Start: 9:00

• Ordered two more midi shields.  This will help with the problems i’ve been having as well as make the programming a bit easier.  Balance and Pan seem to work but not perfectly so its better if each finger has its own.  I will also make sure I test with headphones these to see if the distortion is something I did.
• Edited the code to accommodate one midi controller per finger
• Added more error checking to send receive methods of the commgr class.  It kept crashing when the buffer was empty before.
• Exported the code files for my interface from FLUID.  Started changing it so it can accept the data from the arduino.

End: 5:00

NOTE:   The previous version of our midi controllers had voltage  regulation problems.  It is possible that its sensitive to the amperage and when I hook it up to our power supply it overloads it.  I think I only used the arduino or powering the first one though so I don’t know.  Voltage issues would make sense but its supposedly fixed.

Start: 9:00

• Tried to solve the sound distortion problems
• Found out that in order to pan or balance the most significant bit is the sign.
• Took another shot at trying to resolve the hum which seemed worse now.  It just occurred to me that this might be because two channels are at max volume now, instead of just one.  I will have to remember to check this tomorrow
• After many failed attempts to fix the problem, as well as the pan and balance function not being able to completely isolate the channels, I think its best to get two more midi shields and just have one for each finger.  The sound is pretty clear when only one channel is playing.  Not sure why this issue is happening, I even tied to isolate it by using the arduino that isn’t hooked up to anything.
• The headphones port makes the same noise when not hooked up to the amplifiers.  It seems to have something to do with the ground not being isolated but everything I try either makes it so the midi commands won’t execute or theres not enough power for anything.
• The reset pin has to be set high or the device is off.
• I can eliminate the some of the noise by putting the channels on low volume til they are needed the main amplifier already does this though so its more a problem of the two channels.

end: 5:00

Start: 9:00

• Changed all the buffer sizes to accommodate more data.
• Was able to get multiple structs to pass and import properly
• Added a check command function to the arduino side.  This checks for a new commands and executes them.  Commands are in hex so that the first number can be the finger number.  example 0x11 would send the change volume command to the index finger.
• There was something the sparkfun guy sent me to help wire the midi shields to an amplifier.   For some reason the page isn’t coming up,  I’ll try again monday or have it sent to me again.  http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Widgets/MP3Trigger/vs10XXan_output.pdf
• Phil said he could help me get the pressure to volume plotting working using openGL.
• We put rubber feet on the stand which helps it not metalically rattle the desk.  I am not sure how much this helps because I haven’t fixed the distortion problem yet.

End: 6:00

Start: 9:00.

• Showed Clift the prototype.  He liked it.
• Figured out what was causing the index and thumb to short out when pushed at the same time.  One of the amp lines had the polarity of the capacitors reversed.
• There are some sound quality issues.  I will try tinning the leads tomorrow to see if it just a weak connection
• Figured out part of the quality issue is some of the fingers had their input lines reversed.
• Another thing to look into tomorrow is if the quality is bad simply because it keeps getting noteOn commands.  The pervious better sounding sketch made sure it only did this on initiation.
• Worked on building up the communication stuff.  Realized that I was only able to send one struct at a time, so I added a loadBuffer method so that I can send all at once.  Before the buffer was in the main now its part of the commgr class.  The DataDictionary import method seems like it should work as is because it should continue parsing the buffer til it hits a null.

End: 5:00

Start: 9:00

• Built the interface.  A little strange but it seems FLUID does not have a standard label that isn’t attached to anything.   I didn’t really need it but still found it strange.
• Currently the PC side is a sandbox so I’m building it out to have a more defined purpose.  Now that I have things a bit more together I found that I really don’t need to pass as much data as I thought.  All it needs is sensor data to the pc and command + data going to the arduino.
• Still needs a bit more done before I can link the data with the interface.

End: 5:00