I suppose the issue with touch screens is their size (and their resolution).

A small screen can only have a few on screen buttons or else they become too small to read and too hard to find & press, whereas a large screen takes up a lot of space on the control surface. Of course, small screens can utilise layered menus, but this means that the controls that you may want to have readily accessible can be hidden in lower layers of the menu structure.

vArranger uses only one layer for its main display. This has the advantage that you see everything at a glance and you don't have to dig through multiple menu layers to find a function. However, it does make the display very busy.



I have 17inch touch screens on my system and I still find that the virtual buttons on the vArranger screen are too small to find when live playing. This is why I am making the hardware control surface. Each physical button on my control surface corresponds to a virtual button on the vArranger screen and they are all needed.

Another approach I have seen in soft arrangers is what One Man Band does. In the OMB Preferences you select the type of control surface to be used (i.e. touch screen, computer keyboard or MIDI keyboard) and with the touch screen option you can select the on-screen Grid size (e.g. 6 rows by 13 columns on the image below)



Then you can 'personalise' the Grid by assigning any Function to each of the buttons on the Live Control Window grid.



In the (top menu layer) arrangement shown above I have set up the top row to select Voices (green buttons), the left columns to select Sub-Menus (red buttons), the bottom two rows to select Arranger functions (black buttons) and the centre buttons to control Part Volumes and Tempo etc.

If you have a small touch screen then you can select a smaller grid but this means you will have be more selective about what resides on the top menu layer.

With the SD7, Ketron have gone for a layered menu approach. They are still using physical buttons to call up the Menu pages (e.g. for voices and styles) and the Arranger controls and Part volume sliders are still physical.

A few more parts have arrived.

I'm trying to settle on the final layout for the prototype before I start cutting and drilling some sheet metal.

Here is the current button layout, with faders and drawbars added.

In this arrangement I have stacked the arranger controls into two rows, with the Fill buttons (4 x yellow) directly above the corresponding Variation buttons (4 x blue). The Break, Sync Start, Sync Stop, Fade In/Out, Chord Hold and Left Hold buttons are also in this second row
I have moved the Ending buttons (3 x red) over to the left, next to the Intro buttons (3 x green)



Overall dimensions of the control surface to accommodate all of the components are 1100mm x 310mm - without keyboards.

I'll need four panels:
1 - for the arranger controls, presets and drawbar base (bottom)
2 - for the screen and individual style and voice selection buttons (centre - tilted on an angle)
3 - for the style group buttons and style faders etc (left side, raised up and slightly tilted)
4 - for the part select, voice group, voice/part faders and master faders (right side, raised up and sightly tilted - to allow the drawbar arms to move underneath)

Love your project...

Interested to see how this ends up, just keep the information comming...

What kind of metal plate will you use, and how do you cut / drill it?
I also try to create a prototype for my own use

I already have a fatar keyboard and will use a windows 10 tablet with a second hdmi touch screen (2 screens )

Just wondering, what interface boards will you use to controll lights and sense buttons and sliders?

@ Dan

I plan to use general purpose aluminium alloy (5005) flat sheet - with the standard mill finish. My local supplier will cut to size.

I will centre punch the button locations and use a standard 16mmm metal drillbit in a bench drill to cut the holes for the buttons.

I will use a finer drillbit to drill a row of holes along the fader slots and finish with a jigsaw and file.


@ Bachus

There are several vendors of MIDI encoders and decoders.

I have used some HWCE2x encoders from Midi Gadgets Boutique. These worked well.
http://midiboutique.com/index.php?route=common/home

This time I might use some MIDI encoder + extension boards from Midi-Hardware, e.g. their MBBS plus a couple of BBS-1Ks for the extra buttons and a couple of daisy chained POT12s for the faders.
http://www.midi-hardware.com/index.html

I'm not using lit buttons and MIDI decoders on this first 'experimental' version of the Control Surface because that would more than double the cost of the prototype

Nice, thank you, the midi hardware encoders allow for keyboards larger then 64 keys...

Definately interested now, i feel a project comming up..

vArranger Without control Surface

VArranger2 is such an open system that one with the knowledge and skills of Momboc can work out an elaborate custom control setup for it or someone like me without such talants can still make a 50 plus functions control surface out of just an ordinary PC keyboard as in the video. Among my controllers for vArranger2 are a $10 mini Bluetooth keyboard with close to 50 functions, $10 Bluetooth gamepad (12 functions), MIDI Expression Quattro for 4 foot switches(The Hosa FSC-385 dual latching foot switch takes up only plug in of the Quattro and yet gives two functions), Korg Nanokontrol2 with all the slides, knobs, and buttons I need, and etc, etc. I have the mini wireless PC keyboard and gamepad attached to my midi accordion. I can stroll around and yet control many functions and call up twenty different sounds - all wirelessly.

MOMBOC, I have added the TRACK SELECT 1 to 16 in the vArranger controller's possibility, so you will be able to use it for your project