Hello…
I am newbie in electronics.
I need help to plan wether a repair or reuse project about
a MIDI keyboard (MAudio-Axiom Classic). The motherboard has circuit issues since I have it. After several years I decided it was a better investment to get involved in soldering & electronics, than depending on a tool which would work for weeks and sleep months… and disoldered too much! Well, a pro repaired the circuits and replaced the usb as well as another related component , and it worked fine for 6 months before the nightmare was on again! So came the day for a crucial decision… No I did not smash it in a fatal gesture, I opened it and my first thought was that Icould indebt myself and replace the motherboard and have that tool do what it’s meant to do, but the part is no longer available, 2006 being already a long way to relate to!
Thus, logically, two ways forward:
Learn to check a circuit…
Learn to reuse the controlling modules and build a controller for Ableton.
I am progressing in soldering, youtubing, googleing, learnig theory and Arduino, and enjoying it, but my main scope is stagnating…I am definitely looking for paths to explore or solutions to work on.
Vik
No offence but believe me, if yuo are asking these questions there is no way you can design a new controller for a MIDI keyboard. You could repair the controller if you can learn how it works. (there are a set is contact switches, two or three per key and the controller scans these at high rate and uses the time between switch closings to compute key velocity. So you need to see if the scanner is working and all the switches are clean, not dirty and the that chips have the correct clean power. You at least need a DMM and a scope.
Hello
No offense… actually it’s nice of you to warn me. Still I’m taking a chance and investigate. The first thing I did was try to get a replacement board but they don’t have that model nomore… then, as I am willing since ages to step more seriously into electronics, I got an Arduino because the concept can be a good learning tool, I thought… I think that the parts I have are a good stimulation, having a scope can boost the learning curve, and I have all the time, and not the money for new gear. Besides, nowadays there are alternatives to semi assemble parts and work on libraries and go reading tutorials…
I had a positive answer from support from Rugged Circuits Support:
"You would need something like an Arduino Mega to handle as many as 8 encoders, faders, buttons, etc. The Arduino Uno would not have enough I/O pins for this many controllers.
The Flexible MIDI Shield is one piece of the solution: it provides MIDI IN and MIDI OUT connections to the Arduino (Uno, Mega, etc.) MIDI IN messages can be processed by the Arduino, sent over USB to a computer, or used to trigger MIDI OUT messages. MIDI OUT messages can also be triggered from the Arduino’s I/O pins, connected to controllers. The Flexible MIDI Shield is an interface board; the intelligence has to come from the software that you write for the Arduino."