usb Gamepad

Music

Controller

Make a responsive, stage-ready effects controller from a common gamepad. By Brian Schmierer

Real musicians adjust levels and effects with serious-looking controls.

For years, I enjoyed building analog effects pedals for guitarists. Today’s digital VST (Virtual Studio Technology) effects can do far more, but their interfaces are ill-suited to performing musicians. Having to hunt for a control on a laptop screen or a big piece of studio equipment ruins the mood.

This project is a small USB controller box that device can be a simple delay or a complex synth. combines the flexibility of VSTs with the easy physi- It’s true that you can buy something functionally cality of a pedal. Inside, it has the circuit board from similar if you want to throw down $200 at Guitar a gamepad, whose fast-responding electronics lend Center, but you can build this controller for just $30 themselves to work as music controls. You don’t or $40 over a weekend, and customize its look and have to worry about resistance, capacitance, or any- control layout for your personal music and perfor-thing like that, because the manufacturer already mance tastes. I’ve even built a wireless version. did all the work. Thanks, game controller engineers!

By assigning the parameters of a software effect to the box’s switches and pots, you can control it immediately and intuitively during a performance. The controller has a footprint no larger than a guitar pedal, but it’s 100 times more flexible: the same

Photography by Sam Murphy

Brian Schmierer is a multi-media artist living in San Francisco. He is the co-owner of Sound Arts ( soundarts.org), a recording facility in the Mission District that specializes in experimental and traditional recording techniques.

74 Make: Volume 15