“Let’s Meet Today“ using an Accordion MIDI Controller

This is a demonstration of a MIDI controller I’ve been working on for accordion players. Sometimes, a normal mod wheel just isn’t good enough! Someday I plan to share directions on how to build one. The bass buttons push mechanical keyboard switches on two custom circuit boards. A Raspberry Pi Pico reads the sensors and sends MIDI output to the computer over USB. The wheel’s rotation is measured by shining LED’s through it onto two phototransistors and sent to the computer as MIDI mod wheel changes. I made software instruments in Logic Pro using sound samples from my actual accordion. I haven’t written up the design but here are some more details: I drew all the 3D printed parts in Onshape and printed them using a Prusa i3 MK3S , mostly using PETG. You can look at the mechanical assembly here: I designed the bass button circuit boards in KiCad and had them made using OSH Park. Here are the files: Here is the source code for the Raspberry Pi Pico firmware: Also, I wrote up some experiments that I did while figuring out how to measure the wheel’s rotation: @skybrian/a-sine-cosine-encoder-experiment @skybrian/adjusting-for-imperfect-geometry-in-a-sine-cosine-encoder The song is “Let’s Meet Today“ - Давай сегодня встретимся - Umówmy się na dziś - by Boris Mokrousov. Sheet music here: