How-To: Arcade Button MIDI Controller

Technology

Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

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@bekathwia

February 22nd, 2011

Instructables user fraganator writes:

Having a hardware interface to your favourite music / DJ / VJ software can really open up doors in your creativity. The most widespread form of hardware control to your PC for such applications is a MIDI based controller.

A MIDI controller can send and receive MIDI messages to your PC, allowing direct control of your software. Not only that, but the controls can generally be mapped to anything your like. So what might be a volume fader for one person can be an effect filter for another.

This article will describe how to build and program a custom arcade button MIDI controller, while trying to keep the price below $100. It is aimed at electronics and programming novices.

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