciao!
Ciao Filippo. Grazie per questo tutorial. Francamente non ho compreso come è interfacciato con CUBASE. Potresti delucidarmi questo passaggio. Grazie. Riccardo
Ciao Riccardo, in questo video sto usando una scheda di prototipazione Nucleo-439ZI con una shield MIDI in formato Arduino www.robotstore.it/Shield-MIDI-Arduino-compatibile. In pratica la Nucleo è collegata alla shield via UART e la shield poi esce con i connettori normali MIDI a 5 punte. Nel video intitolato DIY MIDI Remote Controller Full Strip che trovi sul canale (dove mostro una implementazione più evoluta) invece collego direttamente il Microcontrollore via USB al PC e comunico con Cubase via USB MIDI. Spero sia piu chiaro. Un saluto.
@@fcampanini Ciao Filippo :-) Grazie per la delucidazione. Sto lavorando ad un progetto piuttosto complesso. Ti chiedo se possiamo attivare una chat. Ti ho inviato la richiesta d'amicizia su facebook; in tal modo sarebbe posibile utilizzare la chat di MSN. Anche per eventualmente inviarti documentazione. Grazie e Spero a Presto. Riccardo
I'm looking to use motorised faders in my next project, are you just equating the resistance to a position, in code, and moving the motor until you reach that set point? do you have to deal with drift at all? (because I imagine you can't get to the exact set point without the risk of oscillations)
At the end the first action is about matching the position of the fader and the position communicated via software. But there are offset to be considered to manage oscillations, there is a subject of speed of the adc and of the data transfer via dma and I have recently developed a logic of acceleration when the pot is far and deceleration when it gets close that helps in the quality of the result.
Hi is this midi complaint plug and play so it can be found by and daw like pro tools just by plugging in Also can it be custom named so that it could be found be the computer as midi controller “red console” for example? I have a project I’m working on this could be used for
Hello, the project uses the Mackie Universal Control Protocol which is de facto a standard for DAW communication with remote surface controls. Mackie Protocol is MIDI based. So via this protocol you can connect your Protools with such devices. Then about "plug and play" these faders are connected with a Microcontroller via UART, and that microcontroller is connected to the PC or MAC via USB so in this sense it is plug and play. Finally about naming the driver the way you want, again you can do this in the USB implementation. I suggest you to check a couple of other videos in my channel such as the third of the motorized fader series in order to understand how the motorized fader is connected to PC or MAC and the video series dedicated to USB to understand better about how this communication standard works. Hope this helps. Cheers
Hello Eitan, in the case of this Video I'm connecting to the PC via Nucleo-439ZI and a MIDI shield in Arduino format. The Nucleo communicate to the shield via UART and the shield is connected via standard 5 pins MIDI connectors and translate the MIDI messages from the UART to the standard MIDI protocol. If you check instead the video DIY MIDI Remote Controller Full Strip on the channel, you will find a more evolved implementation where I'm connecting the microcontroller to the PC directly via USB and then i communicate to the DAW via USB MIDI protocol. Cheers.
did you got the normal fader and update it with a motor? Can you show a little better how does the motor exacly work to move the slider? Can it be programed to force feedback and work in steps? Do you provide the PCB schematics or is it asking too much? :p
Hi Filippo - I'm trying to recreate this project. Can you tell me how the fader connects to the stm43f446ze board, as it was written in the code on github? Particularly SDA, SCL, RST, SWCLK and SWDIO pins on the fader PCB?
And do you have to upload any code to the fader chip itself? Or just the ST board? Hoping you can provide some insight, as I've otherwise got this ready to go.
@@fcampanini So to confirm - there are 2 separate uploads - One for the SamD11 Chip, and one for the Main Controller? I'm not seeing which code is which. How did you connect a USB port to the PCB that you developed? Thanks!
The one you find in github is for the SAMD11 (the fader). To upload this code you need a programmer debugger such as the Atmel ICE for instance. I have not released the code for the main board (Nucleo-F439ZI) cause I'm working right now on a full console main controller based on a SAME54 (so you will use the same programmer debugger and process as for the SAMD11). However if there will be more requests I will try to publish the one for the Nucleo.
@@fcampanini You've done some amazing work with this. I just ordered some of the blank PCB's from jlcpcb, but I didn't order them with the SMT parts - Do you think it's possible to hand solder those chips onto a blank board? Thanks, - Zach
Hello I never order assembled pcb. I always manually solder. So yess it is indeed possible. If you never soldered smt just check some of the tutorials on you tube... you will surely find your way! Cheers
@@fcampanini Awesome, thanks so much! Again, incredible work with this. You've done the music tech community a tremendous service by releasing all of this info!
Hi Filippo, I'm co-owner of pro audio manufacturer Hum Audio Devices. We're just finishing design of large format analog mixing console. We'd like to talk about cooperation. Is it possible to contact you privately? Kindest regards, Krzysztof Tonn
Hello, the protocol used is the Mackie Control one and so forth the possibilities and limits are the ones provided/imposed by it. In terms of channels I guess it’s nominally 8 per midi Channel. Mackie provides solutions with 8 channel in the basic configuration of their controller plus other 8 additional with the expansion. Cheers.
I like motorized faders. You can literally restore the state of the hardware once you've loaded the session in your DAW. Pretty cool, man. Good luck!
For the UART issue you can use multiplexers.
Just to think about the possibilities... This really is awesome foundation work
Awesome video. Exactly what im looking into doing!
Amazing work! Just subscribed.
Great project, thanks for sharing.
Lovely work
man you are a true genius
Nice work
super nice :)
Nice! Like a Qcon G2)))
God dang !!! Ur the man ,please take my money
gr8 vid ...
Дорогая штучка. Хорошо "буржуям"! ))
looks great please start a github page with all the info
would love to get mine working
Hello It's done!
Very cool and thank you so much for making it accessible.
Do they also sense an obstacle?
What I mean is that if they are trying to move digitally and you block them when your hand? will they just start grinding gears and overloading the motor or just stop until allowed to move?
Thank you
Dear Ralmslb when the fader is moving you can touch the knob and the movment stops immediatly allowing you to register new automation with your finger. This not because the fader senses an obstacle but because it’s sensitive to touch. Having said that if the fader is moving fastly it might be a bit difficoult to catch the knob with the finger. Probably the solution is to pass to proximity sense… let’s see if someone is interested in testing….
Splendida realizzazione, mi piace che hai messo l'elettronica di controllo con un PCB al fader. Ti cerco su facebook, avrei piacere di scambiare 2 parole con te.
hahaha, i love this as the nerd i am
Question. I own an Allen & heath zed r16. Would I be able to replace some or all of the faders with this? Theres 16 channels plus 4 midi faders. And is there a way it would still work with the regular audio passing through as the mixing board is analog/digital and you press a switch to change it from analog to midi. I really want to get motorized faders in this thing to work with pro tools lol
Hello QL Of Landfill, well even starting from the principle "always true" that in everything is possible, I see what you are thinking about quite challenging ;-). It is in fact indeed true that the analog treatment of the signal, like you have in your R16, can be in theory coupled with digital MIDI based circuitry, but that would require a deep modding of your unit to fit the digital MIDI PCBs and components... think about the motorized faders for instance. If you are interested in having the possibility to store and automatize your mixing scenes and still stay in the "standard" mixer domain, I would suggest you to look for built in solutions. There are a lot on the market nowadays. If you like Allen & Heath for instance, they offer quite amazing solutions such as the SQ5. I hope it helps! Cheers!
@@fcampanini thanks man! Yea I was looking at even an old command 8 for this. Would be nice to be able to upgrade the board I have to do everything I need but in the long run probably would make a lot less sense with the amount of money and time I'd have to put into this. Thanks a lot for the answer!
Great video! I have a question you may be able to answer...
I have been wondering about MACKIE control for ages. I have a Behringer x touch and It has LEDS on each channel strip that corresponds to your channel strip in your daw (obviously).
I've wondered for years where its getting that data from. I've even tried to monitor signals to see where its coming from and I dont get it. Do you know where that is coming from? The reason I ask is I'd love to do a project with an ardunio and some leds to make some kind of master led strip that gets its information the same way as the controller.
Hello Jamie, if I got your question properly, all info are coming from MIDI message the Makie Universal protocol is made of. Cheers, Filippo
Wow, man! I was just searching around for info on code to control motorized faders, but THIS is incredible 😄👍
2 questions: Do they make a lot of sound? Do you think this same thing can be done with smaller faders?
Hello, happy to see you found my project interesting. They do a bit of noise but not too much, in particular I'm using a motor control that works over 20KHz so that the typical PWM motor noise is over the audible threshold. You can use whatever device you want as long as it has a linear potentiometer and a DC motor, I know for instance the 100mm model I am using is available also in a more compact format 60mm. Cheers.
@@fcampanini All of that is very good to hear 😁 I've often thought of making a dedicated motorized ADSR section of a midi controller that would update as the soft-synth is switched, and full size mixer faders seem like overkill. Thanks for the video and reply ✌️
Awesome video! Thanks so much for sharing! Two questions: 1) is the digikey part number PSM01-081A-103B2? and 2) where did you find the grey plastic housing for each slider? I've been hunting for those!
Scratch question 1 - just saw your GitHub!
Hello, thanks for your kind words. The stand for the motorized faders is something I have designed with fusion 360 and printed with my 3d printer. Cheers!
do you have a link to the knobs you're using for this? They look awesome!
Hello Aaron, I think that i have bought from ebay. I don't remember the dealer but it should be enough for you to search metallic or conductive knob and you should find it.
Hi, nice project! Did you consider using SPI?
Yes but at the end i still think i2c is the best solution so probably i will change it again. Thanks for your input.
I would buy a kit if someone prebuilt something like this. I'm an artist and want to focus on creating the visuals and just want some faders I can put in my own enclosure
hi thanks you, is it possible to do the same with ardunio and fl studio? I can't get the arduino to detect it when moving the fader from the DAW.
I think that with some limit it is possibile, however the reason why you can’t properly communicating with your DAW is not easy to say.
hello friend what a great project two questions to how many faders can be used with that arduino board and what board is it? and what is the reference of the faders you used?
Hello Cristian, first of all I'm not using Arduino. I am using SAMD11 microcontroller on a PCB that i have designed (you can find the board design and the BOM in the comments of the video). In order to program the microcontroller I am using Atmel Studio IDE, Atmel Start configurator and ASF4 framework. In terms of how many faders, my goal now is to fulfil the Mackie protocol and achieve 8 faders plus the master (so 9 in total).
The motorized fader I'm using is a Bourns PSM01. Hope to have answered your questions.
Cheers,
Filippo
Hi man. Thanks for the video. I can use the faders of an old MAudio ProjectMix ? I want to use the projectmix only as a controller by USB (Not by firewire)
Hello Sonic, I dont know this consol but I guess that if we are talking about motorized faders you need to identify power of the DC motor and +,- and line for the potentiometer and that’s it. At the end of the day the fader I’m using in this video is a device with such kind of connections. Cheers!
when touched, it suppose to disable the motor while finger is on the fader
Well yes, kind of…
please give me a link to buy parts.
Filippo, I would like to discuss adding these to my 36 channel Sapphyre analog console.
Hello, although it might be an interesting modding the issue that i see is that you have to find the physical space to fit into your machine motorized faders and digital circuitry to set it up. So IMHO it very much depends on your unit.... Let me please know if you succeed! Ciao!
Hi. I have a DDA q2 mixing console. I think these would be interesting to install and use with Pro Tools. Have you developed this more?
Please check my Q&A video out! Thanks and cheers!
Ciao Filippo. Grazie per questo tutorial. Francamente non ho compreso come è interfacciato con CUBASE. Potresti delucidarmi questo passaggio. Grazie. Riccardo
Ciao Riccardo, in questo video sto usando una scheda di prototipazione Nucleo-439ZI con una shield MIDI in formato Arduino www.robotstore.it/Shield-MIDI-Arduino-compatibile. In pratica la Nucleo è collegata alla shield via UART e la shield poi esce con i connettori normali MIDI a 5 punte. Nel video intitolato DIY MIDI Remote Controller Full Strip che trovi sul canale (dove mostro una implementazione più evoluta) invece collego direttamente il Microcontrollore via USB al PC e comunico con Cubase via USB MIDI. Spero sia piu chiaro. Un saluto.
@@fcampanini Ciao Filippo :-) Grazie per la delucidazione. Sto lavorando ad un progetto piuttosto complesso. Ti chiedo se possiamo attivare una chat. Ti ho inviato la richiesta d'amicizia su facebook; in tal modo sarebbe posibile utilizzare la chat di MSN. Anche per eventualmente inviarti documentazione. Grazie e Spero a Presto. Riccardo
I'm looking to use motorised faders in my next project, are you just equating the resistance to a position, in code, and moving the motor until you reach that set point?
do you have to deal with drift at all? (because I imagine you can't get to the exact set point without the risk of oscillations)
At the end the first action is about matching the position of the fader and the position communicated via software. But there are offset to be considered to manage oscillations, there is a subject of speed of the adc and of the data transfer via dma and I have recently developed a logic of acceleration when the pot is far and deceleration when it gets close that helps in the quality of the result.
Hi is this midi complaint plug and play so it can be found by and daw like pro tools just by plugging in
Also can it be custom named so that it could be found be the computer as midi controller “red console” for example?
I have a project I’m working on this could be used for
Hello, the project uses the Mackie Universal Control Protocol which is de facto a standard for DAW communication with remote surface controls. Mackie Protocol is MIDI based. So via this protocol you can connect your Protools with such devices.
Then about "plug and play" these faders are connected with a Microcontroller via UART, and that microcontroller is connected to the PC or MAC via USB so in this sense it is plug and play.
Finally about naming the driver the way you want, again you can do this in the USB implementation.
I suggest you to check a couple of other videos in my channel such as the third of the motorized fader series in order to understand how the motorized fader is connected to PC or MAC and the video series dedicated to USB to understand better about how this communication standard works.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
@@fcampanini yes I’ll have a look for sure! Very good
HELLO VERY MUCH IMPRESSIVE BUT HOW THE PCB IS CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER?
Hello Eitan, in the case of this Video I'm connecting to the PC via Nucleo-439ZI and a MIDI shield in Arduino format. The Nucleo communicate to the shield via UART and the shield is connected via standard 5 pins MIDI connectors and translate the MIDI messages from the UART to the standard MIDI protocol. If you check instead the video DIY MIDI Remote Controller Full Strip on the channel, you will find a more evolved implementation where I'm connecting the microcontroller to the PC directly via USB and then i communicate to the DAW via USB MIDI protocol. Cheers.
did you got the normal fader and update it with a motor? Can you show a little better how does the motor exacly work to move the slider?
Can it be programed to force feedback and work in steps?
Do you provide the PCB schematics or is it asking too much? :p
Hi Filippo - I'm trying to recreate this project. Can you tell me how the fader connects to the stm43f446ze board, as it was written in the code on github? Particularly SDA, SCL, RST, SWCLK and SWDIO pins on the fader PCB?
And do you have to upload any code to the fader chip itself? Or just the ST board? Hoping you can provide some insight, as I've otherwise got this ready to go.
Hello yes of course you have to upload the code you have in github in the samd11 you use for the fader.
@@fcampanini So to confirm - there are 2 separate uploads - One for the SamD11 Chip, and one for the Main Controller? I'm not seeing which code is which. How did you connect a USB port to the PCB that you developed? Thanks!
Still a bit lost on how to connect the RST SWCLK and SWDIO pins. Are those the same as the D+, D- and IO pins on a micro USB breakout board??
The one you find in github is for the SAMD11 (the fader). To upload this code you need a programmer debugger such as the Atmel ICE for instance. I have not released the code for the main board (Nucleo-F439ZI) cause I'm working right now on a full console main controller based on a SAME54 (so you will use the same programmer debugger and process as for the SAMD11). However if there will be more requests I will try to publish the one for the Nucleo.
can you do a video showing how you made it? thanks
I did 4. Feel free to check into the channel… Cheers
Hello. Good Video. Can u tell me where i can get the faders from?? Thanks
Hello you can find these motorized faders for instance at mouser or farnell… these are quite common…
@@fcampanini very cool, thank you for the two adresses, big thankk!
What kind of board is that behind the faders, with the midi shield on it? Any schematic for that setup?
Hello it’s a stm32f446ze from st microcontrollers. Cheers
@@fcampanini You've done some amazing work with this. I just ordered some of the blank PCB's from jlcpcb, but I didn't order them with the SMT parts - Do you think it's possible to hand solder those chips onto a blank board?
Thanks, - Zach
Hello I never order assembled pcb. I always manually solder. So yess it is indeed possible. If you never soldered smt just check some of the tutorials on you tube... you will surely find your way!
Cheers
@@fcampanini Awesome, thanks so much! Again, incredible work with this. You've done the music tech community a tremendous service by releasing all of this info!
@@fcampanini Is the circuitry on the breadboard related to the midi controller, or is that for the camera?
Hi Filippo,
I'm co-owner of pro audio manufacturer Hum Audio Devices.
We're just finishing design of large format analog mixing console.
We'd like to talk about cooperation.
Is it possible to contact you privately?
Kindest regards,
Krzysztof Tonn
Hello Krzysztof thanks for being interested in my project. I sent you my details on your email address you shared in the first request. Cheers.
Is there a limit to how many faders can be used?
Hello, the protocol used is the Mackie Control one and so forth the possibilities and limits are the ones provided/imposed by it. In terms of channels I guess it’s nominally 8 per midi Channel. Mackie provides solutions with 8 channel in the basic configuration of their controller plus other 8 additional with the expansion. Cheers.
@Filippo Campanini do you have a contact email that I could ask you a few more questions about this project? Really interested in this.
Hello good enough, you can reach me at fcenginering@gmail.com. Cheers.