Once we get all the control voltage stuff working it would be interesting to see if you could create a pedal board that would add a saxophone and trumpet synth sound.
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The potential is huge!
Id love to get a second Pisound for purely live use alongside a clip on microphone. It will be great to have a brass section in a box’ setup.
Next challenge for me with my current setup is to find the best way to use my melaudio MidiCommander with patchbox 
I actually looked at that device before I built my own. I’m assuming you’re wanting to control effects on a MODEP pedalboard with that device, correct? If so, it’s easy to do from within the MODEP interface.
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Thats right buddy.
I want to make my own long term, but Im a software giy rather than a hardware guy, and wouldnt be cinfident that what id build would look good, ha ha.
The MIDI Commander is great, it is solid and has two expression inputs too.
It has a few midi modes, so just need to find the best one to put out the right commands to work best 
Well if it helps I’m also a software guy but I built my own anyway. And I think it looks good.
Right now it’s basically a stateless midi controller much like what you have but at some point I will modify the code to talk to MODEP.
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Ah please keep me posted with your work mate. I love all of what youve said there, ha ha.
One day Id like to build an Arduino Mega-based controller wjth everything I’d need; buttons to cycle boards in MODEP, plenty of buttons to toggle effects in the boards, a sizeable (touch?)screen, plus two expression pedals built into it for it, with the remaining analog pins being passed to jack sockets for external pedals to be added.
Here’s another pic of mine with the expression pedal. Mine uses the Raspberry Pi Pico W and CircuitPython from Adafruit (https://circuitpython.org/). I chose Circuit python over MicroPython because Circuit Python had support for MIDI. ’
If you’re interested you can read more about my custom device on this post: MIDIZilla for MODEP
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Thanks for this!
I have a few Picos, I love them, and prefer circuitpython too.
I use two of them for keyboard shortcuts for work, both if them using the RGB 4x4 button pads.
I’ll study your build and plan something. Were you ever tempted to build the Pi and Pisound into your box?
Id like to, if i build one. Could have the jack in/out and power input exposing directly on your enclosure, then expose a USB port or two via panel connectors if you need them.
Good question about the integration of the Pi and Pisound into my custom box. I actually thought about that after the fact but in my case I chose to not go that route. Mostly because I already had a Pi, Pisound and the Pisound enclosure from Blokas. And since I help out with compiling/uploading/testing Modep plugins and testing new releases of Modep I sometimes need quick access to the SD card so I just kept mine separate.
You might also want to look at the pi Stomp (https://www.treefallsound.com/). They have done something very similar to what you’re talking about.
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Thats exactly whybinwant a second one ha ha, one to quickly use when I fancy, and one to build into an all-in-one beasty for gigs.
I love the treefallsound one, it just lacks the amount of buttons I like
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I am not completely familiar with “4U case” but I had a quick look on the web, and I would strongly recommend against it without forced cooling.
The Pi runs hot and starts to slow down as it heats up. I forget the exact figures, but I think it can get to 70 celsius (which is very hot) before it starts to slow down to cool itself.
You do not want to be there, live.
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@worik good point! That’s why I installed the Pimorini Fan Shim in Pisound setup:
There’s a couple of topics on this forum about the fan shim and if the software needs to be installed. Some have reported that the software interferes with the Pisound. I myself did not install the software so the fan is always “on” and I have not had any issues.
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Hey buddy, thanks for chipping in!
Yeah the 4U shallow case Im using is a standard 19" rack unit flight case, with space for four 1.75" units of equipment. Mine is around 2cm deep I believe .
In the bottom slot I have my behringer UMC1820 interface, above that I have an input panel.
I have my Pi and also a lattepanda inside on a 1u shelf next, then the top has a vented blanking plate.
The back is open except for a power strip mounted in the top slot.
In order to get the heat out of there I have two large USB fans (140mm) fitted to the back panel to pull air throigh the case. Tbey are quiet enough to allow them to run continuously.
Hello @craighissett
I’m using my set with MODEP for live perfomance on a regluar basis for a few years now, and I’m quite happy with the tone. To be honest what I really miss is the ability to tweak effects parameters “on-the-fly” while on stage. I sometimes used a tablet connected to the internal AP of MODEP, but mod-ui is not very comfortable on mobile browsers and it’s pretty slow… Bottom line is: make sure you have prepared every possible tone variation at home, and you should be good to go.
As for the heat, if you don’t plan to use any Pi Hat audio card like Pisound you might want to consider buying a metal case that can dissipate heat and prevent you from adding a fan. I’m using this one with no problem: https://amzn.eu/d/4TEfNsy
Another 2 cents advice I can give you is to try find a way to gracefully shutdown your RPi as disconnecting power can damage your SD card, it happened to me a couple of times… To achieve this, I have a little push button connected to the GPIO 3. A very simple daemon-script runs in the background and check for the button press sending the shutdown command. The same button can be pressed to start the Pi when in halted state (that is when you shut it down). You can follow this guide if you wish, or I can share the code I’m using, if you want: https://howchoo.com/g/mwnlytk3zmm/how-to-add-a-power-button-to-your-raspberry-pi
Ultimately, as it happened to me that someone setting the stage for the gig would unplug the extension cords, I decided to run my RPi with a huge power bank… 
Happy hacking
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Thanks for your feedback buddy, great to hear!
Im running my Pi4 with a Pisound HAT, and have put the OS on a USB drive to avoid any SD Card-related shenanigans, ha ha ha.
The Pisound does have the option to shutdown the Pi via its button, but fir my studio setup the board is burried too deep for my fat fingers, ha ha.
Switching the filesystem to readonly is something some Pi users recommended to save writes to the sd card, as itnwas the shuttong down mid-write that caused the problems, but I dont know if a) that would benefit the USB drive or b) it would impact how Patchbox would run. Plus itd be a huge PITA for wanting to edit boards.
One thing i would recommend about tweaking effects on the go - look to take advantage of OSC if you can. Theres some awesome phone apps like TouchOSC that can be used to create a tablet friendly dashboard of all the things you dont have access to with your feet.
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Thank you man.
I’ve been looking at OSC, but you have to manually map every parameter to your controller, so it’s a pain in the neck. I didn’t find a way to gather all the effects’ exposed parameters and tweak them with a simple interface, the same way you do when you click on gear icon in mod-ui.
Yeah that’s the only downside, having nothing dynamic to pull all parameters back. If your layout is steady and not changing much i guess itnis worth spending the time crafting the peefect companion control, but it’s a nightmare if you are regularly switching things up.
Yo! A little late to this party, but my PiSound is coming in a couple of days, and I’ve been prepping my image and playing with modep – got all the OSC stuff working, and to say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement.
I’m still reading through these forums, so apologies if this is a repeat question, but is there a quick tip and/or guide to setting up TouchOSC to swap pedal boards? One of the built in layouts, or how to do such a thing manually? (Having some other troubles getting OSC layouts onto my phone, but that seems like a TouchOSC issue, not for here.)
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Changing pedalboards with external controllers is unexpectedly tricky, but it’s possible, if you can get Program Change messages to send. See my reply here for some information on this topic: Another try with Rig Kontrol 3 - #7 by Giedrius
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Thanks for the pointers, @Giedrius! I went down the midi command server route from @whofferbert - made a couple of tweaks, and good to go.
Woo!
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