I've got to get rid of 8 Din's in my new design, what sould they be?

Design Concepts
1

Hi all,

I would like your thoughts on a design issue that I am having. I’m looking into building a Ableton Live controller for DJ’ing. Currently I am deciding what I would like each channel to offer.

To give you an idea how I have “Live” setup,

-I never use more than 4 channels (remember, I only use "Live " for DJ’ing).

-On each channel I always have 1 EQ3 and 1 Auto filter.

-I almost never use send effects, mainly because I don’t believe send effects are very effective on  complete tracks (I hate when a DJ put’s a flanger etc on a track).

-I hardly use the X-fader. Therefore I hardly use the X-fader assigns, but this may change in the future.

-The way that I use Live for DJ’ing I only need one Clip Lunch button per channel

What I have listed below is what I consider to be essential controls (now and for the future) for each channel in my live set-up.

This problem I am having is that each channel will require 34 DIN’s, and because I will be using 4 Channels I need to get rid of 2 DIN’s/  channel

i.e 2 button’s or one encoder

34 DIN’s/channel x 4 channel’s = 136 DIN’s

I have not included DOUT’s in this as I am still unsure of Live’s support for MIDI feedback.

Channel:

Fader       (Pot)

Solo/Cue     (Button)

Mute     (Button)

Clip Stop/Start     (Button)

Select     (Button)

X Fader A     (Button)

X Fader B         (Button)

Send 1     (Encoder)

Send 2     (Encoder)

EQ3:

Bypass      (Button)

Gain Low (Encoder)

Freq Low (Encoder)

Low In/Out      (Button)

Gain Mid (Encoder)

Mid In/Out (Button)

Gain High (Encoder)

Freq High (Encoder)

High In/out      (Button)

Auto Filter:

Bypass      (Button)

Freq      (Encoder)

Reso      (Encoder)

Filter Type      (Button)

Env Depth           (Encoder)

Release           (Encoder)

Button’s      12

Encoder’s      11

Pot’s      1

DIN’s           34

AIN’s 1

Sorry for the long post, your feedback would be much appreciated.

Rowan

2

Auto Filter:

Bypass (Button)

Freq (Encoder)

Reso (Encoder)

Filter Type (Button)

Env Depth (Encoder)

Release (Encoder)

Becomes

Auto Filter:

Bypass (Button)

Freq/Env Depth (Encoder)

Reso/Release (Encoder)

Filter Type (Button)

Freq&Res or Env&Release Selector (Button)

By giving those two encoders a dual use, you save 4 DIN’s, and lose one DIN to switch between them, so all up you save 3 DIN’s per channel

That way seemed least intrusive to me but obviously personal taste is a big factor here. Hope that helps :slight_smile:

3

Hi Stryd,

Nice Idea, I’ll Dwell on that one while I’m at work

Rowan

4

Yeh but the trick is to find a way that works well for you… I mean, if you never modulate the frequency and depth at the same time then that way will work OK…

You could do something like this if you never change EQ gain and frequency at the same time:

EQ3:

Bypass (Button)

Gain Low (Encoder)

Freq Low (Encoder)

Low In/Out (Button)

Gain Mid (Encoder)

Mid In/Out (Button)

Gain High (Encoder)

Freq High (Encoder)

High In/out (Button)

Becomes

EQ3:

Bypass (Button)

Freq/Gain Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain Low (Encoder)

Low In/Out (Button)

Gain Mid (Encoder)

Mid In/Out (Button)

Freq/Gain High (Encoder)

High In/out (Button)

And if you only ever change one frequency band at a time you could save lots of controls and space by doing something like this:

EQ3:

Bypass (Button)

Low/Mid/High Band Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain (Encoder)

In/Out (Button)

Of course this might be a pain, pushing a button to scroll low-mid-high, so you could replace it with a set of buttons to select

EQ3:

Bypass (Button)

Low Band Selector   (Button)

Mid Band Selector (Button)

High Band Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain (Encoder)

In/Out (Button)

Or you could use an encoder to scroll through them

EQ3:

Bypass (Button)

Low/Mid/High Band Selector (Encoder)

Freq/Gain Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain (Encoder)

In/Out (Button)

Of course if you want, you don’t have to limit yourself to only moving a single band at a time… You could do combinations, like having low and mid both change together, or high and mid, or low and high, or all three bands at once. In fact, if you want to, you could do something where when you select all three bands simultaneously, either by holding down all three buttons, or by selecting ‘All’ with the encoder. Having an ‘All’ setting for the frequency band selector encoder (or holding down all three buttons) means you don’t need the bypass button any more, because you could use the In/Out button:

EQ3:

Band Selector (Encoder)

Low

Low+Mid

Mid

Mid+High

High

Low+High

All

Freq/Gain Selector (Button)

Freq/Gain (Encoder)

In/Out/Bypass (Button)

We’re now down to two buttons and two encoders, vs 4 and 5 of each before, and have added functionality … But as I said before, personal taste will play a great part in this. What will work for one DJ will suck for the next.

I think that the main point of what I’m trying to say here is to think outside of the box… Just because your software offers you a certain feature set, doesn’t mean that you have to be restricted to it… MIDIBox is power!

5

PS Please send me the schematics and source code for that motorbooty :wink:

6

Stryd,

You can find the soucre (or should I say sauce) code and schematics in Gif format at:

http://tribalgathering.co.uk/images/BOOTY.gif

Thanks for you sugesstions, you have put some thought in to it! For this purpose I don’t really want multi functional controls in the channel strips. It leaves me open to make too many mistakes during a mix. I’ve been think about using some pots instead of encoders, this will have 2 advantages in this situation. Firstly, it’s going to free up some DIN’s and secondly, I will have clear feedback from the pointer on the knob as to the current state of the control. If I was going to use the controller for something like Logic this would be far from ideal as the pot’s would be serving a multi functional role. In this case though each control will only ever be assinged to 1 function. It will also give me enough free DIN’s to have a section with assignable encoders.

My other idea is just to get rid of the “Send 2” encoder which will free up 2 DIN’s.

I’m still thinking hard about this one. I’ve got time to as I’m still getting the parts that I want to use.

Rowan

7

You could use those encoders with built-in buttons so that they do one thing when pushed in and turned, and another when just turned… and they light an LED when pushed in so that you have visual as well as tactile feedback… But that still might leave too much room for error?

8

I’ve be thinking about doing that :wink: What I will do if I do use encoders is use the ones with the built in  button on the low/mid/high gain controls as the in/out controls for that particular band too keep panel space down and also the cost of having the panel made down. I think I’m going to go for a schaeffer panel on this project. All I need is a windoze machine to run the software  ??? might be time to look on ebay for a new doorstop  ;D

9

For this purpose I don’t really want multi functional controls in the channel strips. It leaves me open to make too many mistakes during a mix.

Rowan, you and I seem to work Live quite similarly (with one exception; I like to have a ping pong delay on FX 1X, it can be really nice for blending tracks really smoothly).

Check my thread if you haven’t and see my 8u layout - Might give you some ideas.