I have always enjoyed buttons and knobs. And my interest in the esp32, a micro controller with build in wireless communication and a fast processor with plenty of input and output pins.
This project was made to control a piece of music software called a DAW, or digital audio workstation. I wanted a control surface to make it more user friendly to control Abletin Live, which is created for live-looping but can feel a bit intimidating with the amount of options.
By putting the important buttons right under my fingers it becomes cleared what every button does and gives control to the user thanks to a natural interface between virtual buttons and physical ones.
The project uses 3 mpr121 chips for the buttons which are designed to measure conductive materials, like the copper-wapped buttons of this controller.
It thanks its name to the fact that it is designed around the mixer of Abletin, and it having 5 sliders to control these.
The code is based around the Control Surface library which is able to sent midi messages to the software over Bluetooth Low Energy which the esp32 contains. MIDIberry is used to make sure the controller stays connected to Windows and Loop Midi is used as an interface to Ableton.
Every knob can be used at the same time, and dynamically assigned to every virtual button, thanks to the fact that it uses the midi standard.
