I’d like to be able to use a physical controller plugged to a Pixelblaze+Sensor board to control a pattern dynamically, to drive for example a wireless wearable running the Pico.
I could build mine, but i’m wondering if i might be able to save time (and get something a bit more aesthetic) by buying an already made board with a bunch of buttons/potentiometers/sliders, and simply plug it to the inputs so i can concentrate on the code ?
Or maybe even better, being able to interface an actual simple controller, for example MIDI and interpret it with PB code ?
Maybe someone has experience with this ?
Thank you !
This is a great idea, but I don’t think anyone’s built anything ready-made like this yet.
The MIDI bridge sounds like a bit more work since we don’t have the instruction set necessary to decode MiDI directly in PB code. I know “CV” (control voltage, unipolar 0-5V) is popular in analog synths and Eurorack, and that some advanced MIDI controllers like the MPC X can output CV. This would mean just attaching a CV output directly to ADC pins (use a voltage divider to respect the 3.3V max on some pins).
Another option someone could make would be a nice set of physical controls for the 5 ADC pins on the output expander (toggle/trigger/potentiometer). This is convenient because the relevant pins are all on one header, whereas the IO pins on a standard PB are spread across the bottom solder pads.
If you embark on either yourself, have a look at the new GPIO docs.