I liked the way my Arduino MIDI Channel Monitor turned out so much that I decided to tidy it up and commit it to stripboard after all and I’m pretty pleased with the results.
In the video you can see the LED for channel 10 lighting up when the drums are played and the LED for channel 1 lighting up when the keyboard is played.
Warning! I strongly recommend using an old or second hand keyboard for your MIDI experiments. I am not responsible for any damage to expensive instruments!
This builds on the circuit and code from the original Arduino MIDI Channel Monitor.
If you are new to Arduino, see the Getting Started pages.
Parts list
- Arduino Nano
- 2x 8 LED “bars”
- Stripboard and jumper wires
- Female and male headers
- MIDI receive module (optional)
The Circuit
The circuit is the same as before but this time I put some headers on the board so I can plug in the Arduino Nano and the two LED bars directly with no bending of pins or rerouting of wires.
As with all my stripboard designs I’ve shown it with the copper tracks on top for visibility but of course they will actually be on the bottom.
There are a couple of places where I needed a track to go under a pin of the Arduino without touching, as shown by gaps in the headers above. In reality I just pulled the pin out of the header in the appropriate place with a pair of pliers.
The circuit has a three-pin header (bottom right) for the GND-Signal-5V link to a MIDI receive module (either USB or 5-pin DIN), or just a RX and GND linked to the TX and GND of another Arduino. It is possible to connect the GND-RX-5V of this module to the GND-TX-5V of another Arduino and completely power this module from the other board.
The Code
The code is completely unchanged from the Arduino MIDI Channel Monitor.
Closing Thoughts
This is a pretty neat, simple unit now. If I wanted to get all fancy I could bolt on a proper MIDI receive circuit and put it all in a neat box.
Kevin
Simple DIY Electronic Music Projects 