before starting anything, please read through this guide and make sure you absolutely understand what you are going to do. if you have any doubts or questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

to get going you will need some basic tools and a free working space for a few hours. you will need: a soldering iron with some solder, phillips screwdriver, flush cutters and a utility knife. other tools that undoubtedly would come in handy, but you could get by without are: tweezers, solder wick for correcting any possible mistakes and a solder tip cleaner/tinner. also please always use eye protection.

now in your kit make sure that you have the following:

16 x common cathode rgb leds
16 x 1n4148 small diodes
1 x mcp23008 chip
1 x mcp23017 chip
1 x pcb board
1 x teensy 3.1
1 x straight breakaway headers
2 x 47 ohm resistors
2 x 4.7k ohm resistors
4 x 10k ohm resistors
4 x 0.1 uf ceramic capacitors
1 x 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
1 x tall mini switch button
1 x silicon button pad
2 x red/green illuminated push-button rotary encoders
4 x 10k ohm linear rotary potentiometers
2 x clear encoder caps
4 x potentiometer caps

to make it easier for you to work i would suggest you start from soldering the diodes and resistors.
warning respect polarity!!! each diode has a black ring on one side, as well as the silk screen on the pcb, make sure they align or else things might go horribly wrong. place all the diodes correctly, flip the board and solder them, make sure not to use too much solder, you want the connections as low profile as possible since the silicon button pad will sit on top.

use the flush cutters to clip off the excess leads.

place two 10k resistors (brown, black, orange) at the 10k slots above each encoder, the two 47 resistors (yellow, violet, black) to the left of teensy and the two 4.7k resistors (yellow, violet, red) to the right.

flip over, solder, clip :) great you are getting a hang of it!

then place and solder the four capacitors between the encoders.

now comes a little tricky part, you might consider this step for later once you are more used to soldering if its your first project. otherwise go ahead and solder the multiplexers as it's a little more convenient to do now since you don't have many components sticking out.

take one of the chips, and very very very delicately bend the leads slightly inward from both sides. i press them with much care against a flat surface (like my working table). now place carefully the chip through the holes in the pcb, it might be a bit tricky to get all the leads in the right holes, be patient. by all means respect orientation!!! make sure the notch on the chip if facing upwards, aligned to the notch sown on the pcb. if you place it in the other way around, nothing good is going to happen.

now do the same for the second chip, again with much care, bend the leads, align correctly and place the chip. now turn over your board and solder. i tend to solder a lead on each chip alternatively just to not over heat it too much. no need to clip anything here.

now time to solder the teensy controller. take the headers and place them through the slots either on teensy or the pcb. break them off at the correct length and do the same for the other side. now break off five of the remaining pins and place them in the remaining horizontal slot.

it's a easier to solder if you first place everything on the pcb with the teensy to hold the headers aligned in place. solder the pins on teensy first, then flip over and solder the pins to the pcb. take your pliers and clip off the excess leads.

then take the 3.5mm stereo jack and solder it on top of the pcb.

next are the rgb led's. respect polarity!!! each of the led's has one lead longer, that is the common cathode lead, also one of the sides of the led is flat. make sure that the longer lead and the flat side are facing to the right (also notice the silk screen on the pcb). guess what happens if you solder them the other way around!

also make sure you push them all the way in so they don't get in the way when you pressed down the button. i tend to place the top and bottom row first, solder and clip them and then do the inner rows to keep the leads out of the way.

now to make sure our progress has been going well you might want to plug in the device, you should see the led's light up in many pretty colors. if it does, you may pat yourself on the back and go for a break. other wise start panicking, don't solder anything else but carefully go through all the steps again and make sure everything is correct and you don't have any shorts, also check that your usb cable is plugged in and check your computer's usb and sound devices to see if it shows up in there.

noticed that the push button is not completely square? make sure to solder it in correctly (leads facing to the sides) or it wont work.

finally you can solder the encoders and potentiometers. those should be pretty straight forward. also solder in at least one big lugs just to make sure that they don't twist around if you turn em too hard. 

plug in again. see the lights? now the encoders should also light up too! try pressing the shift button to see if other things light up. also try placing the silicone pad and pressing some pads while holding down the shift button. does it light up different pads? great we're almost done :) now before we put everything together, head over to the stuff->firmware page and check if there are any updates.

for the old enclosure style you will need: 

1 x 1mm aluminium face plate
1 x 1mm aluminium back plate
6 x aluminium 3/8" stand offs
6 x short 1/4" screws
6 x long 1/2" screws
1 x 4mm button pad spacer
4 x silicone bumpers

take the back plate and pass the short screws through the holes, take the stand offs and screw them on the other side of the board. now take the silicon bumpers and stick them on the edges of the back side.

take the pcb and place it on the stand offs, make sure the screw holes are correctly aligned as shown below. don't forget to also place the rubber pad and the foam board spacer.

then take the top plate and place it over the board. take one of the longer screws, make sure it passes through the top plate, the pcb and goes into the stand off, secure that in. now take a second long screw and do the same at the opposite end of the board to keep the plates from moving around. repeat for the rest of the screws and finally you can put the knobs on the potentiometers and encoders.

 

for the new enclosure style you will need:

1 x 5.5mm back panel
2 x 5.5mm side panels
1 x 1mm bent steel top panel
4 x long 3/4" screws
4 x aluminium 3/8" stand offs
4 x short 1/4" screws
6 x long 1/2" screws
20 x bolt nuts
1 x 4mm button pad spacer
4 x silicone bumpers

take the varnished wooden laser cut base panel with glued sides, and place a 1/2" screw through four left most holes, and secure them with a bolt on the other side, repeat the same with the two right most holes. take the 4 very long screws and place them in the remaining 4 holes and secure them with a bolt. take a second bolt and add it to the outer most screws, then add the stand offs on them.

after that take the pcb and place it on the 6 screws. place the button pad and the button pad spacer on top of it. secure the pcb in place with bolts. finally take the steel panel and cover the case, secure it in place with the 4 small screws. flip over, stick the silicone bumpers and add the knobs.

congratulations! this is the moment we've been waiting for, you now have built your digital warrior! :)