Last Wednesday 29 December 2004 21:30, Peter Brinkmann was like: > Ivan, > > > so im eager to CONTROL jack-rack effects with my hands > > !!! i cant imagine how that would be, FX utopia... > > I know what you mean. Matthias Nagorni's ALSA Modular Synthesizer > made me realize how nice it is to be able to control parameters in > a hands-on fashion. It occurred to me that it would be really neat > to be able to control all sorts of software with the buttons, dials, > and sliders on my MIDI keyboard, even if the software isn't actually > designed to accept MIDI input. So, I went ahead and built a little > tool that maps MIDI events to X events. You can find it at > http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~brinkman/software/pyseq.tgz > if you're interested. > > Some features: > - You can record sequences of mouse and keyboard events and > assign them to buttons on the MIDI keyboard. > - Sliders and dials on the keyboard can be mapped to a number > of different mouse dragging events, so that one can control > parameters of soft synths and effects and such from the MIDI > keyboard, even if the software doesn't expect MIDI input. > - Basic support for receiving and sending bulk data from > keyboards. > - A simple game of Pong, controlled by MIDI events. Not > terribly useful or fancy, but it illustrates the general > idea of creative misuse of MIDI events. > Here's a simple application that I actually found useful: > - I mapped three buttons on my keyboard to Play, Stop, and > Record in rosegarden. > - I mapped a number of buttons to mouse clicks on differents > tracks in rosegarden, followed by the Delete key, so that > pushing a button on the keyboard would activate and clear > a track. > With this simple setup, I was able to record a piece consisting > of several tracks straight from the MIDI keyboard, without touching > the mouse or console at all. > > Some requirements: > - The package uses Python, Tkinter, and ctypes. > > Some instructions: > - Unpack the tar archive with > tar xzf pyseq.tgz > and build the binaries with make. > If you wish to install the package system-wide, you can say > make install > - In order to use the MIDI mapping features, just say > python midimap.py > in a shell window and connect the MIDI In port of midimap.py > to the source of MIDI controller events (using the connection > window of qjackctl, for instance). Then, if you move a slider > or push a button, a dialog will pop up that'll let you choose > how to handle such events. > > Some warnings: > - The software is brand-new (I added the most recent features on > Sunday night), and it's hardly documented yet. However, the main > part, midimap.py, comes with a graphical user interface that is > supposed to be self-explanatory. If there's sufficient interest, > I'll sit down and document everything properly. > - So far, I've only tested the package under DeMuDi 1.2, with > an Edirol PCR-30 keyboard. Your mileage may vary. > > I'd be eager to hear any comments/criticism/etc. regarding this tool. > Best, > Peter It sounds like a great idea. I have downloaded and will play with this later. I'm also using DeMuDi, so I guess it should work. I'll let you know how I get on. cheers tim hall http://glastonburymusic.org.uk
