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Midimonster.de

Everything MIDI

The Midimonster

The first version

In 2001 a friend and me had an increasing number of gigs. We are doing live Techno and Electronic Music, some Chillout too under the name „Boulderdash“. This is the stuff where you take several hardware sequencer and grooveboxes, prepare your patterns at home and improvise a lot during your gig.

We lacked a main clock source. We needed a proper way to synchronize our equipment via MIDI. At this time we used the usual method via „MIDI Clock Sync": One is the master, the other one is the slave. This method has at least two huge disadvantages during a live performance:

1. If the master stops his sequencer, the slave stops as well.
2. If the slave stops his sequencer, it depends on his machine if he can start again by himself or has to wait for the master to send another start. In every case, the slave will not be in sync again.

Reasons for stopping your sequencer could be: Changing a patch or making adjustments which can’t be done with a running sequencer. Loading a new pattern for example. So we needed a „MIDI Main Clock", which should first give both of us an adjustable tempo to sync to. Further we wanted a pushbutton, which we could press and request a MIDI Start. The MIDI Main Clock will wait for the appropriate time and send the MIDI Start at the right moment. This MIDI Start should go only to the user who requested it. As a timebase we choose one bar. This corresponds to four beats and is suitable for electronic music. So the device had to count from one to four and start over again. You could request your MIDI Start all the time, but it will only be sent if the device transitions from beat four to beat one.

The thing above does these things. It has two MIDI Outputs, one for the each of us. The right button requests a start for the right port, the left button for the left port. With the switch on the top you can choose between Start-Stop Mode and Tempo Mode. In Tempo Mode you increase the tempo by hitting the right button, you decrease the tempo by hitting the left button. Pretty simple, but it worked perfectly. We used the Midimonster, as we called it, during several gigs and it has proved to be very reliable. It was the product of approx. one year of hearing lessons in microcontroller programming and hardware development at university. After this I had to dig through some PCB layout software and finally there were some things to learn about how to etch a PCB in a tiny student appartement. Here is another picture of the final model, painted in camouflage-black, during one of our gigs.

The second version

Soon the Midimonster V1 was not big enough. More MIDI Outputs were needed. Because it's a nice number, we settled for 8 outputs. The Midimonster should run from batteries. The rather expensive display should be replaced by four seven segment displays. More buttons were needed, at least one Start button for every port. Stop buttons should not be needed, because every member can stop his equipment for himself. But a global Start and Stop button is a must. Furthermore a more convenient way to enter the tempo, let's say a rotary encoder with center press. So there is room for more adjustments. All of these features found their way into the Midimonster V2.0 you can see on the foto.