BUO836X

Just wanted to draw your attention to this wonderful little HID device (http://www.leobodnar.com/products/BU0836X/), which is a really simple solution for anyone wishing to make their own controllers.

I just took delivery of the ‘A’ version (thought I’d check out the cheaper option first) and I’m really pleased with it; cheap, dead simple to set up, USB powered, very low jitter, decent resolution – what more could you ask for?

I found it via MidiHid (http://code.google.com/p/midihid/), which is also worth a look, and was particularly chuffed because I’d been wanting to build something out of the little beauty attached below, which is an old video effects generator that was being thrown out where I work. Check out those wooden end cheeks and the clicky membrane switches – sooo eighties!

I’d worked out the pins for the switching matrix and was just wondering how to do the matrix decoding, when I came across the BUO836 thing, which has matrix decoding built-in!
Plus 8 analogue inputs, which takes care of the three pots and the joystick, and leaves three spare for the CV outs of my Theremax – sorted!

Because of the way the switches are matrixed, I actually only have 31 switches working (not quite a Monome, then) and I’ve not sorted the Tmax CV inputs yet, but everything else is working a treat. Hi picks it up straight away, as long as it’s plugged in when you launch Max, and it was usable with a minimum of mapping and scaling in Max.
I’ll post something on Youtube soon,
cheers
Roger