Last night, almost as soon as I was in the door, I attached the new IDC sockets to the arduinome's ribbon cables.
I then set the arduinome up, connected to the laptop, and then started her up. Each and every single column lit up in succession, so I started the monome test, and this time every button and every LED worked perfectly.
The arduinome is complete, and working beautifully.
No problems whatsoever.

I now have to obtain an enclosure. This part is proving most difficult.
I know of three companies who produce arduinome enclosures:

• Curious Inventor; they provide acrylic cases bolted together (they appear far too bulky for me, and not very sleek)
• Machine Collective; they provide beautiful, acrylic and aluminium cases (but they dont seem to be producing anything more at the moment)
• Koolest; they provide slim aluminium cases (but seem to have sold out of their first production run)

Out of these three choices I would prefer to use the enclosure from Koolest, but will have to wait until production of the second run begins.
I really hope it's not a long wait.

I had the arduino up and running a couple days ago. I noticed a couple of minor glitches on first inspection.
Using the monome test on Max/MSP you can check that your buttons and LEDs are functioning properly. When pressing any button the entire column was being activated, and the LEDs were functioning similarly.
This was very easily rectified (resoldering the sockets of the microcontrollers fixed it).
And the only probelm left is now that two columns don't work at all, no button function and LED's don't light up.
I messed around with bits and pieces for hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I knew the LEDs were still working, as I'd managed to light them up on their own.
I knew the LEDs and diodes had been soldered in the correct way round as well. I believed there must either be a break in my ribbon cable or one of the microcontrollers wasn't working properly.
So I messed around for what felt like forever with the controller trying to diagnose the issue.
And then I stumbled on the real problem. It seems there was a problem with one of the IDC sockets attached to the pin headers. So I've had to buy more sockets and make sure I connect them all properly this time.
Here's hoping it fixes it completely.

A while back now, I purchased a half completed arduinome (arr-dwee-nome) in hopes of easily finishing the unit to
have it for live performances.
Just a couple days ago I began looking at it.
The unit wasn't in great condition to start.
An arduinome is basically made up of three pcb's;
the button board, the arduino, and the arduino sheild.
The button board should consist of 64 LEDs, 64 diodes, and wiring connecting the button board to the arduino sheild.
When it arrived the LEDs and diodes had already been soldered to the button board, and the wiring had been done, but it was very messy.
With me being such a neat freak, I decided to desolder the wiring entirely, and wire up via pin headers and ribbon cable instead.
Mmm...neat and tidy.
This obviously meant desoldering the wiring on the arduino sheild as well.
The sheild (also acting as the button controller) is obviusly a very important part of the unit.
It consists of three microcontrollers, four capacitors, a resistor, a resistor network and the wiring (which I desoldered).
The controllers were all in place, but had not been fitted fully, and the capacitors were all in place.
The resistor network had been incorrectly placed, and the resistor hadn't been soldered in at all. So I got to work on it.
I fitted two pin headers, replaced the resistor network (correctly) and added a resistor.
The arduino board comes fully set up.
So all that needs done now is to crimp the ribbon cable, purchase an enclosure, and then fit the boards into said enclosure.
Should have the unit working fully in the next few days, while I wait for the enclosure to be sent out.
I'll post some pictures after it is complete.
I'm very excited about it all.

I've recently started taking professional piano lessons, to improve my performance skills, and to improve my understanding of music theory and instrumentation.
All seems to be going quite well so far, and I'm actually rather enjoying it too.