I Made My Own USB MIDI Controller

Base2

New member
Hey all,

Just posting this here. I made my own MIDI controller. Before I explain what it does I'll post a picture:

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What does it do? I call it ChordGrid. A device that plays chords.

Across the bottom row there's 8 buttons. The first button (the larger one) is programming mode. I'll get onto that in a moment. The other 7 buttons trigger MIDI note on messages. Think of them like the keys on your keyboard.

Except, there's only 7. Why? Each button represents a note in a scale. The C scale has the following keys: C, D, E, F, G, A, B ... so on my controller, if you set it to play the C major scale, each button would have the keys in that scale. My controller can play any scale. The control buttons on the far right allow you to select a scale. The current scale is displayed on the LCD.

Here's the best bit though ...

Each button plays a chord. The control buttons on the right allow you to select what type of chord. For example triad, 7th, 9th etc.

And ...

The 7 notes make up a chord progression. If you're in the C major scale each button will have the following notes: Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Bmin

Which allows you to play chord progressions, in any key, at the touch of a button. Literally. It's impossible to go wrong. There's also an octave control.

And if that isn't enough, there's a programming mode which allows you to create:

* Your own scales
* Your own chords
* Your own progression
* Set the octave of each button
* Set the chord inversion for each button

You can create complex chord progressions without having to play them on a keyboard. The original reason for creating this was because my Acuna 88 wouldn't fit in my tiny apartment, and I had no way to play chord progressions without drawing them into my DAW. So I had the idea of creating a controller.

It connects to any DAW and displays as "ChordGrid" in your DAW's settings. When you press a button it will automatically play the chords.

I hope to get a video up tomorrow. I plan to produce this as soon as I've got the cash. I have some designs mocked and priced up, and a manufacture for the PCB's. I just need to get the cash together to get a batch done. I write all the code myself in C for the Teensy. The primitive version was originally started off as a project I created on the Jazzmutant Lemur … it’s on Youtube but I can’t post links.
 
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