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I haven't seen another thread on this, so I'll jump in.
Crumar has released pricing for their drawbar expander. This had been discussed on their Facebook page, but I don't Facebook much at all, so I missed it until recently. But their website is now updated. Purchase info @:
http://www.myrigshop.com/
Bottom line, a module with 9 drawbars, can be configured as Upper or Lower manual control. In $ USD, $189 for an assembled module, $139 if you can handle some basic soldering and hardware, and connect the Arduino controller to your computer to load their code. These seem like pretty fair prices.
It is open source, the Arduino 'sketch' (C-code) is posted. I am very happy that it is open source, lots of options for us tinkerers.
I had contacted Crumar a while back, as I wanted to buy their drawbar hardware for my own DIY Drawbar expander project. They mentioned they could probably quote a price for me, but that they were planning on releasing this product soon, so maybe wait to see if it fits my needs as is?
I purchased a Mojo61 earlier this year. Love it, and my plan all along was to add one of my existing keyboards for the lower manual (my old, original DX7), and I adapted the 25-note pedal-board from my old Yamaha E-3 to output MIDI, so I have a full B3 organ arrangement.
But I really want 4 sets of drawbars, plus pedal drawbars, all 'live', and separate C/V upper/lower switches would be nice. So I started on my drawbar expander project. I'm far enough along, what I really need is the drawbar hardware and pots. The components in the DIY kit fit the bill, I have asked Crumar for a price for just the drawbar hardware, knobs, pots and drawbar PC board, w/o the Arduino/board or case.
If anyone is interested, for my own project, I'm using an ESP8266 NodeMCU controller, and some 16:1 CMOS Analog MUX boards to switch all the inputs (4*9=36) plus my switches and pots, to the one Analog-Digital Converter on the ESP. With the ESP controlling all this, lots of possibilities open up. My proto unit has two sets of 8 programmable presets for each manual. I have created an Upper/Lower Balance control, so I can adjust the relative volumes w/o needing to adjust each drawbar. And a unique "MELD" function, which pans the drawbar settings (averaging them), between the A/B drawbars, or a preset and the B drawbars, I will be connecting a foot controller to this (or maybe my old DX-7 Breath Controller?). And separate switches for the Upper/Lower C/V. I'm also thinking about some dynamic control of drawbar settings, like the ADS of an ADSR envelope.
So I'd be interested in hearing about what other people think about this kit. If there is interest, I'll try to find a place to post my code and schematics, if anyone wants to build on that. Or I wouldn't mind doing some mods to the code Crumar has released, if anyone has some functions they'd like to see added, but don't know how to code themselves (my own background in coding is kind of convoluted, but I haven't had too much trouble with this stuff). Their code is straightforward, fits on two pages printed out, it reads any drawbar setting that has changed, and sends the updated value over MIDI/USB-MIDI, with a setup option to control the Upper or Lower manual (each has their own set of MIDI continuous Control #'s).
I'm not certain exactly how one would use this as an A/B drawbar set with a single manual Mojo61 though. From my experiments, you can use the HOLD switch on the Mojo61 so those Mojo internal drawbars can be changed w/o affecting the current sound, so you can be set up for a switch back to internals (like changing the A drawbars on a Hammond while the B drawbars are active). But any external commands are recognized, so you would need a way to disable sending from the external drawbar when the Internal drawbars are selected, or those external drawbars will change the sound. The only way I can think of implementing this to mimic the Hammond would be to also have a MIDI IN on the drawbar expander (as mine does), and monitor the state of that HOLD switch (but it does not seem to transmit its status/change). That is why I want a full set of 4 physical external drawbars, I'll keep the Mojo61 drawbars set to Pedals.
Technical Note: Small programming note on their code. I think it would be best to initialize the 'prev_val' of the drawbars to -99 instead of -1. Reason being, if the unit is turned on, and a drawbar is already near zero, there is not the change of 8 counts from the previous value to initiate an update to the Mojo61. So drawbars near the zero setting might not get sent, until they were moved enough to trigger a response. The Mojo61 would retain any previous value it had, so it might not really reflect those drawbars that are near zero.
Cheers - NTL2009
Crumar has released pricing for their drawbar expander. This had been discussed on their Facebook page, but I don't Facebook much at all, so I missed it until recently. But their website is now updated. Purchase info @:
http://www.myrigshop.com/
Bottom line, a module with 9 drawbars, can be configured as Upper or Lower manual control. In $ USD, $189 for an assembled module, $139 if you can handle some basic soldering and hardware, and connect the Arduino controller to your computer to load their code. These seem like pretty fair prices.
It is open source, the Arduino 'sketch' (C-code) is posted. I am very happy that it is open source, lots of options for us tinkerers.
I had contacted Crumar a while back, as I wanted to buy their drawbar hardware for my own DIY Drawbar expander project. They mentioned they could probably quote a price for me, but that they were planning on releasing this product soon, so maybe wait to see if it fits my needs as is?
I purchased a Mojo61 earlier this year. Love it, and my plan all along was to add one of my existing keyboards for the lower manual (my old, original DX7), and I adapted the 25-note pedal-board from my old Yamaha E-3 to output MIDI, so I have a full B3 organ arrangement.
But I really want 4 sets of drawbars, plus pedal drawbars, all 'live', and separate C/V upper/lower switches would be nice. So I started on my drawbar expander project. I'm far enough along, what I really need is the drawbar hardware and pots. The components in the DIY kit fit the bill, I have asked Crumar for a price for just the drawbar hardware, knobs, pots and drawbar PC board, w/o the Arduino/board or case.
If anyone is interested, for my own project, I'm using an ESP8266 NodeMCU controller, and some 16:1 CMOS Analog MUX boards to switch all the inputs (4*9=36) plus my switches and pots, to the one Analog-Digital Converter on the ESP. With the ESP controlling all this, lots of possibilities open up. My proto unit has two sets of 8 programmable presets for each manual. I have created an Upper/Lower Balance control, so I can adjust the relative volumes w/o needing to adjust each drawbar. And a unique "MELD" function, which pans the drawbar settings (averaging them), between the A/B drawbars, or a preset and the B drawbars, I will be connecting a foot controller to this (or maybe my old DX-7 Breath Controller?). And separate switches for the Upper/Lower C/V. I'm also thinking about some dynamic control of drawbar settings, like the ADS of an ADSR envelope.
So I'd be interested in hearing about what other people think about this kit. If there is interest, I'll try to find a place to post my code and schematics, if anyone wants to build on that. Or I wouldn't mind doing some mods to the code Crumar has released, if anyone has some functions they'd like to see added, but don't know how to code themselves (my own background in coding is kind of convoluted, but I haven't had too much trouble with this stuff). Their code is straightforward, fits on two pages printed out, it reads any drawbar setting that has changed, and sends the updated value over MIDI/USB-MIDI, with a setup option to control the Upper or Lower manual (each has their own set of MIDI continuous Control #'s).
I'm not certain exactly how one would use this as an A/B drawbar set with a single manual Mojo61 though. From my experiments, you can use the HOLD switch on the Mojo61 so those Mojo internal drawbars can be changed w/o affecting the current sound, so you can be set up for a switch back to internals (like changing the A drawbars on a Hammond while the B drawbars are active). But any external commands are recognized, so you would need a way to disable sending from the external drawbar when the Internal drawbars are selected, or those external drawbars will change the sound. The only way I can think of implementing this to mimic the Hammond would be to also have a MIDI IN on the drawbar expander (as mine does), and monitor the state of that HOLD switch (but it does not seem to transmit its status/change). That is why I want a full set of 4 physical external drawbars, I'll keep the Mojo61 drawbars set to Pedals.
Technical Note: Small programming note on their code. I think it would be best to initialize the 'prev_val' of the drawbars to -99 instead of -1. Reason being, if the unit is turned on, and a drawbar is already near zero, there is not the change of 8 counts from the previous value to initiate an update to the Mojo61. So drawbars near the zero setting might not get sent, until they were moved enough to trigger a response. The Mojo61 would retain any previous value it had, so it might not really reflect those drawbars that are near zero.
Cheers - NTL2009