If you’ve got your own mad musical build under construction, don’t hesitate to drop us a line! Posted in Musical Hacks Tagged gameport, Joystick, logilink, midi, Teensy, Teensy LC, usb, usb midi
We’ve seen other great MIDI controllers, too, from the knitted keyboard to the impressive Harmonicade. It’s a neat project and we’re sure the joystick allows to add a new dimension to his performances on stage. The device is wrapped up in a convenient housing nabbed from an old Gameport-to-USB converter from many years ago. A mode switch enables changes to the system’s behaviour to be quickly made. This data is then converted into control changes, note triggers and velocity levels and sent out over the Teensy LC’s USB interface. Similarly, analog axes are read using the analog-to-digital converters onboard the microcontroller.
With a smattering of simple components, it’s easy to read the outputs of the joystick with only a little debounce code needed to ensure the joystick’s buttons are read accurately. The build is simple and straightforward, using a Teensy LC to interface with a simple gameport joystick. To aid in his own performances, built a special interface to take signals from a joystick and convert them to MIDI messages carried over USB. These days, live music performance often involves electronic synthesizers and computers rather than traditional instruments played by hand.