My Kingdom For A Remote Volume Knob! can this be made?

[MattHooper]

You are all spoiled.

I remember the first VCR we had when I was a teenager. It came without a remote, but you could buy an optional, wired remote, which my father being a cheapskate, didn't.

I remember in the late 60s, we had to trudge it through a quarter mile of snow in order to change the channel!

(tip of hand to python)

 

[Reddoc]

I remember in the late 60s, we had to trudge it through a quarter mile of snow in order to change the channel!

Uphill both ways. No shoes.

 

[Somafunk]

?I bought the fosi control knob last week from the fosi website (when slightly tipsy) as I thought there may be a outside chance it would work with my Eversolo Z8, it arrived today but nae luck…..bugger.

Anyone want a new knob for £35 ?

 

[ElJaimito]

I was watching an old Darko video in which he discussed his appreciation for being able to control an audio system with a remote volume knob.

He gets to the "why" of this around 51 seconds in:

I was like: YES! Someone gets me!

I place a high value on the combination of ergonomics and aesthetics and the "feel" of equipment.

When I'm streaming my digital music in my system I'm using my iPhone as the remote (or iPad), so that just feels like, well...using my damned iphone again. Like I do all day long. There isn't anything particularly "nice" about the feel of using my phone or ipad for this purpose. For volume I can use the iphone (using logitech server software) but I often prefer to leave the volume at 0 and adjust volume via my pre-amp remote (or universal remote control). Again...pretty much held hostage to the feel of the supplied remote, or my universal remote.
Eh.

What I'd REALLY LOVE is just what Darko describes in the video: a big ol' physical volume knob to control volume, right at my listening position. Ideally one that looks super high quality and lux, and feels that way. I could even imagine a nice wood knob as the dial.

I once had this when I used a Museatex Bidat DAC, which could be run directly in to my amps, the volume was a wired remote control - a dial on a little wood block like this:

View attachment 211845

Not exactly luxurious, but it's the general idea.

I did a fairly extensive search on the web and there doesn't seem to be a product like the one I'm describing. There is the occasional product with a knob remote control, but it's usually proprietary to the device in question. There are remote knobs that you can set up via blue tooth or wired to your computer, but that doesn't solve it either. (My Apogee Duet usb audio interface I use with my DAW has a nice volume knob, though doesn't do exactly what I'm asking).

I have both analog sources (turntable) and digital, running through my preamp in to my system.

So what I'd need is a remote volume knob that is also able to learn or download remote commands to control either my LA4 or Conrad Johnson preamps. Right now those are controlled with their own remotes (and an IR repeater system).

Lacking any finished product I wondered if such a learning volume knob could be built custom. But I have no idea if there are any sort of "computer module" parts that would constitute the "learning remote codes" part somehow in concert with some potentiometer section or whatever?

To be honest, this post is more curiosity about how difficult such a project would be more than any likelihood I'd engage in trying to build one. And among the vast experience on this site, perhaps someone has actually come across something like this, or used one before.

As a VERY late comment, as this just popped up in my feed, and I haven't read all 20 pages of the thread; in my studio I use this:

TC Electronic Monitor Pilot

TC’s Monitor Pilot is a simple monitor controller with a small, wired remote control unit. The idea, of course, is...

www.soundonsound.com

All analog I/O, probably internally too. Works for me, no quality issues whatsoever.

Some may not like it as it's active: I suspect it uses THAT2180 or similar internally, and will have op-amps. Just saying.

I like op-amps, but some don't.

MeJ

 

[MCH]

4 years after, i am still looking for the perfect solution (for me). My custom zigbee knob still works, but is a bit slow for my taste. I have a new idea now, which i am not sure yet i have the energy to pursue.

My priorities are very low power consumption (must last at least months), fast response, and the best possible feel, that is the most difficult to DIY.
I have been thinking to build something with a nRF52480 microcontroller, that can sleep on a button cell battery for months if not years. And today i remembered I have a Microsoft surface dial bricked since a long time. The dial is, in my opinion "the knob" in terms of construction and feel.

Went ahead and teared down the dial (disclaimer, don't follow the ifixit instructions, they got it completely wrong). To my surprise and delight, the mechanical part is completely independent from the electronics. The way the dial works is with an optical sensor at the side that reads the movement of the outer case from inside, like an optical mouse. All the bearings and structural components, battery compartiment, everything! have nothing to do with the encoding, so one could just swap the original PCB for a custom one. Just need to respect the dimensions, contact points for the power, and screws, of course:

the optical sensor is at the bottom right. The thing that looks like a button battery is the vibration motor, what could be perfectly salvaged.

The bearing parts are hold together by that plastic cone screw at the center, that is completely covered in some sort of grease, that for nothing in this world will try to clean.

Not surprisingly, the knob is based as well on a nrf52 microcontroller, and there are plenty of test points, but from what i understand, trying to reverse engineer and flash a custom firmware is well above my pay grade.
The biggest limitation i see is to have to stick to optical encoder, what is completely new for me. I might even try to find out what part the original one is and find documentation, and with that, try to salvage it, but i have already seen it has a lot of pins.... so might be a complex controller itself... (edit: it is a pixart PMT9123QS-TVIT, still a current part and one of the few that reads at 90 degrees)

 

[john61ct]

RPi + CamillaDSP Tutorial

5B is not a bad device, but IMO if an SBC needs active cooling, it's intended for different use than passively cooled ones. What a device "is intended for" often has little to do with the uses it ends up serving. How many million taps do you need? I need 8 analog ports per RPi, therefore...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[jhenderson0107]

That Waveshare ESP32 Knob now has an implementation for Roon, Lyrion (LMS) and HQPlayer done by muness with AI help.
You can see the controller at

GitHub - muness/roon-knob: Custom firmware to turn a Waveshare ESP32-S3 Knob into a dedicated Hifi controller

Custom firmware to turn a Waveshare ESP32-S3 Knob into a dedicated Hifi controller - muness/roon-knob

github.com

and a partner server component at

GitHub - open-horizon-labs/unified-hifi-control: Source-agnostic hi-fi control bridge

Source-agnostic hi-fi control bridge. Contribute to open-horizon-labs/unified-hifi-control development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

...

I run both Roon and LMS. I installed Muness' server as a docker container and it controls my LMS instance just fine. But it can't detect my roon instance.

 

[djn04]

I run both Roon and LMS. I installed Muness' server as a docker container and it controls my LMS instance just fine. But I can't that server to detect my roon instance.

Did you go into the Roon settings under extensions to enable it?

I used his work as inspiration and with Claude's help created my own version of the remote that matches Roon's UI better. If I long press the screen I can use voice to ask Claude to create playlist, play a song/album/artist, etc. In the attached photo I asked it to create a playlist of artists playing this weekend at Outside Lands.

 

[jhenderson0107]

Did you go into the Roon settings under extensions to enable it?

I used his work as inspiration and with Claude's help created my own version of the remote that matches Roon's UI better. If I long press the screen I can use voice to ask Claude to create playlist, play a song/album/artist, etc. In the attached photo I asked it to create a playlist of artists playing this weekend at Outside Lands.

Thanks for responding. I just enabled the extension and now both Roon and LMS are working properly.

Please reiterate the link to your repo so that I can try it out.

 

[djn04]

Thanks for responding. I just enabled the extension and now both Roon and LMS are working properly.

Please reiterate the link to your repo so that I can try it out.

I just made this for myself as a pet project. I don't use any code from Muness's knob or server. I don't have a repo on Github for this.