Goldfish 4 UI board pictures

After some major drama in the workshop (leakages, iron dust cloud, broken floor, rainwater coming in, etc) I finally have some time to share a few progress pictures.

First and foremost: IT WORKS! The Goldfish R4 UI board can be used as a stand alone USB-MIDI controller! I had to do some workarounds, but it all seems to work now and I’ve used it together with a few DAWs. The current version has two modes: “control” mode and “xy” mode. In control mode you can use the encoders to control 6 MIDI-CC values at the same time, and press the encoders to select midichannels or different sets of CCs. The Goldfish keeps 36 controllers in memory, so you can see their value on the LED rings as soon as you switch between pages of CCs.
In xy mode you can control two MIDI-CC values at the same time by using the touchscreen. The left and rightmost encoders control which midi-CC is being sent by X or Y. This mode will get some “auto-LFO” options to spice things up.  

Here it is, showing the LED rings lighting up for the first time:

To save some board space, I’ve added mounting holes to re-use the Connector board from the Goldfish R3. This board provides MIDI plugs and stereo jacks. (the red PCB):

Development is easy: a standard Arduino-serial module plugs in to the board at the back:

Historic moment: First Fish! The hello-world of Goldfish development!

Lacking the time to lasercut a nice enclosure (see “major trouble” earlier 🙁 ) I just took 1 of the leftover PCBs and sandwiched the thing with some hex-standoffs to protect the insides:

Up next – an extra Arpeggiator mode, one more revision of the PCB and some fluo-yellow lasercutting work for the casing!

To be continued!