MIDI Drawbars Commander

Some weeks ago I found that a stream of wrong, malformed, spurious MIDI messages  was coming from the serial MIDI IN (the 5 pin MIDI in) , when used with a connected Keyboard.

After further investigation and lot of useful suggestion from the Teensy forum (https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/54891-MIDI-serial-(DIN)-to-usbMIDI-issues-got-weird-MIDI-messages?p=202167#post202167) I foud that the components and the wiring I used for the MIDI IN interface were wrong: I wired the 6N139 optocpupler (this is the only piece that's ok) but using the schematic for a different (obsolete) optocoupler.

So I had to open the Commander, remove the the main board (where are the MIDI interfaces too) and change the optocoupler's surrounding components.

Thanks to the modular design I adopted it was a fairly easily task and in a few hours I was able to put in again the main board.

Now I have a really steady stream of messages from MIDI IN: a must for a reliable instrument that has to be gig-worthy

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I uploaded the correct schematic, that was also changed to show all the connector used and how I divided the boards.

The schematic source (KiCAD) is now under version control tto at the GitHub repository

The Drwbar Commander in equipped with a "standard" (5 pin) MIDI IN port as well USB MIDI IN.

They can both be used to merge MIDI in data with thoese generated by the Commander e sends them to both MIDI (5 pin) and USB OUT.

With this release we added a way to "monitor" if MIDI data are coming at the MIDI in ports: when in "ALT" mode the current preset's LED blinks when there is MIDI in activity.

The code is as always on GitHub.

I found some time to fix some little bugs.

With this release you can:

• press ALT + VIB ON to trigger a whole "analog sync": all the drawbars are read and the corresponding CC or SysEX Value is sent via MIDI, so you can be sure that the sound engine is "synced" to the Commander.
• press ALT + FAST to send a "All sound off" (CC 120)...  just "in case" ;-)

You can download from: https://github.com/garubi/MIDI-Drawbars-Commander/releases/tag/v1.3.3