Custom Designed USB Faderbox

Film composers rely extensively on "sample libraries" to emulate the dynamics of real players. These libraries are comprised of many dynamic and expressive layers that can be used to imitate the range of real players. This makes generating emotional performances easier. However, using small knobs to control volume and intensity while playing the keyboard feels cumbersome and inelegant.

To address this, I created a "long-throw" fader box using high-quality 10cm Alpha Faders, a laser-cut plexiglass faceplate, and a Teensy microcontroller. This box is housed in an old intercom enclosure and sits next to my keyboard controller. By default, it controls the volume and expression of computer libaries. The faders can be reassigned to synthesizer or mixer controls, providing a precise and adaptable computer control surface.
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First I created a laser-cut plexigalss faceplate in illustrator that fit both the surrounding enclosure and the screw mounts for the faders. The faders were then wired to the teensy microcontroller, which was mounted inside and loaded with custom code that assigned each of the faders to generate unique MIDI Control Change (CC) messages, which are sent to the computer


PHOTO OF THE INSIDE 


VIDEO OF IT WORKING

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