I received my two MIDI Shield circuit boards from Batch PCB over the weekend.  I’m happy to report that they came out 100% error free.  However, I think I’m going to make one or two minor tweaks before getting a bunch produced.

MIDI requires the use of the Arduino serial port pins, which are also used by the on-board USB programmer.  With my current design the MIDI Shield has to be unplugged before the Arduino can be programmed, which is a pain in the ass.  Instead, I’m going to add a jumper to the MIDI Shield.  Remove the jumper, program the Arduino, then put the jumper back on.  Much better than pulling the whole shield off every time you need to upload code.

The other changes I need to make are to the silk screen.  I forgot to label the positive leads of the LEDs and some of the other lettering is a bit wonky.  All easy fixes that won’t require an additional prototype to be made.

I also need to create a few examples to get people started coding with this thing.  I spent about half an hour coding up a MIDI theremin, but it’s definitely a little rough around the edges.  It works, but I think I need to limit the note range to one or two octaves instead of all 128 MIDI notes.  I might also try to create a dead-simple 16 step sequencer.  With only two buttons and two knobs, it’s going to be pretty primative, but it’ll show people what kind of things the Arduino (and MIDI) can do.  If I come up with anything cool I’ll post a youTube video.