A tiny joystick for pitch bending

More info: mitxela.com/tiny_joystick
If you'd like to buy one of these, check out Brendan's website: www.brendan-power.com/DM48.php

[@justanotheryoutuber739]

I still cannot believe how smart every single video is

[@porglezomp7235]

One note if you ever need to do it again, there's no reason to reimplement IEEE754 in JS, you can use a UInt8Array and a Float32Array both pointing at the same ArrayBuffer to reinterpret floats as bytes and vice-versa.

[@RedNoise-hz5nh]

i like your funny words magic man

[@aratof18]

@@RedNoise-hz5nh same lol

[@rich1051414]

Almost always, if it seems like something critical for data manipulation, it's probably already implemented.

[@KyleDavidE]

You are better off using a DataView since then you don't have to worry about endianness.

[@djmips]

Would have been cool to have a demo of bending some pitches eh? Or is that another vid?

[@BrendanPowerMusic]

Here is the demo video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4u9nJ6YlNZ1p9E

[@B24Fox]

seems fit as a keyboard attachment for controlling screen panning.. With the proper acceleration curve, i think it would be very enjoyable when map-scrolling in games.

[@kornaros96]

Gaming on a ThinkPad...

[@rich1051414]

Couldn't you have it set the deadzone as the first read position on power up? That is how most joysticks self calibrate. Obviously that isn't helpful for calibrating the limits, but it should get closer.

[@SianaGearz]

I don't know about MOST joysticks? Nintendo has traditionally done it this way, and SEGA's Dreamcast does it as well. But then drifty Nintendo sticks are kind of a pain in the arse now. This was the only possible way to do it on the N64, because that was an optical quadrature encoder, so it really only conveyed relative movement, but they seem to have just stuck to that since, in spite of switching to potentiometer based sticks. Dreamcast pad doesn't have the drift issue but it has a gargantuan powerful return spring that wraps all the way around the joystick, which most others can't do, there's an axis splitting linkage that would interfere; in turn the Dreamcast stick is made of a dangly magnet and 4 Hall sensors, which is a great idea, except it can compromise the placement of different parts of the overall pad, because you can't have the magnet for the trigger or any sources of magnetism interfere with the sensors for the stick. Xbox360 stick uses fixed calibration resistors on the board. I wonder if the Xbox One does as well. Most of these need generous deadzones around the return point because with time the return spring is damaged and the return point becomes more of a vague return area suggestion. So the behaviour differs a lot depending on where the stick happened to be within that loose area upon automatic calibration. Having bends take a different actuation distance on each power on seems terrible for a music instrument.

[@conorstewart2214]

Or even a button to start the calibration sequence. Like centre the stick then hit the button, then move the stick all the way left then wait a second and then move it all the way right, then centre again. You could use an LED for telling you what to do, even a neopixel or rgb led if you wanted more than just a flashing light.

[@satibel]

You can fairly trivially set a trigger on booting (like if an axis is over 75%) so that you can calibrate by going through the directions.

[@Veptis]

This makes we wonder if my Steam Controller and it's various inputs can be used as a MIDI controller... But the design also reminds me of a tiny RC helicopter which I gotten years ago. It's stick was locked to either go X or Y. You could do both. And it looks like your solution goes the same limitation. By the bit of the software I understood it sounds like you don't have the option to easily control two values at once. Yet a real joystick goes all the angles, which could be X,Y or polar coordinates

[@lavacat720]

Every mitxela video i watch, the smarter i become

[@a.s.9145]

As keyboard player (synth), I want one of this, since my keyboard doesn't have mod wheel I need. Also you just got a subscriber, great channel content. I'm hungry for affordable midi controllers.

[@thesilenceinbetweenmusic]

Would this be a solution for a midi keyboard without an inbuilt pitch wheel? Thanks

[@ChrisJohnsonNMA]

I've been looking for extra midi controls like the Korg nanoKontrol 2 and this sort of thing would be right up my alley. I'd certainly be interested if you are still working with these... how much are they? Would it be possible to extend the control surface at all with additional knobs, faders, buttons etc? or is that really difficult? Thanks in advance. Cool Idea! Chris

[@keizy1479]

Mitxela, trust me on this. If you can produce this with the din pin connector you would have all of nord electro owners patronizing you. You should really consider it. This is the only reason why myself and many others are discouraged from buying this keyboard.

[@benreeves1908]

Very clever calibration system!

[@satibel]

I think you could "simply" do what bldc controllers do and calibrate on boot. You could have a trigger like pull the joystick down while plugging the bender and then cycling up down left right with a snap to center in between, then write to eeprom and reset.

[@RetroPlus]

That's pretty awesome, and very simple.

[@djmips]

That's cool! Funny that you even bothered with IEEE floating point. I'm quite sure you could have got by with fixed point or an integer ratio. Nevertheless, it works! I love the web based calibration.

[@japzproductions]

How's this going? I have a keytar attachment I've been working on and this might be what I need.

[@garyseymour9672]

How about using it for modulation or octave shift. I also agree with others, where's the demo?

[@wabsabwabsab1664]

@mixtela Can I use it on a Yamaha Reface CP ?

[@ConsultingjoeOnline]

Cool little gadget

[@RamkrishanYT]

For someone who doesn't understand anything music related Is there any place I can see it being used

[@wabsabwabsab1664]

Hey great contents! That's exactly what I was looking for

[@AnudeepDONDONDONRlol]

What kind of joycons are these

[@Silverfi5h]

Where is the joystick part available?

[@DeWah]

So you didn't demo it at all in the video apart from calibrating the joystick?

[@trubac19]

Can I buy this....??? I need one!

[@Gartral]

what EliteBook is that?

[@thepianistq8]

Hello, Do you still make these? or anything similar to connect to pc for pitchbend and modulation ? Great video by the way

[@silvea012]

I'm curious why you reimplemented IEEE754 instead of just using a FloatArray32 over an ArrayBuffer, which does conversion between the formats for you in JS.

[@GUNNERBASS]

this is great. There’s a new controller hitting the market called Theoryboard that would benefit greatly from this. Is it possible to purchase one?

[@The1wsx10]

volume control with a rotary encoder would be awesome, but rotary encoders are quite different from joysticks, so maybe just a potentiometer

[@mijaba]

PITCH IN ONE DIRECTION, MOD IN THE OTHER. would be cool to have little buttons on the side to load presets.

[@plokamias_]

Some popular synthesizers like Nord electro or Hammond Sk1 accept pitch bend signal but do not have a pitch wheel themselves. I own a Nord electro and I found this video while searching for a external pitch wheel solution. Any idea on how this could work would be very much appreciated.

[@mitxela]

Unless those keyboards had USB host support, this wouldn't solve your problem (at least, you would have to connect the pitch bender via a desktop computer). I suppose what you're after is a version of something like this, that sends to a conventional DIN connector. It wouldn't be hard to build.

[@Thejokerpokers]

@@mitxela hi htere... did you ever build a solution for the nord electro? (if so, id buy it) ive just got the electro and didnt realise how much i miss the pitch bend.

[@elazar1333]

Please, can you recommend any external midi pitch bend wheel today?

[@elazar1333]

I'm looking for one for the Nord piano 5

[@rouuuk]

i thought the tiny85 doesnt have serial communication, i thought u can only flash it via usb

[@migolas8222]

*How much is one?*

[@BrendanPowerMusic]

For those of you wanting to see this excellent mini PitchBender in action, here is the demo video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4u9nJ6YlNZ1p9E It works brilliantly to add extra expression to the DM48 MIDI harmonica, but it could have many more applications - send in your suggestions! Such a pleasure working with Tim on this project - we must get around to meeting sometime!

[@rhysperry111]

For the idea of measuring the resonance of the mouth you could make a device that slaps you many times a second then listens to the sound that comes off

[@LaskyLabs]

Abahahhahaaaaaa! I love it! Seriously, pitch bend wheels are my favourite thing to fuck with.

[@wojtekclouds]

so where is music with this joystick? :)

[@pronavsandhu]

is it still available? did it actually work as a midi controller?

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

I want to design one for 🎙 effects.

[@7digger3]

Someone please build a keyboard with one of these on every key!!! Polyphonic aftertouch 2.0!

[@Barnaclebeard]

"Bending upward" is called overblowing and (though the technique is different) is possible and commonly utilized.

[@JackToth]

That joystick belongs in a PSP...

[@Ike12]

Can it play doom though

[@dragonslayerornstein387]

YES, I CAN NOW MOVE THE CAM ON A PSP!

[@EntropicTroponin]

Here I was wondering why anyone would want to bend pitch (the black tarry substance)

[@crunchedupruffles]

There’s this project by Wermy, where he’s made these small game-boy like handhelds called mintiPi’s. I think one of these would fit into the handheld and improve it. :) This is a great little joycon! Thanks for uploading!

[@dextardextar]

hope you updated java

[@mattz2372]

Make it a wah pedal/controller for guitar

[@kttkttkt]

Why just don't build self-calibration procedure into the attiny? Triggered by extreme position of yoystic on powerup and then confirming it by some gesture....hmm.

[@mitxela]

I originally had something like that, but there's a subtle problem. The joystick has a normal range, but if you push it hard or wiggle it a certain way, it will go beyond that for a moment. This throws the calibration off, and you can never get the bend fully in tune. It works more reliably if you can set the full bend to something like 5% away from the maximum deflection.

[@dennismikha7541]

plz don't stahp making the vids! good channel

[@nrdesign1991]

Very interesting read! I've been thinking about having simple prototype boards made in China.

[@WillFox125]

sicc

[@BradHoytMusic]

Long discontinued... :(

[@thegamingknight5118]

You should try the ps vita joystick

[@josefayala1974]

Would this support Nord Electros ? Sorry if this has been answered already

[@KillerDragon987]

60 pounds for open sourced code and an attiny85? HUH?