N32B Updates

With each day passing, we are getting closer of having this midi-controller a reality, thought it would be nice to update you with what happened on the last couple of months (except for world-wide crazy epidemic).

So, What’s new?

Hardware

The N32B already has a MIDI-USB connection and an analog 3.5mm TRRS midi output. I found it very useful to have an analog midi input as well. It might come handy when adding the N32B to a DAW-less setup, it will also be useful whenever you might want to customize the firmware to have a different use case (whatever it might be).

Firmware

The new firmware is still under massive development and will support:

The analog MIDI-IN.
Dual use of the MIDI over USB alongside the analog 3.5mm TRRS MIDI connections.
Advanced display options.
Banks and custom setup.

I’ve been working on reducing the use of RAM as much as possible, since the midi libraries I used were too generic and heavy on the RAM.

After posting a preview of the N32B in a facebook group of talented makers, I got some feedbacks which I wanted to explore, such as NRP/NRPN messages. So far it looks like it will be part of the up-coming firmware release.

There is also planned web editor for customization – will post on that soon.

Open Source

The project is now fully an open-source project! Hurray!
You can find in our Github repository the Kicad project with the schematics, board and gerber files. Since the new firmware is not ready, you will find a simple version, will update once a newer version is ready.

Enclosures – yes plural!

Still testing various enclosure options for 3d printing and some cool stands for diagonal positioning.
The plan is to have a thin version and a full enclosure for rough conditions 🤷🏽‍♂️.

Thought it might be nice to have a cover over the 7-segment display, here are the results:

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A post shared by SHIK (@shik.tech) on Sep 13, 2020 at 8:10am PDT

Everything will be available for download in our repository soon.

Manufacturing

Finally, after a lot of testing and an infinite amount of hours spent refining the PCB board, I sent them for small production manufacturing. Those will be assembled and carefully tested before starting to sell it.