Optical DJ Controller


[Adrian] sent in this sweet little optical DJ controller. The ‘turntable’ was made from a CD and an encoder wheel created with a laser printed transparent overhead sheet. You can score some optical gear from a spare mouse, or just buy the parts. A PIC18F452 encodes everything into a midi signal. You can find a good photo of the schematics here. And you can hit the demo video after the break.

5 thoughts on “Optical DJ Controller

  1. I would like to know whats going on with the fader? Do you have the whole mixer pcb in that box? Did you convert the 05Pro fader to be optical?

    Also the skratch emulation isvery laggy just like al skratch emulation.

    How does it handle really really slow/fast movements?

  2. Thats not a cd.
    “An electrically conductive scratch wheel. Either spray a 7” vinyl with conductive paint, or cut a circle out of sheet metal.”
    Its used as a capacitive touch sensor

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