Midifighter assembly pictures

I was sooo happy yesterday when after months of drooling over the arcade button-based midi controller, the Midifighter, my very own arrived in the mail! These are produced in very limited quantities and had been out of stock for months. Making matters even sweeter was the fact that I won this one in a DJ Tech Tools contest.

One of the cool things about the Midifighter is the ability to customize your own. This isn't a mass produced controller that everyone has. You choose the color of your Sanwa arcade buttons, and you can spraypaint the arcylic faceplate. The result is a whole bunch of different looking Midifighters.

There is a fair degree of assembly required, so I thought I'd walk you through it.

These are all the items that arrived in the box. The circuit board, two acrylic plates, screws and stuff, arcade buttons, a super high quality DJTT usb cable, four stickers, and a letter with assembly instructions printed on the back.

First step is to peel the plastic off the bottom acrylic plate.



Then remove the circuit board from the anti-static bag. This circuit board features hand soldered connections, so that you can just snap in the arcade buttons with no soldering required.



The next step was to peel off the protective paper from the second acrylic plate.



Then I had to insert these plastic rods into the plate. These will feed light from LEDs on the circuit board to the top surface of the Midifighter.



After that, you want to attach these little rubber grommet things to secure the tiny plastic rods in place.



Next I secured the bottom acrylic plate to the circuit board using screws and little metal spacer things. Then I screwed in those larger spacers on top.



These Sanwa arcade buttons are super high quality and made in Japan. Look for the Sanwa on the bottom of your arcade buttons to make sure they're awesome.



Inserting these buttons was a little scary for me. I was afraid of snapping the connections. They do require a little extra push (but not too forceful) just to get them to snap into place.

And voila! My new Midifighter! I chose colors that roughly match the excellent Traktor mapping developed by DJ Tech Tools. If you're interested in what the hell that is, here's a video explaining it. I opted not to spraypaint the acrylic plate because I like the clear look. If I change my mind, I can always remove it and paint it.



Once I plugged in this thing, I was elated to realize this is an extremely rare Midifighter with red LEDs! Usually they are blue.



I flipped it over, and realized for the first time that mine was one of only 100 with red LEDs. Number 89 to be exact.

Soon I'll be posting a video of this thing in use! Thanks again for the free Midifighter DJ Tech Tools!

Pachanga Fest 2010

This weekend we went to a local Latin music festival called Pachanga Fest. Man it was hot outside.

I enjoyed the band Brownout. The guitar player in the black shirt was extra cool with his Les Paul and Wayfarers.


We also had what was definitely the best sandwich I've eaten in months. It was made by Austin restaurant Sazon. They had a little table set up in the vendor area.

The sandwich was a cartinas (braised pork) torta (Mexican sandwich). The juices from the pork sopped into the white crusty bread. The light crunchy salad on top along with some marinated jalapenos added just the right amount of freshness and brightness. Served with a side of fantastically refreshing pink watermelon agua fresca, OMFG it was perfect.

Wired to This Feeling - Grum vs. Dorrough

Being a fan lately of dirty south rap layered on dance beats, I thought I'd take matters into my own hands and mash up a couple of my favorite songs in Ableton Live.  Here's Grum - Can't Shake This Feeling (Grum club remix) vs Dorrough - Wired to the T.

My Launchpad mapping for Traktor

A few people have asked for the 4 deck Traktor midi mapping I created for the Launchpad and used in my winning entry to the DJ Tech Tools Midifighter contest, so I thought I'd just post it here.

Midi mappings aren't that hard to make in Traktor, it's just very time consuming. If you want to save some work you can download it here.  It's a zip file of the TSI and a crude PDF of an Excel file to explain the mapping.

The mapping is really designed for using your Launchpad with another controller like a VCI 100, but there are some empty buttons if you want to add volume or crossfader controls.

My entry to the Midifighter contest

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT! I WON!!!  http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/05/20/midi-fighter-contest-winning-videos/  THANKS DJ TECH TOOLS!!!

UPDATE: Contest winner won't be announced until Monday, May 24  Friday, May 21. Stay tuned. 

I am in love with the concept of this midi controller.  (A midi controller is this.)  Not only does the Midifighter look cool as shit, but arcade buttons were designed by engineers to be rapid fire. That is a very useful thing with midi controllers.

Like a lot of cool things, Midifighters are also very rare. Only 200 were made in the first batch. Each was individually numbered. They are sold out, but 500 more are becoming available in late-May.

The guys who make this also run a blog called DJ Tech Tools. Last month, they launched a contest here to WIN A FREE MIDIFIGHTER!  People were invited to do a cue point juggling routine using any controller. You had to use their four songs.

Coincidentally, one of the tracks was a Gangstar acapella. I should note they chose this track before the tragic death last month of Gangstar's Guru at age 43. Turned out to be a timely selection.

Here's the DJTT example.

Now here's my vain attempt at winning! I'm using a Novation Launchpad, which I custom mapped to Traktor Pro. My mapping divides the Launchpad into four parts. Each quarter of the grid controls one of four decks in Traktor. Each deck has eight illuminated cue points that trigger specific points in each track. You can see the Traktor window in the bottom right of the video.

Contest deadline is May 16. A winner will be chosen May 18 Monday, May 24. Wish me luck! (Other entries can be viewed here.)

(Vimeo version of this video here.)

Basutbudet - Fett Med Soft

Happy Saturday night!

This three years old, but it's so awesome I had to share it! Sweden keeps impressing me. (via iheartcomix.com)