Coagula MIDI Ribbon Controller 2.0

On By di-cillo

A few months ago I published a post on how to make a MIDI Ribbon Controller withArduino. In the meantime I had a few ideas to improve both hardware and software and also felt the need to change many parameters without having toreprogram every time Arduino. Finally I placed the controller in a case, thanks to Laurawho built it. So this is version 2.0 of my MIDI Ribbon Controller, which finally becomes a much more practical tool.

iPad, Camera Connection Kit and peripherals

On By di-cillo

Apple offers for the iPad the “Camera Connection Kit”, a double connector for SD cards and cameras . But many have discovered that you can connect other devices such as wireless keyboards, MIDI instruments and audio interfaces. It should be noted that when you attach a wireless dongle for keyboard and mouse iPad warns “can not use the device – USB device connected is not supported. ”

Drupal 7: editor wysiwyg, pictures upload, lightbox

On By di-cillo

I love Drupal! It ‘s a very powerful CMS, has the support of a huge community, there are thousands of free modules. Features such as CCK, Taxonomy and Views make it an incredible development platform. You can build real web applications without writing a line of code. But unfortunately many people are frightened by the first approach. One of the first issues that it faces a novice Drupal user is the lack of a WYSIWYG HTML editor (what you see is what you get) on the client side in the core installation of the CMS. I had to struggle hard […]

How to build a MIDI ribbon controller with Arduino

On By di-cillo

There are many professional MIDI controller out there: keyboards, drum pads,    mixer, pedals, etc.  One type of controller that interests me most is the ribbon controller because I wanna try to emulate with the  software  plugins what can be done with instruments such as the Ondes Martenot. I think that this type of controller  fits very wellto control virtual instruments such as strings and horns, as it is characterized by aposition and pressure sensitive   ribbon, so you can control in a very intuitive way thenotes pitch and velocity  .   I  decided to do a MIDI ribbon controller using Arduino.

Hacking a keyboard to build a wireless button

On By di-cillo

Some time ago, me and Laura needed to develop a software that enabled a user to indicate the completion of a repetitive action pushing a button every 5-10 minutes. The operator generally worked a couple of meters from his computer and each time he had to get close and press F2. Unfortunately there was no chance for placing a wireless keyboard closer to the operator because he is not sitting, so we thought to use a big wireless button to hang by the wall. Looking around I have not found any ready-made solutions, so I decided to modify an old wireless keyboard (unused […]

Repairing a Polaroid SX-70

On By di-cillo

The Polaroid SX-70 cameras are great but now are 30 years old and so it is obvious that start to deteriorate. With this post I can not explain how to repair any failure of the sx-70, but I will discuss one common defect, which I personally found on my two cameras. I put a new pack of film, close the door, the motor starts to spin making noise, no picture is ejected, and the motor does not stop until I extract the cartridge or until the battery runs out. The problem can also occur suddenly after shooting few pictures. However, looking around the internet I […]

Maurizio Galimberti emulation

On By di-cillo

Among the photographers who use Polaroid films the most famous is Maurizio Galimberti. His portraits are amazing and you can admire them on his website. Just to be clear: to shoot like Galimberti you need study, smartness, creativity and sensitivity, and a real artist should still try their own way. So there’s no surprise to see Maurizio Galimberti showing his technique. Galimberti actually works with many techniques, but probably the best known is that of the Polaroid “mosaic”. The camera used is a Polaroid of Image  type (also known as Spectra or Onyx). There are several models of varying complexity. For this experiment I used a Polaroid Image 2, which is probably the worst models of […]

Gakken SX-150 hacking the controller – tutorial

On By di-cillo

 In another post I wrote about the Gakken SX-150, now I explain how I created a “giant” controller (50cm) for this mini synthesizer, but in order to make this change I had to first understand a little more about the original control system. The strip on the Gakken SX-150 is simply a resistor of about 75 Kilohom. Looking at the schematics I found on the Matrixsynth blog I could think for an alternative to the control system of Gakken. I used a sensor called Spectrasymbol Softpot parallel to the standard sensor. This sensor is available in various lengths, I bought the 50cm long (the maximum available).

Light shield for Impossible film

On By di-cillo

Everybody knows that the first stocks of Polaroid-compatible film produced by Impossible Project suffers from an annoying problem: when the camera eject them they are still too sensitive to light and therefore there’s the risk of ruining them. There are many methods to reduce the problem but I think the one published by consommable and then described in detail by Vinz (here’s the post translated into English) on the forum of the French site Polaroid Passion is the most practical and so I decided to try it with a very small variation.