Screen and keypad

[fussl]

This is not meant to disparage the beautiful and extremely high quality design of the orignal Zynthian V5.x.

We can discuss and give feedback and input to the design for the next Zynthian, or for makers constructing some own design.

Before Zynthian, I did actually try to avoid large screens in my setup. Especially the lapop for the VST engines is a source of dislike, because I always fear it breaks.

There have been discussions around musicians about screen size and the robustness of the screen and arguments for and against a certain screen size.
From my experience of two months moving and using my DIY-V5.1Acrylic (at home, in the lab, on events,…) I could summarise this: I like the 8’’ screen. So call me a turncoat if you want.

• A screen size of 8’’ is perfect to use the pattern editor, the pad, the mixer. Everything is at hand without scrolling, even 64 pads on screen are each large enough to safely launch whatever clip/pattern safely and precisely.
• All mixer strips are visible and usable at a glance.
• Multitouch. So nice to edit patterns with pinch and swipe.
• Resolution of 1280x800 is fantastic. Fonts are clear, labels are readable even at distance or in smoke.
• This hardened screen glass survived the most challenging accident. An XLR-connector bashed onto the screen by a cable whip while doing some fast rebuild action did not cause a visible defect in the glass, touch or display. May have been luck, or it is just made that way.
• Drink resistance. I hate when somebody approaches my setup with a drink, but actually my DIY-V5.1Acrylic survived a splash of sugary “Glühwein” perfectly. Just rinsed with water, dried and go. The MX keys also seem to have coped very well with this. The screen has some fine double-sticky tape as a gasket between the glass and the Plexiglas enclosure. Even though the tape has not much sticky strength and the screen is bolted to the crosspiece plate inside the enclosure, it prevented liquids from entering.
• A well-designed edge-to-edge enclosure would not render the Zynthian larger than the original – the MX keypad did so in my example (which anyway is an excellent investment, imho).
• Optical bonding: No parallax problems with touch, no attenuating internal reflections, no double or ghost image, excellent view angle. These are the reasons, why I did not take one of the RPi Screens. I think they are inferior and too much cost-optimised, just one time 10 bucks more and forever a pleasure.

What do you think about screen?

Keypad:
I have the MX Brown Box keys, my next Zynthian will have MX Low Profile, Chocolate or MX Brown Box again. Preferring a little bit of clickiness with reduced noise, I chose browns, box makes them robust against spill or dust. Tthey do an excellent job, imho. I always had problems with aging rubber pads (Electribe ) and frogies (Radias), but never with ‘real’ microswitches. Those frog-clicker-switches of the Mini are a no-go item for me.
I love the LED buttons. They give orientation and make everything so easy, so would never again make or use a Zynthian without them.

What do you think about keypad and switches and LEDs?

Rotary encoders:
Bourns. Through-hole soldered and screw mounted to enclosure. Reliable and precise, no missing codes, precious haptic. No China-knockoff! Never! No.

[wyleu]

There isn’t, in truth a perfect answer only personal choice and context.

It’s also important to differentiate between the zynthian as supplied by the shop and the considerably more diverse world of open source implementations than contentedly paddle along in the wake.

It’s a tool really. A swiss army knife if ancient history is to be believed. It processes sounds and tries pretty hard to tell the user what those sounds are up to and allow a loose affiliation of control devices from MIDI keyboards to pendulums to influence those sounds.

Conceptualy we debated what was the lowest resolution screen and how could we possibly get the most information out of it. A 1 * 1 coloured pixel was the answer or an RGB LED as it’s also known.

A Trio of RGB LED’s identifying as very low resolution screen

What we got from that was a little analysis of what the display icon should be and that morphed into the green heart and it’s many coloured friends. Given we also had some fairly involved discussions about how people lacking visual abilities could use a zynthian, we’e tended to remain fairly agnostic about recommendations, but keeping the overall design as something that can work across pretty much any screen that expresses a desire to play ball with us.

Another thing one gets from a tool is a little learning in it’s use, and perversity plays part here. A completely screenless zynthian certainly works. I’ve bashed a long suffering zynthian held captive by magnets inside a cajon in a field with threatening witches and it has behaved impeccably. The most suitable screen combination I’ve found so far for this scenario is a tablet running vnc with a wireless mouse. Pretty unobtrusive and flexible enough to avoid embarrassments should they arise.

The pedal board has a 7" screen built into it and thou’ it’s a touchscreen I don’t use it as such. More as confirmaionary screen as to how things are connected. A couple of people mentioned how liable to damage such an arrangement is so that might well gain a perspex top at some point to make it a little more boot proof.

I’ve not used keypads much but this is primarily down to quite how one attaches a keyboard or device in such a fashion that its robust enough to survive the close friend of the spilled drink, the casual wire trip,. I tend to use magnets but there are rather too many aluminium and plastic cases on equipment to reduce the likelyhood of that working. I have used three switch foot switches

Which behave as keypads and that works pretty well, but it does add to the sea of wires one tends to get around a well connected zynthian . Mostly, I find USB’s.

Encoders are very much at the core of the zynthian interface. The parameter screens and the GUI combined with an accessible menu structure was built around 4 encoders and the concept is still very much continuing today, so you if you do use 4 encoders you will find a very mature interface that way. Combining encoders with colour LED’s and feedback is something I’ve been banging on about sonce the days the earth cooled, and it gets a little closer every iteration. The V5 LED buttons is this iterations gentle step. Not because It’s a specific design objective just simply because as the zynthian concept of what an encoder is develops and move higher up the human expectancy and comprehension scales, a better tool develops.

So please, share experiences and insights it’s all churned up and chewed over. It’s a pleasure in itself.

[stojos]

@fussl

What do you think about screen?

Screen size bigger than 5” is definitely beneficial when using onscreen buttons. Onscreen buttons on 5” screen are too small for fatter fingers. I am not sure if 8” give any benefits compared to 7” that is much more affordable.

In regards of resolution I am not sure that 1200x800 is that important knowing that 7” screen with such resolution is more than twice expensive than the same size of the screen with a standard 800x480.

[fussl]

The quality of a touch display is not only defined through resolution.

Other things like sharpness, conttrast (true black!), wide viewing angle (Zynthian flat on keyboard), anti-glare (lighting!), optical bonding, touch accuracy (parallax errors!) and mechanical robustness count in as well.

Looking at the Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 I see a greyish matte structure under the glass, which is obviously the actual TFT. Any light shining on it gives a glare on the glass as well as a pool of light on the TFT. A higher contrast image (GUI!) gets reflected from the underside of the glass and scatters on the matte, resulting in unsharp image. The wide frame gives the last dose.

The Waveshare 8DP-CAPLCD has a nice real black, little glare, optical bonding (no inner reflections!, no light pools), thin frame. The outline size is almost the same as the 7’’ Pi Display, resolution is 1280x800 instead of 1280x720, both are fine, but Pi is portrait and has to be hacked around to make it work with Zynthian, the touch rotation troubles counting up more.

BTW i can not undertsand, why customisable touch rotation did not make it into Webconf Display anyhow. I’m too stupid to program it, even though I tried several times. mutitouch.py, as much as I understand, has options in start for inverting and else, so it should not be difficult for a knowing person, which I’m definitely not. I’m in electronics and hardware, so I was only able to hardcode invert as False in the multitouch.py

Now the Waveshare display costs 9 Euros more than the Pi display, which in quantities and small numbers cost 39% more than a 800x480 LuckywhateverChinese with stray pixels and metal frame or simple silicone-glues top glass.

Choices. Cheap is forever cheap and forever lacking something. 10 bucks fly out in another direction after you save them on an item you keep using for long time each day.