K, so heres the general idea of what I want. I want to make it so that I can send a midi signal (Or 2 actually) from an electric signal coming from a device. In other words, when I actuate the 'button', the wire carries electricity, and then I want a midi signal to go into the computer that I can map with midi capable programs (ableton, etc)
I think the part i'm having a hard time understanding how to do this is without an actual "Button" persay, that when unclicked the wires are not connected, and when its pushed it makes the connection, which tiggers the reaction. Forgive the horrible description of this, i'm really not too into this stuff, I just know that what i'm trying to do isn't too hard for most people to figure out, but i'd like some help...
Please respond here, or PM me if you think you know what i'm talking about, or can help me.....
I'm not sure i understand your question fully. So let's see.
You have a device that somehow sends out "a electric signal" this signal you want to convert to MIDI data and send to a computer.
If this is right, the first thing to find out is the nature of the electric signal coming from the device.
Is it a voltage ? is it constant ? is it a waveform ? or maybe a pluse train ?
Which changes in the signal do you want to map to changing MIDI which parametres ?
Reading a voltage, and interpretating it and sending out MIDI data is all something you can do with Arduino. You just have to know something aboyt the signal you are trying to "read"
Ok, well the 'signal' is really just like a "blip" coming from a port thats in the form of a headphone jack...
In other words, when you press the button on this device, the headphone jack 'port' makes a blip noise, that is sopposed to activate something(I guess) When I put a pair of normal headphones to it and listen, it makes like 2 conecutive poping noises. How would I measure what the voltage is or whatever?
you can use an ordinary cheap meter to meassure the voltage across the two terminals in the headphone jack. If it's only "on" for a very short time it can be hard to get a good reading.
I would say that it is very likely that this signal could be read with one of the Analog pins on an Arduino board.
If the voltage is over 5V it will have to be scaled down, but thats not too difficult.
Are you using the headphones normally? You might have a problem with false triggering unless you can figure out exactly what that button-press signal looks like.
I'd suggest -- a little elaborate, perhaps -- but connect that headphone jack to the Audio In on your computer, and record an audio file. Then you can look to see if it is a simple rising edge, or a short tone, or even a complex tone burst.
(Alternatively -- hack open the box and add your own wires to the button. But I suppose that is not an option to you?)