Comments on: Project: Guitar with arcade buttons

By: dingo

dingo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:19:23 +0000

well thanks for your help!.. I got it sorted. Used MACIpac to convert the original message into the desired keyboard stokes. Works perfectly

By: dingo

dingo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:14:45 +0000

hey i know this is a late message but i was just wondering how you got the ableton part to work? In other words what keyboard buttons were your arcade buttons simulating being pressed (do you get to decide?) and how did you get these to control ableton (just like mapping a midi cotroller?). Please reply if possible

By: George Sanger

George Sanger — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:40:12 +0000

NICE!

We’re building a similar thing for Jonathan Coulton–the arcade button idea came up there as well–it’s lovely!!

Our goal was to make a musical, sensitive, incredibly dorky and innovative instrument that would suit our Fan-ee so well that he would put down the Martin and pick this up for most of the set.

It is based on a line-6 acoustic variax, so that we can hack the living heck out of it and keep the excellent tone.

The zendrum thing is one component that Jonathan had asked for (we hadn’t seen yours–it’s COOL!), and I think you’ll find our approach different and interesting. Circuit Girl is pretty smart and she’s innovating the buttons in some very cool ways–she’s figured out some tricks using capacitance and proximity sensing and such. There will be display components (at least LEDs. Maybe lasers), and fancy pitch-shifting tricks.

We’ll be brainstorming with Jonathan on Sunday–you should drop in on the chat room–and we’ll be showing footage of that during our weekly webcast.

Fatmanandcircutigirl.com
(click on “live show”)

Sunday 5 pacific on
or tune in earlier for the whole thing raw (if Joco allows it) and live.
We’ll keep you in touch on
http://twitter.com/FMandCG

and
HI LUCAS!

By: Dave Norris

Dave Norris — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:10:58 +0000

Dude, this is beyond awesome.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:15:59 +0000

Any possibillity for sending the signal from the guitar buttons to the laptop via bluetooth?

By: jack-anthony-cox

jack-anthony-cox — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:26:29 +0000

Nerdtopia XD I love it! Ace idea Brad!

By: Seamus Anthony

Seamus Anthony — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:01:23 +0000

Awesome – put me down for three …

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:41:32 +0000

Major geek cred is right. Cool idea.

I’m guessing you don’t really switch guitars ? I’ve just starting playing with Abelton and will be looking at some sort of automation setup for playing live soon too. Think I’ll do the old “find a usb keyboard and bung most of the keys off it and map the rest” method though. Reckon I can live with that in addition to my pedals.

Good luck with this though, interested to see how it pans out.

By: etcetera

etcetera — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:31:01 +0000

Also, weakening the wood on the upper horn might make it collapse, I’m not sure. I don’t think it could hurt much if you did it like this tough.

Good luck, the arcade buttons will earn you major geek cred.

By: etcetera

etcetera — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:29:15 +0000

So you’re gonna trigger song parts using your guitar? Cool.

It looks like you’ve placed the buttons were there are no guts to interfere with. tough the lower 2 might get close to the output jack. (this might be a good thing for wiring reasons.)
The one on the pickgaurd has a pretty good location as it’s easy to acces and the pickgaurd allow routing to be done behind it without being visible. Which leads me to my next question: How are you gonna wire this up?
The top 3 buttons near the upper horn are going to be the biggest challenge.
If I were you I’d start with the one on the pickgaurd and consider placing another one between the volume and tone knob (where the middle pickup tone knob would be on a normal Strat) and near the 5 way switch (you wouldn’t have to route any cavities for the last 2)