theremin help patch /arduino questions

[23fx23]

hi guys ,
(well this is more a concept question than patch actually.)

I bought a moog theremini as a present for my girlfriend for christmas (and to borrow her time to time as usine midi ctrl :V)

the thing is i read it's quite hard to play at start, and i dlike to make her kind of 'helper' tutorial module.

one way i thinked about that could very simple and modular would be a simple midi file player with big fader in IB displaying note
so theorically if she puts the theremin in front of laptop screen it should work. I ll probably go this way as a test and easy to patch..

but just by curiosity, i was wondering if any user experimented with arduino/others ways and if some kind of osc/midi
contolled "hardware" led strip could be build for *relatively* cheap and used with usine, or if any would think about other possible methods. (dmx is probably too expensive, but who knows..).

anyone knows if such thing can be done with arduino and few leds? idea would be a 2-3 octave (24-36 leds) adressable 50cm strip

[sephult]

ucapps.de

Many years ago I had built and worked with building and integrating MIDI hardware.
Things since I have done evolved quite a bit. There are many different examples you can do such as MIDI sequencers, monitors, clocking, and basic MIDI hardware.

Originally it integrated a MIDI interface itself, however I believe it now has a USB/MIDI module as well too.
I have not done much with Arduino from scratch personally however I have heard many that have done quite easy projects.

-S

[23fx23]

cool thanks a lot gonna check this !

[sephult]

Not to take you off course of the arduino, just another cool method of building custom DIY MIDI hardware that could achieve the same results, or possibly a more advanced tool.

I am still buried in tinkering with Raspberry Pi, and have not personally used the Arduino yet....as I was saying though a lot of other people I have know have done some cool stuff with it.

A guy from my work had shown us something he made his wife for xmas many years back. It's an actual mechanical-bell Xmas music machine. He programmed the music by MIDI and triggered the mechanical bells.

The ucapps.de I had done a senior project many years ago in college, we built a forklift and I controlled the forklift using the first version of Cubase on a T100 Toshiba, Win3.1 for pen touch tablet (way before touch-screens became so cool). I used the MIDI-box64 project to do so and actuators. So there are a million ways to do cool things

[23fx23]

oh no, don't worry, im taking every possible solution to investigate^^
I mysef never went hardware modules yet with usine. i remember checking by the past the ucapps stuff too to build custom midi controller, and im actually working with a guy on a raspi based system i didn't/still know very well, very interesting also! so nice the mechanical bells would like to slowly try some stuff with usine.
a midi forlift, now that's cool too hehe yeah you'r right there are always tons of ways!

fond several already but gonna list them all and compare, thanks!

2 arduino or raspi based ways, gonna check the ucapps based possible ways

http://duino4projects.com/rgb-led-strip ... arduino-2/
https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi ... -led-strip

think anyway all systems could be a bit to expansive for what i plan, but maybe i could go for a more universal midi/osc module
to experiment not only this but various stuff with usine, i feel like a child back^^

[sephult]

The raspberry-pi is actually quite easy to trigger the LED.

Since the raspberry-pi has network built in, you could use a midi-over lan protocol and go that route to control.

Use your main computer that has MIDI IO, and send that MIDI via network to the PI, receive the codes and convert to the LED.
The Makerbot book that comes with some kits have easy command line examples for LED switching.

-S

[23fx23]

ok thx! mmm yeah that's what i consider. built in network in could be cool/handyfor various uses.indeed, more powerfull also, and i have to work on a project on it with that friend that seem to know a bit of it, so could be a perfect way to concat all the stuff..

[iococoi]

incidentally,,i just recently got into arduino for lowtec interactive stuff and got me this as a jump-starter

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/arduino-step-by-step

it's quite comprehensive and you'll get a good overview on the whole arduino/diy landscape. via bitsdujour it's just $25(75% off)

[23fx23]

cool! fair price indeed, gonna check as well to get an idea . maybe will test both finally hehe^^ many thx guys!


edit: i gave a shot at the course iococoi and it was very instructive overall and great way to get an idea of the possibilities.
thanks a lot . (i just did part one for now, will do the otherz at nights), then i ll check raspi/ also to decide myself .