Practical Usage

Category: Pedal board

  • Making my own PCB: An exercise in frustration

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    rt
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    I decided a few weeks ago that I would make my own circuit boards (PCB) for a while. At least for the first Beta. I succeeded, but the time and money invested make it a very “not profitable” adventure. I had to deal with nasty chemicals, capricious sensitized copper coated boards, unfriendly software and a…

  • PU-2: Additional functions

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    rt
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    I’m getting a lot of feedback from musicians who follow the development of the PU-2 pedal board. A lot has to do with demands for more details on existing functions, but some people ask for functions that the PU-2 doesn’t offer… yet! So far, two new functions have been prompted by public demand. The first…

  • PU-2: Version 0.093 – ALPHA is ready

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    rt
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    Phew! The hardware is now ready to be converted for Beta. This means that Beta testers will have a unit within a week or two. The hard part was the programming. I had to freeze the specifications and develop Alpha code. Here are the specs for Alpha: Hardware Based on standard Behringer FCB1010 pedal board…

  • Side Project: Data Stucture – Application

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    rt
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    If you were patient enough and read through the two previous posts on this subject, you might be wondering how this applies to the PU-2 pedal board in practice. Even if you were not patient enough, here’s how the data structure will be used: The data structure was developed to provide a very simple programming…

  • Side project: Data Stucture – continued

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    rt
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    In a previous post, I defined a simple date structure to help in the transfer of the commands sent to/from a pedal board. In this post, I will complete the definition of the data structure and define the physical layer supporting the structure. Understanding MIDI “What MIDI Is (from midi.org) MIDI, which stands for “Musical…

  • Side Project: Defining a Data Structure

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    rt
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    This is a very long, wordy post. It is that way because it starts with a wordy description of terms. But the goal of the post is to present a simple data structure to define timing, effects and switches that can be used by musicians and equipment to program command streams to send to equipment.…

  • PU-2: how many presets?

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    rt
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    I’m working on the data structure for the FCB1010/PU-2. I’m wondering if there should be a set number of presets per switch or pedal. One way to implement the presets is to define a number, say 10, and decide that this is the maximum number of “effects” for a particular switch in a “bank”. Another…

  • PU-2: adding a display

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    rt
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    The fcb1010 has a numerical display made of 3 digits. It also utilizes a series of LEDs to give more info about its current state. At best, this is an arcane way of doing things, like trying to program a computer using a old rotary telephone. At its worst, it does make you hate the…

  • PU-2: PIN assigments and some testing

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    rt
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    It’s good to have a Mega! Plenty of pins for the prototype. Some of the digital pins are hidden by the shield I made for the connectors. As far as coding goes, programming the PU-2 is easier than programming the PU-1. The switches are all assigned to an independent digital pin. Each can effectively be…

  • PU-2: emulating the FCB1010!

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    rt
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    The PU-2 is now able to emulate pretty much everything a stock FCB1010 can do. I was actually able to send and receive sysex data to/from iFCB, a programming software available on the Mac. One thing that the PU-2 doesn’t do is let the user program it using it’s own foot switches. It was decided…